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Consent Vs Formal Consent

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Is it better to scrutinize the idea of consent on the fact that consent should be partially given or that we should be required to give full consent for all that we do? I believe that consent, in all of its importance should not always be fully mandatory. O'neill however did not believe this. He felt that full consent should be given at all times, whether it be hypothetical or actual consent. Throughout this response essay I will be talking about the two different types of consent in which O'neill's perspective is founded and I will also be telling why it is dangerous to follow this reasoning and why I do not agree with this point of view. Consent is a key component to how we live our lives. It is something we use more frequently than we …show more content…

Actual consent is a form of consent that is spoken verbally or is known between both parties that consent has been given. In this model of consent, formal legal and informal consent coincide. Formal consent avoids confusion and is definitive. Some examples of this could be: an injury waiver for a ski trip, the person signing the document is giving consent that they will not be responsible for any injury incurred during the time designated within the document. Permission given for physicians to prescribe drugs or carry out medical procedures could also be an excellent example of formal …show more content…

This style may be used in the condition in which a person would consent if he or she were in the position of doing so. We would say it might be acceptable to perform an operation on an unresponsive person because they might have been inclined to consent if they were able to do so.
The argument that I have against hypothetical consent is that: who is to say what is rational and was is not rational. It can also override actual dissent, this can be very problematic in take for instance the example of the unconscious victim. The comatose person may be suffering from a terminal disease or may be towards the end of their life and do not have the funds to support a medical operation. Not having the operation may be what they actually want to do but by performing it the doctors would be going against the patient's actual consent. Although the perspective force of hypothetical consent is effective, some have argued that hypothetical consent is not real consent, and it cannot do any moral good.
In conclusion, I believe O'neill did an excellent job classifying the different types of consent. Hypothetical and Actual consent are applicable to almost everything in life, but the pitfalls that come along with any type of consent are too great to be

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