Consent Cannot Be Priced
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: No finite charge on acts makes a cost-minimizing agent keep consent on every menu; only the consent clause itself does. A cost-minimizing agent keeps consent under a penalty only if the penalty outweighs what every taking would save. We prove that no finite penalty does this on every menu. A relation between two participants carries a multiplier x > 0 and costs J(x) = ½(x + 1/x) − 1, the cost that the composition law of comparisons forces at unit calibration. Each end keeps a book of the relation, written only by the events it emits, and a taking changes a relation by events that one end does not emit. The moral code permits, among the consensual acts on a menu, those of least real cost. Because J has no bound, every finite charge fixed by the act is beaten: for any taking some consensual act costs more than the taking does, charge included, and on the menu of the two the minimizer takes while the code permits the consensual act alone. Only the infinite charge, the consent clause itself, reproduces the code on every menu that holds a consensual act. Consent is a constraint, not a price. We then find exactly where a finite charge can still work: on a known world a flat charge above its most strained relation's cost works, but no bounded charge works on every world; charges flat at the true book, prices on falsity alone, and every function of the outcome are beaten. Over decisions in sequence, a charge on the record's state is exact precisely when the record keeps every taking, and a charge that reads who acted, or which relations each step opened to both ends, works under every rule of the books.
Author: Washburn, Jonathan
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225459628