Maximilian Kiener: Consent and Third-Party Coercion

On 4 February 2021 at 17:00 (UK time), Maximilian Kiener will present his paper 'Consent and Third-Party Coercion'.

Abstract

This paper focuses on cases of consent and third-party coercion, i.e. cases in which a person consents to another person performing a certain act because a third party coerced her into doing so. I argue that, in these cases, the validity of consent depends on the behaviour of the recipient of consent rather than the third party’s coercion taken separately, and I will specify the conditions under which consent is invalid. My view, which is a novel version of what I call the Recipient-Focus-View, holds that coercion invalidates consent only if consent was ‘obtained by’ coercion, but not if consent was ‘merely motivated by’ coercion. I further explain and support this view on the basis that it best reconciles an unnoticed tension between two fundamental principles in the debate on consent, which I call the Coercion Principle and the Permissibility Principle.

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