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For a Negative, Normative Model of Consent, With a Comment on Preference-Skepticism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2009

Donald Dripps
Donald Dripps
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

Let me begin by admitting that I am wary of any comprehensive definition of consent. This bias stems from my professional concentration on criminal law, in which nouons of freedom and responsibility play vital roles in a wide range of contexts. In each context, however, one discovers that freedom means something different. A voluntary act is any bodily movement not caused by external force or nervous disorder. On the other hand, a voluntary act, however horrific its results, ordinarily may be punished only if the actor was subjectively aware that the act was wrong. In any event, a voluntary act may be excused as the product of duress if another person procures the actor's cooperation in the crime by an illegal threat that would overcome the resistance of a person of ordinary firmness.

Type
Articles
Information
Legal Theory , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 113 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1. See, e.g., LaFave, W. and Scott, A.. 1 Substantive Criminal Law § 3.2 (1986).Google Scholar

2. See, e.g., id. § 3.4

3. See id. § 5.3.

4. See Dripps, D., Beyond Rape: An Essay on the Difference Between the Presence of Force and the Absence of Consent, 92 Colum. L. Rev. 1780 (1992).Google Scholar

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15. In adopting a normative perspective on consent, I follow Wertheimer, A., Coercion (1987).Google Scholar

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