Just some randomness on informed consent.
I’d give some sort of summary here if that were reasonable to do.
A choice is only good if it’s free. Free choice can only exist when informed.
If I manipulate the choices, then there is no freedom in the choosing. For example, democracy isn’t free if there is no freedom to choose who to elect, but only to vote on one of the provided candidates.
Informed consent is the notion that a person can give that consent based on information. However, nobody is capable of comprehending all forms of information.
Think about fundamental limitations that people have. Some people are simply not capable of comprehending some things. Sometimes this is extremely broad, as with the learning-disabled or the highly religious. I guess I should say the learning-disabled, or the learning-disabled-religious.
Sometimes this is more specific, as with specialty or niche information which require careful or long-term study. Things which are straightforward to intelligentsia would be beyond everyday people.
So how is it possible to have informed consent then? Well it basically isn’t. This is a pleasant concept that we use to make ourselves feel happy about getting another person to do something. “Explaining” something alleviates our moral obligation to take care of someone else when we’re having them do something.
What about children?
The idea with children is that they’re not capable of informed consent. They’re not really capable of choice, and they’re not capable of being informed. Their brain is literally physically under-developed. They’re plain old stupid. The parent is supposed to become informed and force their child into whatever action deemed appropriate.
There is a sort of special exception given to parents to treat their children differently than the way we (ought to) treat one another with respect to informed consent.
Parents claim a moral loophole. Parents “protect” their children for unfathomable reasons. They pretend like certain combinations of sounds are “bad”, they lie outright about extremely important things like culture and death, all while ignoring fundamental things which would help their child grow into a more intelligent adult. Basic things like playing with them and talking to and with them.
But it’s ok I’m sure.. there’s television. And commercials of course. Maybe they can go watch another broken-family Disney film “together” too.
Isn’t it a problem that parents force their children to do things which society would deem inappropriate to force an adult to do? Things like take up a religion.
It’s assumed that the parent is allowed to treat their child as though it were a short version of themselves, and that somehow if capable of being informed and capable of giving consent that there would be approval.
People wonder why children rebel. Maybe children are more capable of being informed than their parents realize? Maybe their rebellion is a rejection is to their lack of consent?
The problem is that parents don’t have the tools to communicate appropriately to their child, with respect to the varying levels of intelligence their child grows through.
It’s as though parents themselves are not informed..
So without becoming informed — that is, training — a parent cannot make informed consent for their child. There’s a moral problem with their parenting because their free choice is weak.
