The discussion notes that therapeutic jurisprudence provides a conceptual framework for a research agenda designed to promote the development of legal rules, procedures, and roles in a manner consistent with the therapeutic mission of the mental health system. Thus, it notes the tension between the value of autonomy and well- being. It concludes that a patient-centered approach to health care and the legal right to informed consent suggest that some legal and ethical institutions endorse the priority for autonomy as a fundamental value underlying the law and ethics of health care. This priority for sovereignty rejects paternalistic intervention intended to promote the competent patient's well-being. However, when incompetence justifies paternalistic intervention to protect the incompetent patient's well-being, this reasoning does not demand a priority for promoting autonomous capacities and virtues over other aspects of well-being. Footnotes (Author abstract modified)