Principle of Consent and Use of Force.

Abstract

The paper elaborates the critique of the thesis that underlies ethics of nonviolence. It claims that all cases of using force contradict the principle of consent. This statement would be right if the sole criterion of moral permissibility was an actual consent on some treatment given in the moment of the action that affects somebody’s interest. If, on the contrary, hypothetical or reasonable hypothetical consent can also be deployed as the criterion, then the use of force can be morally justified at least in some cases. The author proposes arguments for the priority of reasonable hypothetical consent in moral evaluation of the most cases of the use of force. Within the framework of the contractualist normative theory emerging on this basis the absolutizationof the moral prohibition on the use of force turns out to be very vulnerable.