ABSTRACT
In his paper, Andreas Suchanek has outlined several uses of the normative notion of consent. His main contention, as I understand him, is that there are basically two notions of consent, a justificatory one and an economic one. The first resembles in various respects the well-known conception of consensus put forward especially by German philosophers of discourse theory like Habermas and Ape!. The second is inspired by ideas from institutional economics. Suchanek holds that the economic notion is better suited for several purposes because of its self-enforcing character. This does not mean, though, that the justificatory notion is unimportant or wrongheaded; it just has to be complemented by an economically sustained conception of rationality.
