CSU Philosophy seminar, Wagga Wagga, 15 March
Cohen, Daniel
Wednesday, 15 March 2017
CSU, Wagga Wagga (Building 29, Room 217)
Hallie Liberto (University of Connecticut)
"Coercion, Consent, and the Moral Debilitation"
ABSTRACT: In this paper I examine the most prevalent explanation for why coercion ever undermines consent, an explanation that I call: moral debilitation. Moral debilitation is the view that a manipulative strategy can actually disempower an agent or her speech act from changing the existing moral circumstances – from having the power to grant permission, or dissolve an obligation. Moral debilitation is thought to occur with respect to utterances that would otherwise constitute morally valid promises or consent – though I will here focus primarily on consent. First, I distinguish two questions that philosophers try to answer when determining how coercion undermines consent. (A) What kind of coercive threat undermines consent? (B) By what mechanism does a threat undermine consent? I will explain that the answer to (A) relies heavily on the answer to (B) – the popular and plausible versions of which involve some form of moral debilitation. Second, I will argue that the mechanism of moral debilitation cannot operate alongside a plausible answer to (A). Third, I will propose an alternate account of the relationship between coercion and consent – one that investigates the implicit content of speech acts.
The seminar will also be accessible via video-conference at our Canberra Campus at Level 1, 10-12 Brisbane Avenue, Barton ACT (take the lift to level 1 and ring the doorbell to your right).
For details about future seminars, please see: waggaphilosophy.com
Daniel Cohen
Associate Head of School
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Charles Sturt University
Boorooma St
Wagga Wagga, 2678
Australia
Tel: +61 2 6933 2565
Email: dco...@csu.edu.au
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