Consent: Its Nature and Normative Relevance

Consent can make the difference between visiting someone’s home and trespassing, between battery and surgery, and between rape and sex. A conference on 21–23 June 2017 will deal with some fundamental questions about consent.

The conference takes place at the Freiherr-von-Vincke-Haus. Participation is free, however, registration is required due to limited capacity. Please fill in our registration form and send it to our office at casb@wwu.de by 14 June 2017 latest.

"Consent: Its Nature and Normative Relevance"

By consenting to an agent’s action, we often seem to change its moral status, turning an action that is morally wrong into a permissible
one. Consent can, for instance, make the difference between visiting someone’s home and trespassing, between battery and surgery, and between rape and sex. Because of its relevance in cases like the ones just mentioned, consent plays an important role in, e.g., medical ethics and the philosophy of (criminal) law.

While it is uncontroversial that consent often does make a difference to the moral status of an action, this phenomenon also gives rise to a number of questions, such as: What exactly is consent? How does it affect the moral status of an action and the rights and obligations of the people involved in it? Why is consent morally relevant at all? What are the criteria for a person’s consent to be valid? The aim of this conference is to provide an occasion for discussing
these and other fundamental questions about consent.

Programme