This two-part workshop gathers scholars working on consent to discuss their recent work. It is organised by Karamvir Chadha (Durham) and Maximilian Kiener (Oxford, Roots of Responsibility).

The event will begin at 16.30 (UK time) on Wednesday 3 March 2021.

This workshop is sponsored by the Roots of Responsibility ERC project, to which Maximilian Kiener belongs as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow.

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Schedule

*All times in UK time

Wednesday 3 March 2021

16.30. Mollie Gerver (Essex) - Normatively Empowering the Disadvantaged

18.00. Karamvir Chadha (Durham) - Infants, the Comatose, and the Dead: Consent and the Will Theory of Rights

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This is a read-in-advance workshop. Registered participants are expected to have read the draft papers of the talks, which will be circulated on Monday 22 February.

The abstracts for the papers are given below.

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Format/Registration

We encourage colleagues and especially postgraduate students to attend. Please spread the word. All are welcome, but registration is essential. The link to the Zoom meeting location will be emailed to the registered participants.

As the registration is free, not everyone who registers comes to the event. To make sure we have a full house, we may allocate more tickets than there are places. Please note, therefore, that registering does not guarantee you a place; the Zoom meeting location will be open throughout the workshop, and the registered participants will be admitted to individual sessions on a first-come-first-served basis.

Enquiries about the workshop can be submitted via the message form on the Roots of Responsibility website.

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Abstracts

Mollie Gerver (Essex) - Normatively Empowering the Disadvantaged

Abstract. Many accept that the Optionality Thesis: if X wrongly denies Y options, and Y consents to X φ-ing solely as a result of this denial, Y’s consent is invalid. For example, if Adam denies Bea resources which he ought to give to her for free, and she consents to marry him only to obtain these resources, her consent to marry him is invalid. More specifically, her consent has failed to dissolve Adam’s duty to not marry her. This seems to imply that those facing wrongly constrained options are less able to dissolve others’ duties. If Bea chooses to marry Adam only to obtain resources she is owed, but wishes to dissolve Adam’s duty to not marry her, the Optionality Thesis implies she is unable to do so. In this article, I demonstrate why the Optionality Thesis does not have this implication. In doing so, I demonstrate why those with constrained options are no less empowered to control the duties they are owed.

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Karamvir Chadha (Durham) - Infants, the Comatose, and the Dead: Consent and the Will Theory of Rights

Abstract. In the debate between the Will Theory of Rights and its rivals, a key objection to the Will Theory concerns the possibility of its extensional adequacy. If the Will Theory is correct, so goes the objection, then it is impossible for infants, the unconscious, and the dead to have moral and legal rights. I argue that the Will Theory can avoid this objection. I formulate the Contemporary Will Theory of Rights—a Hartian theory of the function of moral and legal rights. I argue that if it is possible for someone to give valid prior consent to actions that occur while they are unconscious or after they die, then according to the Contemporary Will Theory, it is possible for them to have moral and legal rights. Moreover, I argue that if it is possible for adults to give valid subsequent consent to actions that occurred when they were children, then according to the Contemporary Will Theory, it is possible for them to have moral and legal rights. Since the notion of valid subsequent consent is more contentious than that of prior consent, children provide, in MacCormick’s words, a ‘test-case’ for the Will Theory—though not in the way that MacCormick envisaged.

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[Header image: Harriet Goodhue Hosmer, ‘Clasped Hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’ (1853, cast after 1853; bronze). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image in the Public Domain (CC0 1.0)]