Rethinking consensual harm doing

My aim in this paper is to examine the moral limitations of consent as a defence to criminal wrongdoing. Positive morality alone is not sufficient for the purposes of rejecting consent as a defence, because consent provides an objective (critical moral) reason for excusing wrongful harm doing to others. However, the consent defence can be overridden by other critical moral considerations of greater importance. In this paper, it is argued that consent does not excuse inflicting irreparable harm of an extraordinary grave kind on others. Nor does it excuse serious reparable harm doing to others. This paper examines whether R. v. Brown [1993] 1 A.C. 212. (where the majority rejected consent as a defence to assault involving serious harm) and R. v. Konzani (where the majority asserted that fully informed consent would have provided the HIV transmitter with a defence) are reconcilable with critical morality