Join us for the 2025 John Passmore Lecture by Professor Niko Kolodny on Two Concepts of Consent. Niko will explore how consent transforms moral duties and what conditions give it normative force. A compelling discussion on ethics, autonomy, and the power of permission.

Abstract

In his exploration of consent, Niko Kolodny distinguishes between two distinct functions it can serve. He argues that when an individual consents to another person’s action (e.g., consenting to surgery), this consent can remove the actor’s negative duty not to perform the act. Conversely, consenting to someone not acting (such as not providing aid) removes their positive duty to act.

Kolodny argues that consent operates in two distinct ways. First, what he terms "vacating consent" eliminates the duty not to act by altering the circumstances so that the act no longer harms the interest that initially justified the duty. Second, "non-vacating consent" also removes the duty not to act, but it does so without changing the underlying interest being set back; rather, the consent itself authorises the setback.

These two mechanisms of consent imply two different understandings of what consent actually is. They also offer a framework for identifying the necessary conditions under which consent exerts its transformative moral effects.

Niko Kolodny is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.  He is the author of The Pecking Order: Social Hierarchy as a Philosophical Problem, as well as several papers in moral and political philosophy.  At ANU RSSS, he was a Harsanyi Fellow in 2013 and a Research Associate in 2004.

The Passmore Lecture series at the ANU School of Philosophy honours the legacy of Professor John Passmore, a pioneering thinker whose work shaped modern philosophy in Australia and beyond. Held annually since 2000, the series invites distinguished philosophers to explore enduring questions in thought, reflecting Passmore’s spirit of intellectual boldness, critical clarity, and historical depth.