Law Commons^™

Consent And Coercion, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan

All Faculty Scholarship

There are substantial disputes as to what sorts of behavior constitute coercion and thereby undermine consent. This disagreement was on full display during the public fray over Aziz Ansari’s behavior on a date. Whereas some commentators condemned Ansari’s behavior as nothing short of sexual assault, others believed his behavior did not rise to the level of undermining consent.

This Article claims that the way forward is to see that there are two normative functions for coercion, and each is at play with respect to consent. Sometimes coercion is about the blameworthiness of the coercer, and sometimes coercion is about the …

Identity And Social Bonds, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

I first argue that there is no problem about how to justify partialities (though there is a difficulty in justifying impartialities). Then I consider the role of consent in justifying rights and duties, using voluntary associations as a case in which consent has an important but limited role in doing so, a role determined and circumscribed by evaluative considerations. The values explain why consent can bind and bind one to act as one does not wish to do and even as one judges to be ill advised. That opens the way to an explanation of how value considerations relate to …