Consent, uptake, and wronging

Healey, Richard ORCID: 0000-0001-5568-2086 (2025) Consent, uptake, and wronging. Journal of Moral Philosophy. ISSN 1740-4681 (In Press)

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Abstract

The power of consent enables one person to give another person a moral permission by releasing them from a duty. The examples of consent to sex, surgery, and the sharing of property are familiar. This article considers whether consent requires uptake from the consent-receiver if they are to acquire this moral permission. Most philosophers writing about the ethics of consent suggest that uptake is not necessary. This article argues, by contrast, that we should endorse an uptake condition for consent-based permissions. It does so by locating an uptake condition within a general account of wronging and its interpersonal significance. On the view defended, consent-sensitive duties should be interpreted as requiring a consent-receiver to treat consent as a deliberative constraint on action. On this view, if a consent-receiver acts without recognizing that consent has been given, they violate the consent-sensitive duty they owe to the consent-giver.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	CPNSS
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
Date Deposited:	20 Aug 2025 16:03
Last Modified:	20 Aug 2025 16:51
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/129179

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