The Ethics of Communicating Consent

同意可以区分性与强奸，医疗手术与殴打。然而，这条界限可能会变得模糊。我们可以通过行动来传达性同意吗？如果是，哪些行为可以传达同意？我们必须分享哪些文化信仰来管理这一点？这对强奸法或性教育政策的设计意味着什么？如果医生合理地解释病人没有用她所用的语言表达自己，那么医生必须多严格地遵循病人所说的话？这对规范知情同意的卫生政策意味着什么？这些都是我的研究将解决的实际问题的例子。大多数研究人员现在同意必须以某种形式传达。这意味着我们现在必须回答关于沟通同意的伦理问题。我会问我们必须从字面上解释某人的同意，以及我们可以从某人所说的话中读出多少。我想问的是，是否有可能含蓄地表达同意，如果有，我们如何做到这一点。我将研究同意对话发生的背景的伦理重要性。我会问我们的理解如何影响我们表达同意的能力。我将不仅研究这些问题的语言方面，而且探讨所涉及的伦理考虑。我将利用我的研究结果得出政策结论。对这些问题的研究是重要的。在自由民主国家，我们需要理解同意的伦理，因为我们同意我们每个人都应该控制自己的身体。这使得我的研究对于制定医疗同意的医疗保健政策，管理人类受试者的研究政策，强奸法和性教育政策非常重要。这也是进行这项研究的好时机。最近的一份政府报告发现，英国青少年经常对性同意感到困惑。与此同时，目前国际上正在讨论如何在大学规则中定义性同意。这一挑战也面临着在英国越来越受欢迎的本科生同意研讨会。在医疗方面，根据2015年英国最高法院的一项裁决，知情同意程序正在不断变化。我将通过利用尖端的沟通理论来解决这些问题。这将涉及到道德哲学之外的东西，并与语言哲学和语言学建立新的联系。但是，仅仅从语言学的角度来看交流是不够的。我们还需要了解它的道德层面。所以我也将评估各种同意的道德规则。其他研究人员已经使用了这样的方法来理解其他形式的言论的道德规范，比如仇恨言论。但没有人充分探索这种同意的方法。因此，我的研究将开辟新的领域。通过回答这些问题，我的研究将导致第一次详细说明沟通同意的伦理。这将意味着我们更好地理解我们如何相互沟通同意，以及这种沟通的伦理意义是什么。这是我们可以在日常生活中使用的知识，也是可以帮助我们的社会制定最佳政策的知识。

Consent can mark a line to separate sex from rape, and medical surgery from battery. Yet this line risks becoming blurred. Can we communicate sexual consent through actions? If so, which actions can communicate consent? Which cultural beliefs must we share to manage this? What does this imply for the design of rape law or sexual education policy? How closely must a physician follow the letter of what a patient says, if the physician reasonably interprets the patient as failing to express herself with the words she uses? What does this imply for health policy regulating informed consent?These are examples of the practical questions that my research will address. Most researchers now agree that consent has to be communicated in one form or another. This means we now have to answer ethical questions about communicating consent. I will ask how literally we must interpret someone's consent, and how much we can read between the lines of what someone says. I will ask whether it is possible to implicitly communicate consent, and if so, how we do so. I will investigate the ethical importance for consent of the context in which a conversation takes place. I will ask how our understanding influences our ability to communicate consent. I will not just examine the linguistic side of these issues, but also explore the ethical considerations involved. I will use the results of my research to draw conclusions for policy.Research into these questions is important. In liberal democracies we need to understand the ethics of consent, because we agree that each of us should control what happens to his or her body. This makes my research important for framing healthcare policy governing medical consent, research policy governing human subjects, rape law and sexual education policy. This is also a good time to conduct this research. A recent government report found that English teenagers are often confused about sexual consent. Meanwhile, there is currently an international debate about how to define sexual consent in universities' rules. This challenge also faces the undergraduate consent workshops that are increasingly popular in the UK. On the medical side of things, informed consent procedures are in flux in light of a 2015 UK Supreme Court ruling.I will address these questions partly by making use of cutting-edge theories of communication. This will involve looking outside of moral philosophy and drawing new connections with the philosophy of language and linguistics. But it is not enough just to look at the linguistic side of communication. We also need to understand its ethical dimension. So I will also evaluate various ethical rules for consent. Other researchers have used an approach like this to understand the ethics of other forms of speech, like hate speech. But no one has fully explored this approach for consent. So my research will break new ground.By answering these questions, my research will lead to the very first detailed account of the ethics of communicating consent. It will mean we understand much better how we communicate consent to each other, and what the ethical significance of this communication is. This is knowledge that we can use in our everyday lives, and also knowledge that can help our society create the best policies.