Patient autonomy is a key concept in medical ethics. This is less about the characterization of a general asset than about a guarantee for situational decision-making autonomy (Beauchamp/Childress 2009): Patients have the right to consent to or refuse medical treatment after they have been properly informed. The concept of patient autonomy is therefore based on the informed consent of the persons concerned. Informed consent is given when the patient's decision is made intentionally, with understanding and free from the controlling influence of others. 

This procedural concept of autonomy, which is defined content-neutral through the process of decision making, is now considered a standard concept in medical ethics. Since the concept of medical ethics is constantly interacting with more general philosophical notions of autonomy, suggestions to understand patient autonomy differently are discussed time and again. Representatives of substantial autonomy concepts perceive the need to define self-determined decisions also in terms of content and value-related criteria. Representatives of relational concepts of autonomy regard relations of mutual recognition as constitutive for autonomous decisions. As the various conceptions of autonomy are always based on a certain ideal of an autonomous subject, the objection that autonomy is too overwhelming is often raised. It is therefore argued that the requirements for patient autonomy for clinical practice must be kept as undemanding as possible so that they can be fulfilled for as many patients as possible.