Ethics at Noon is a weekly lecture series that draws professors from various departments to talk about the ethical components of their research. This week our speaker is Mark Kelman of the Stanford law school.
"In clear-cut, uncontroversial sexual assault cases, both deontologists and consequentialists can readily explain why the putative defendants' behavior is proscribed. What I explore though is some of the limits of theories that purport to rely on the protection of "autonomy" and those that purport to rely on "welfare maximization" in the context of three more difficult cases: those arguably involving "coercion" that occurs when the putative defendant has made what might be characterized as offers, "seductive offers" or non-right violating threats; those involving putative victims who are voluntarily intoxicated and have "impaired" judgment, but can readily manifest assent or non-assent; and those involving putative victims who are cognitively deficient, but able to understand both that they can accept or reject sexual propositions and understand the physical nature and physical risks of sex."