Elise Woodard: Mistreating Consent

Elise Woodard, is a Lecturer at King's College London, and will be presenting the fifth paper of Michaelmas Term: “Mistreating Consent”.

This seminar takes place in Massey Room, at Balliol College, University of Oxford (Broad St, Oxford OX1 3BJ) at 5:00pm on Thursday 14 November.

Abstract:

Consent plays an important role in our lives. Using someone’s body or property without their consent is typically a serious wrong. However, there are various ways in which consensual interactions may be morally deficient. This paper articulates an under-explored way in which consent can be defective, namely by being moot. Moot consent occurs when others would act regardless of our consent. (Imagine Audrey consents to have sex with Brice, but if she hadn’t consented, he would have had sex with her anyway.) These cases are disturbing, but it is difficult to explain why whilst preserving morally relevant distinctions among cases. On my view, moot consent is still valid consent, but the consent-receiver wrongs the agent by mistreating the consent. This is because the consent fails to play a proper role in the consent-receiver’s practical deliberation and reasons for action. Cases of moot consent underscore that we don’t just care about the presence of consent, but also about the role it plays in others’ reasoning

This event is open to anyone. No registration needed.

Pre-reading is desirable and strongly suggested, but not a requirement to attend.

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