| dc.description.abstract | Six people were interviewed about the possibility of becom ing posthumous body donors. Interview transcripts were
analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.
Individual-level analysis suggested a common interest in
Personhood Concerns and a common commitment to
Enlightenment Values. Investigations of these possible
themes across participants resulted in identification of two
sample-level themes, each with two subthemes: Autonomy,
with subthemes of agency and consent, and Rationality, with
subthemes of knowledge/epistemology and materialism/
ontology. This paper concentrates on the former. Consent
for posthumous body donation was felt to sometimes fall
short of adequately identifying donors’ preferences about
what happened after consent was given, even with respect
to actions for which consent established permission. In turn,
paucity of information about donors’ preferences limited
others’ ability to act as proxy agents to facilitate donors’
posthumous autonomy. Thus, while consent may curtail vio lations of people’s autonomy by authorizing actions for
which permission has been established, it may fall short of
facilitating their autonomy in ways that might be possible
with greater knowledge of those people’s desires. Alternative
methods of establishing consent are explored that might
better-determine people’s desires and thereby improve
others’ ability to act as proxy agents for them to facilitate
their subsequent (even posthumous) autonomy | vi |
