ABSTRACT. This article seeks to explain and explore the concept of bodily integrity. The concept is often elided with autonomy in the case law and the academic literature. It argues that bodily integrity is non-reducible to the principle of autonomy. Bodily integrity relates to the integration of the self and the rest of the objective world. A breach of it, therefore, is significantly different to inteference in decisions about your body. This explains why interference with bodily integrity requires justification beyond what will suffice for an interference with autonomy. It also explores how this understanding of bodily integrity assists in understanding disability, gender and separated bodily material.

This paper explores the distinction between being autonomous and having capacity for the purposes of the Mental Capacity Act. These include where a person misuses affective attitudes in making the decision; where a person's decision is not authentic to their values; and where the Mental Capacity Act prevents use of the context or outcome of the decision in assessing capacity. These gaps mean that a person can be found to have capacity, even though they are not properly autonomous. This, we argue, justifies the courts’ use of the inherent jurisdiction to protect vulnerable adults who, while having capacity are not able to act autonomously.

No abstract