CSU Philosophy seminar, Wagga Wagga, 15 March (Today)

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Cohen, Daniel

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Mar 14, 2017, 9:39:37 PM3/14/17

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Wednesday, 15 March 2017

CSU, Wagga Wagga. Building 29, Room 217, 4-6pm (Please note unusual time and location)

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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