Abstract

PARMIGIANI, Matías. “Permissive” Interests and the (Moral) Power of Consent. A Critique of David Owens. Isonomía [online]. 2020, n.53, pp.1-30.  Epub June 09, 2021. ISSN 1405-0218.

The aim of this paper is to criticize David Owens’ theory on the (moral) power of consent. According to this theory, the power of consent must be analyzed in terms of a distinctive normative interest, which would consist in permitting certain obligations to be breached, no matter what materially follows from that, like the transgression of some of our non-normative interests. Here I will argue that Owens’ theory would unfairly conflate two sets of considerations: a first set, relative to our general power to consent; and a second set, relative to the exercise of that power in certain particular occasions. In order to understand the first set, the theory can still be useful. Nonetheless, in order to understand the second one, the most reasonable step would be to appeal to the idea of personal reasons for action, an idea that does not seem to have received much attention in the established literature on consent.

Keywords : permissive interests; justification; consent; Owens; personal reasons.