Everyone's got something they just can't give up: a challenge to Feinberg's adherence to the Volenti maxim Public Deposited
- Last Modified
- March 20, 2019
- Creator
-
Kling, Jennifer
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Philosophy
- Abstract
- In this paper, I challenge Joel Feinberg's in-principle unconditional adherence to the Volenti maxim, which states, roughly, that to he who consents, no wrong is done. Given the resources available in his theory of when a community can legitimately use the criminal law to prohibit actions, it seems that Feinberg need not hold that a person's consent always nullifies the wrong done to her. Through the lens of a particularly troubling case, I attempt to demonstrate that Feinberg can and should accept, given his prioritization of the doctrine of sovereign self-rule, that there are limits to consent's ability to nullify wrongdoing. I conclude by showing that accepting limitations on the Volenti maxim is not only consistent with Feinberg's theory, but actually enables his theory to consider a range of problematic cases in a fresh light.
- Date of publication
- August 2011
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Philosophy."
- Advisor
- Postema, Gerald J.
- Language
- Publisher
- Place of publication
- Chapel Hill, NC
- Access
- Open access