Values and Disorder in Mental Capacity Law

This book draws on the disciplines of law, philosophy, and psychiatry to interrogate whether the Mental Capacity Act 2005 meets the challenges posed by mental disorder to decision-making. It is often assumed that to allow space for individuality, any test for capacity must focus only on decision-making processes and not on the substance of the values that underpin decisions. Auckland challenges this assumption, arguing that the current law serves merely as a façade, behind which judgements can be made about the nature of a person's values, free from proper scrutiny. This book provides an in-depth analysis of when and how a person's disordered values should be relevant to the determination of their capacity, offering novel suggestions for reforming the capacity test to better reflect the impact of disorder on decision-making. It also explores the implications of this analysis for people found to lack capacity, concluding that reforms to the best interest provisions are urgently needed. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

• Provides readers with an inter-disciplinary analysis of how mental disorder affects decision-making, and how this ought to be reflected in the law
• Demonstrates how a recognised theoretical problem with process-orientated accounts of decision-making capacity can manifest in 'real life' difficulties when applying the Mental Capacity in individual cases
• Explains how the law might be reformed to better reflect the impact of mental disorder on decision-making