Dark Desires and Consent: A Response to Morgan

Abstract

In the paper Dark Desires, Seiriol Morgan aims to argue against the claim that universal participant consent is sufficient for the moral permissibility of a sexual act which is largely accepted in contemporary western philosophy. This article examines Morgan's argument against such a claim and improves Morgan's two illustrative cases to better support his claim. It starts by clarifying the meanings of the terms "moral permissibility", "dark desires", and "consent" to make Morgan's argument easier to tackle with. Then, the strong and weak versions of Morgan's claim will be distinguished, and their plausibility will be examined. Finally, it concludes that (i) only the weak version succeeds, and (ii) Morgan succeeds in showing consent to be insufficient for the moral permissibility of any sexual act.