COMPETENCE AND PRACTICAL JUDGMENT

At least four different frameworks - psychiatric, cognitive, functiona l and decision-making - are used in the evaluation of competence, all of which remain more or less unrelated in the literature. In the first section of this paper we consider various meanings of ''competence,'' in order to arrive at a definition of the term relevant to the medica l and legal setting. Patient or client ''competence,'' we conclude, re fers to the practical abilities that individuals employ in pursuing th eir own autonomous goals in life. We then show how a systematic catego rization of these practical abilities - which we call a taxonomy of pr actical judgment - allows us to show when the traditional frameworks f or the evaluation of competence may or may not be useful in the evalua tion of a particular competence. In the final section we explore some of the normative considerations underlying the taxonomy. For instance, competence is not only related to intrinsic abilities but to resource s available in the community. Here we touch on questions related to th e fair distribution of community resources.