Consensual > Voluntary

For a long time I considered myself a voluntaryist (when I was deeply concerned with what label I wanted to use), but after some recent introspection, I started to realize that doesn't really mean a whole lot. What do I mean by that?

Voluntary is a poor ethical metric, one that is vastly less useful than consensual

Consent is defined as granting permission. According to Merriam-Webster, consent means:

• compliance in or approval of what is done or proposed by another; agreement as to action or opinion
• to give assent or approval

Speaking specifically to consent as it applies to the law, consent means "compliance in or approval of what is done or proposed by another; specifically : the voluntary agreement or acquiescence by a person of age or with requisite mental capacity who is not under duress or coercion and usually who has knowledge or understanding." Consent in terms of persons, like in sex, is literally you agreeing not to hold the party you're consenting to liable for trespass.

Voluntary, on the other hand, means acting of your own volition or free will. Again, according to Merriam-Webster voluntary is defined as:

• proceeding from the will or from one's own choice or consent
• unconstrained by interference : self-determining
• done by design or intention : intentional voluntary manslaughter
• of, relating to, subject to, or regulated by the will voluntary behavior
• having power of free choice
• provided or supported by voluntary action
• acting or done of one's own free will without valuable consideration or legal obligation

Now there are several variations on the definitions of both words, and no single definition is authoritative. Some definitions of voluntary include consent into their use of free will, where voluntary actions are by definition uncoerced. However, as this is not always the case, this leaves volunatry-ness open to interpretation and debate. The same is not true for consent. The only thing consent requires is approval. Withholding approval is synonymous with withholding consent.

Let's illustrate this with an example. A man rapes a woman at the point of a gun, and she doesn't fight off her attacker because of that threat. Under many definitions of voluntary, this would, of course, be unethical. But there is at least one definition in which neither party acted involuntarily. By contrast, there is no definition of consent in which this exchange was consensual.

In other words, all consensual actions must be voluntary, but not all voluntary actions are consensual.

^{Image courtesy of Pixabay.com}

Why does this matter, you might ask? Everyone knows what voluntary means, and that means done without coercion. Well, you'd think that, but I've literally had conversations that contradict this. Case in point, if one uses voluntary, paying taxes could be argued to be voluntary, as there is no literal force being applied to you that prevents you from not paying. You're free to withhold payment, even thought the consequences could be lethal. On a technical point, this isn't incorrect; since only you have exclusive control over your body, it can be argued that any conscious action you take is, in fact, a voluntary one. As pointed out in my example above, neither party acted involuntarily; they were both in control of their bodies and acted accordingly.

Ethics are moral standards; a set of rules regarding how to determine whether an act or thing is good or bad. Ultimately, ethics are the standards we use to determine whether a violation has occurred and a victim is present. They inform whether or not restitution must be made. As such, it is extremely important to have a solid ethical foundation. Without it, there is too much room for interpretation, leaving victims without recourse and robbing people of justice.

This is the advantage that consent has over voluntary. Compliance alone is not indicative of consent, and consent can be withheld even when a party takes voluntary action to comply to the demands of another party. Since ethics ultimately is a measure of good and bad, and informs what course of action to take, consent is a vastly more useful and precise ethic than whether or not an act is voluntary.

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Andrei Chira is an anarcho-capitalist, former 82nd Airborne paratrooper, vaper, and all-around cool guy. He's a father to one wonderful little girl named Kate, lives down in Alabama, and spends his time writing stories, posting to Steemit (not as much as he probably should), and cultivating the mental fortitude to make it through three years of law school.