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If consent under third-party coercion is voluntary, we should rethink informed consent

medethics · 2025-12-25 · canonical JSON source

1 visible annotations · policy: published · automated confidence ≥ 75.00%

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Smith and Mackie’s feature article addresses the worry that vaccine mandates—for example, requiring employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine—constitute coercive threats that undermine the voluntariness of informed consent.1 Drawing on Maximilian Kiener’s interpersonal account of voluntary medical consent, they propose that informed consent can be voluntary despite being motivated by third-party coercion, provided that the consent-receiver does not personally coerce or wrong the consent-giver in any way. In most cases, those who administer and obtain informed consent for vaccines play no role in coercing or otherwise wronging consent-givers; thus, it seems consent to mandatory vaccination can be voluntary.