Abstract

The idea of deliberative democracy has attained increasing attention by philosophers, political and legal theorists over the last two decades. Proponents have supported different arguments for deliberation within the democratic theory and an argument from autonomy has been developed. Taking into consideration the interest in both democratic deliberation and autonomy in bioethics, I discuss two examples in reference to the relevant documents: The first deals with democratic deliberation and autonomy on the basis of Rawlsian procedural justice in ethical frameworks, regarding public health policy issues, such as in the cases of infectious diseases, obesity, alcohol and smoking, and the fluoridation of water. The second deals with democratic deliberation and respect for persons as basic ethical principles suggesting guidelines for emerging technologies in health, such as in the case of the whole genome sequencing. Finally, I introduce into the dialogue in bioethics the challenge of a deliberative model flown from a normatively founded principle of respect for autonomy persons.