The Normative Force of Consent in Moral, Political, and Legal Perspective

Abstract

Abstract The first chapter in Part 1 analyses the different normative contexts of debates about sexual content. Michelle Madden Dempsey describes her aim as ‘mapping the normative landscape’, and she demonstrates that it is important to distinguish carefully between moral, political, and legal debates. She argues that the moral perspective does not ask what to do about behaviour but aims at clarifying its moral quality. In contrast, the political perspective evaluates what responses might be justified, and the legal perspective asks if an act is an offence in positive criminal law or if this kind of act should be criminalized. Starting with this general outline, Dempsey shows that these distinctions are necessary to improve the understanding of discussions about rape, both from a descriptive perspective, which asks what rape is, and a prescriptive perspective, which demands certain responses.