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Voluntary consent: why a value-neutral concept won't work
1Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. Wertheimera@cc.nih.gov
Abstract:
Some maintain that voluntariness is a value-neutral concept. On that view, someone acts involuntarily if subject to a controlling influence or has no acceptable alternatives. I argue that a value-neutral conception of voluntariness cannot explain when and why consent is invalid and that we need a moralized account of voluntariness. On that view, most concerns about the voluntariness of consent to participate in research are not well founded.
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