Research
My current research projects focus on consent, promising, and theories of rights.
Below are some of the projects I am currently working on. Please contact me for drafts, questions, or comments!
The Value of Uptake in Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (2024)
Arguments for what consent is often appeal to its functions. For instance, some argue that because consent functions to express the consent-giver’s autonomous control over her normative boundaries, consent must consist in a mental state. In this paper I argue that consent has an often overlooked function, and that its having this function has consequences for our views of what consent is. I argue that consent has a relationship-shaping function: acts of consent can alter and enable personal relationships. This function grounds an argument for the following claim: some acts of consent cannot be morally transformative unless there is uptake, or acceptance, or cooperation, on the recipient’s part. That is to say, at least some acts of consent need to be “cosigned” by both parties. This rules out what I call “unilateral” conceptions of consent, according to which consent can be given by the giver alone, and nobody else needs to enter the picture.
Wrongs without Rights?
There is a difference between doing something that is morally wrong, and wronging someone in particular. For example: Texting while driving is wrong, whereas injuring a pedestrian because you were texting while driving is a wrong against that particular pedestrian. It has been common to assume that wrongs just are violations of the victim’s rights, but recent arguments suggest otherwise: there are also wrongs without rights violations. If this is so, then what is it to wrong someone? In this paper I propose one answer to this question by identifying two relations of moral accountability that are present wherever wrongs occur. I suggest that to wrong someone just is to be liable for repairing one’s actions to someone—the victim of one’s wrong—whose will has a distinctive role in determining what one ought to do by way of moral repair.
Are There Any Imperfect Rights?
Morality sometimes requires us to promote the good of others. Suppose you are hiking on a remote trail and come across a fellow hiker who has sprained their ankle. If you can help this person without unreasonable cost to yourself or to others, then you ought to do so. Morality does not merely recommend, but requires, that you act. It is common to think of our duty to promote the good of others—the duty of beneficence—as an imperfect duty. For friends of this common view, intuitions about cases like that of the hiker give rise to what is known as the problem of obligatory aid: the fact that helping is strictly required is in tension with the idea that we have latitude to choose whom, when, and how, we benefit. In this paper I pose, and propose a solution to, a further problem that arises from our intuitions about cases like that of the unfortunate hiker.
In a nutshell, the problem is this: if you failed to help the hiker when you ought to do so, then you would not just be guilty of doing something wrong; you would be guilty of wronging the hiker whom you failed to help. But imperfect duties are not standardly thought of as directed duties owed to e.g. potential beneficiaries, nor do they correlate with rights. So how is it possible to wrong a particular person by failing to do one’s imperfect duty? I propose that we can solve the problem by thinking carefully about what is necessary, in general, for it to be the case that one person stands to be wronged by another’s behaviour. In recent literature on wrongs and rights, a number of authors have argued that wrongs and rights can come apart. That is to say, there are grounds for directed wrongdoing that have nothing to do with possessing a right against the act that wrongs. I will propose one account of such grounds—an account of what it is to wrong someone—that accommodates and explains how failures of imperfect duty can give rise to wrongs against particular others.
Consent and Joint Decision
Consent is a normative power by which we can give other people permission to act in ways that would otherwise be off limits. There is ongoing philosophical debate surrounding what kinds of acts constitute consent, and why. With few exceptions, views in this literature identify consent as an act performed individually by the consent-giver. I argue that consent can also consist of a joint action performed by two or more parties: a joint decision made by two or more parties can constitute an exercise of consent. If, as I propose, joint decision can constitute consent, should say that to consent just is to make a joint decision of a certain kind? I will argue that such a view—a joint decision account of consent—can address two central theoretical challenges facing all theories of consent.
Revoking Consent
By giving consent, we can allow other people to act in ways that would otherwise be off limits to them: we can permit others to do acts that in the absence of consent would constitute trespass, or theft, or assault. In this paper I am interested in how such permissions can be taken back. When is it in our power to revoke a permission that we previously gave by exercising the power to consent? In the literature so far, authors have mostly focused on defending the idea that consent to certain kinds of acts—primarily, consent to sex—is always revokable by the consent-giver. I agree that this is the case; but to get a complete picture of the phenomenon, we should also consider whether, when, and why, it may not be in on our power to revoke prior consent.
Consider for example an act of consent that is part of a transfer of property rights. If A gives B a bicycle as a gift, then A thereby permits B to act in a variety of ways that would otherwise be off limits; e.g. A permits B to use the bicycle as they please. But A does not retain the power to revoke the permissions that B acquires when they accept the gift. Or, consider an act of consent that generates reliance or dependency in the consent-recipient. Suppose that A consents to B’s using A’s bicycle for some period of time, and B comes to rely on having the permission to do so. It seems that, unless A has a good reason for revoking their prior consent, A ought not to do so. And if A ought not to revoke the permission, is it nevertheless within A’s power to do so?
In both of these cases, it appears that there are constraints on the consent-giver’s power to revoke. In the first, the constraint on revoking is internal to the act of consent; in the second, the constraint is external to the act of consent. Internal constraints do not pose a special difficulty for theorists of consent, but they bring out the fact that revoking prior consent is not always so easy, as it is in e.g. cases of sexual consent. External constraints on the other hand raise an interesting question: how does the fact that consent ought not to be revoked bear on whether it can be revoked (that is, whether the consent-giver has power to revoke it)?
In this paper, I will argue that in order to understand the interaction between external constraints and the power to revoke prior consent, we need to carefully consider the perspective of the consent-recipient. I propose that external constraints limit the power to revoke only when, and because, revoking would not be interpersonally justifiable to the consent-recipient. This leaves intact the idea that e.g. in cases of sexual consent, consent can always be revoked; refusing sex is never not justifiable interpersonally. And it will, I hope, enrich our understanding of when, and why, it is in our power to take back prior consent.
Sexual Promises and Rights to Refuse
This paper poses a puzzle for promises regarding sexual contact. In a nutshell, the puzzle is that promises are standardly thought to make the promised action obligatory for the promisor; but an obligation to participate in sexual activity seems to be in conflict with a fixed point of common sense sexual ethics: it’s never wrong for a person to refuse to engage in sexual activity. If we can make promises to participate in sexual activities, what gives? I argue that the puzzle can be solved by taking a closer look at our right to refuse sexual contact. I argue that, given the function of this right, a promise to perform any action that is protected by it can be refused by the promisor without wrongdoing.