The 2008 David J. Stoffer Lecture
Presented by
Vera Bergelson
Professor of Law and Robert E. Knowlton Scholar
Rutgers School of Law - Newark
"Autonomy, Dignity, And Consent to Harm"
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
- Listen to the entire audio recording below:Date: 01/29/2007 Length: 0:55:45:25
The audio clip can be downloaded here in MP3 format.
Audio: Program brochure and video recording in Windows Media Player format are also available.
Professor Bergelson holds a Ph.D. in philology from the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies in Moscow, Russia, and was a lecturer at Moscow State University, the Polish Cultural Center in Moscow, and the Literary Institute. She received her J.D. cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was on the Law Review and was named to the Order of the Coif. Before joining the Rutgers faculty in 2001, she was an associate with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York for six years. She teaches Criminal Law, Property, International Law, Property and Privacy, and the Moral Puzzles of Criminal Law.
Among Professor Bergelson’s recent publications are “The Right to Be Hurt: Testing the Boundaries of Consent,” in the George Washington Law Review (2007), and “Rights, Wrongs, and Comparative Justifications” in the Cardozo Law Review (2007). Her book VICTIMS, OFFENDERS, AND COMPARATIVE RESPONSIBILITY is due to be published by Stanford University Press in 2008. In addition, she is an author of a chapter for a collective work, THE ETHICS OF CONSENT: THEORY AND PRACTICE (Alan Wertheimer and Franklin G. Miller, eds.), to be published by Oxford University Press in 2008.
In this presentation, Professor Bergelson discussed one of the most controversial issues in criminal law and moral philosophy, namely, people’s right to consent to pain, injury or death. The issue has recently moved to the forefront of public, legislative, and academic debates in the United States and abroad due to several high-profile criminal trials and investigations that involved consenting victims in various contexts – from experimental medical treatment and mercy killing to sadomasochism and even cannibalism. This rule has been criticized for its arbitrary scope, outdated rationales, and potential for moralistic manipulation. Professor Bergelson’s scholarship is an attempt to develop a set of normative requirements for a new rule governing consensual physical harm and a general defense of consent.