Consent ain't anything: dissent, access and the conditions for consent

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Abstract

I argue against various versions of the 'attitude' view of consent and of the 'action' view of consent: I show that neither an attitude nor an action is either necessary or sufficient for consent. I then put forward a different view of consent based on the idea that, given a legitimate epistemic context, absence of dissent is sufficient for consent: what is crucial is having access to dissent. In the latter part of the paper I illustrate my view of consent by applying it to the case of consenting to being an organ donor.

Original languageEnglish
JournalMonash Bioethics Review
Volume34
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)3-22
Number of pages20
ISSN1321-2753
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2016

Keywords

  • Journal Article

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