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Showing posts from December 6, 2015

The limits of informed consent

In the liberal worldview, informed consent is seen as the cornerstone of all kinds of relationships, be it personal or professional. Often times, relationships operate under some form of a "power asymmetry" where one party dominates over the other in some matters. For instance, bosses can overrule their reportees, a higher court can upturn the decision of a lower court, and so on. Sometimes, power asymmetry crosses objective boundaries and tread into the personal lives and the individuality of the people involved. For instance, the military controls personal lives of its personnel to a large extent and agents in the movie industry often dictate to their clients when they can get married, and so on. Such cases often poses ethical dilemmas, which are often sought to be resolved using the "informed consent" axiom. Basically, it means that if someone willfully and knowingly enters into a relationship where they experience power asymmetry positioned against them,