Permissible secrets

Lazenby, H. and Gabriel, I. (2018) Permissible secrets. Philosophical Quarterly, 68(271), pp. 265-285. (doi: 10.1093/pq/pqx044)

Abstract

This article offers an account of the information condition on morally valid consent in the context of sexual relations. The account is grounded in rights. It holds that a person has a sufficient amount of information to give morally valid consent if, and only if, she has all the information to which she has a claim-right. A person has a claim-right to a piece of information if, and only if, a. it concerns a deal-breaker for her; b. it does not concern something that her partner has a strong interest in protecting from scrutiny, sufficient to generate a privilege-right; c.i. her partner is aware of the information to which her deal-breaker applies; or c.ii. her partner ought to be held responsible for the fact that he is not aware of the information to which her deal-breaker applies; and finally, d. she has not waived or forfeited her claim-right. Although we present this account in the context of sexual relations, we believe a virtue of the account is that it can be easily translated into other contexts.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Lazenby, Dr Hugh
• Authors: Lazenby, H., and Gabriel, I.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > Philosophy
• Journal Name: Philosophical Quarterly
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• ISSN: 0031-8094
• ISSN (Online): 1467-9213
• Published Online: 13 September 2017
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2017 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Philosophical Quarterly 2017
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher