The ontological status of consent and its implications for the law on rape

Legal Theory

Volumn 2, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 147-164

  Malm, H M ^a  

^a LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO   (United States)

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EID: 85012891611     PISSN: 13523252     EISSN: 14698048     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1352325200000446     Document Type: Article

References (5)

1. This discussion of tacit consent draws quite heavily from an account offered by A.J. Simmons in MORAL PRINCIPIXS AND POIJTICAI. OBIJGATION (1979), 76-81. The example involving the chairperson is also his. See alsoj. McGregor, Force, Consent, and the Reasonable Woman, in IN HARMS WAY. (J. Coleman and A. Buchanan, eds., 1994). 242-43.
2. For example, Donald Dripps adopts a normative conception of consent when he says that “consent is only the label we attach to causes of conduct deemed legitimate.” See D. Dripps, Beyond Rape: An Essay on the Difference Between the Prrsence of Force and the Absence of Consent, 92 COLUM. L. REV. 7 (1992): 1780-1809, esp. at 1787.
3. I am using the term “offers” to include coercive offers, coercive threats, and combinations thereof. See R. Nozick, Coercion, in PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, AND METHOD, Morganbesser, P. Suppes, and M. White, eds., 1969) at 449 for a discussion of combination offers, such as “Have sex with me and I won't beat you today,” said to someone who is routinely beaten. See also}. Feinberg, HARM TO SELF (1986) Chs. 23 and 24 (pp. 189-268) for a full discussion of the difference between coercive offers and coercive threats, exploitation, and the implication of these, for assessments of voluntary consent.
4. Washington and Wisconsin require affirmative signs of consent. See LA. Remick, Esecd Her Ups: Verbal Consent in Rape, U. PA. L. REV. 141:1103-51 at 1114.
5. SerS. Estrich, Rape in YAIJE L. J., 95, 1037-1184.