ABSTRACT
A principal reason why people are uncertain as to what consent means is that when consent is used in a legal sense, its meaning changes, depending upon what is being consented to and the consequences of non-consent. Another factor is that when consent is used in a legal sense, its meaning is contestable, depending upon the legal views of its users. In that respect, people are uncertain about consent in the way they are uncertain about ‘justice.’ But people are also uncertain about consent for an additional reason that does not apply to justice. Justice has the virtue, at least, of being conceptually transparent: it is, and is universally understood to be, a purely normative concept, a receptacle for what is right and good. Consent is conceptually more complex, being sometimes legal and sometimes factual in nature, and being sometimes solely a state of mind, sometimes solely an expressive act, and sometimes a fiction of one or the other.
