Abstract

In the broad field of practical philosophy there is a general tendency to assess individual consent as one of the main sources from which our actions become justified. However, when is it supposed to be invoked? The prevailing idea in the literature has it that unless an act exhibits some kind of moral wrongness, consent will not be required. The goal of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, it is to analyze the scope of this claim, weighing its different possible interpretations; and, on the other, to determine what implications follow from here when it comes to evaluate the relevance of consent in dealing with acts that are usually deemed “beneficial” or “altruistic”. My hypothesis is that the only way these acts may render consent desirable, or even required, is by the adoption of a moral perspective centered on the right to self-respect, an option that does not seem to be available in the dominant approaches to this topic.