Abstract
False beliefs may interfere with medical decision-making by casting doubt about the patient’s decision-making capacity. The latter is typically assessed against a set of established criteria requiring the patient’s cognitive aptness for self-governance. I argue that a capacity determination solely based on these criteria may prove insufficient when the patient entertains false beliefs. I further illustrate how alternative evaluation frameworks are better suited to assess the impact of false beliefs on the patient’s state of mind, values, overall worldviews and pursuit of wellbeing, and therefore, for the actual moral significance of false beliefs. It appears prudent to integrate these alternative evaluation approaches into the capacity determination in order to achieve a comprehensive assessment and safeguard the patient’s autonomy and protection under the beneficence and solidarity principles.
