i think the issue with consent is that when power imbalences are involved, it becomes very hard to tell if it is actually present.

like someone whose needs are not met can be pressured into giving consent for things they do not actually consent to, in exchange for what they need most.

we really need to make sure that everyone is provided for and social power imbalences aren't too big, to make consent actually work.

I think it is necessary to have some limitations to avoid people being pressured or coerced into 'consenting' to things they really shouldn't. Because otherwise you're going to get scenarios where it's rather dubious to imagine someone really sincerely consented to getting killed.

Consider something like Squid Game. Every participant joined the games voluntarily, at least on paper. They're even given the opportunity to leave, only for many of them to come back because their lives in poverty are that bad, and they have families who need the money, need it so badly that they'll take such an extreme risk. So is that consent? Should that be a legal form of dueling? Or is the entire message of the show that it very much shouldn't be?

We also don't do this, because it will lead to people agreeing to be killed for money. Also you'd need everybody involved to undergo a mental evaluation. We wouldn't want manipulable people bring killed for sport. Because let's not kid ourselves, that would absolutely happen. And so we just don't allow it at all.

people have the right to consent to anything being done to their body or not, but also that consent can be given or rescinded at any time.

• Challenge someone to a duel

• Pistols at dawn

• The instant they fire, yell out "I don't consent to this!"

• Die anyway

• They go to jail for murder

I think this is too individualistic of a framing for something that has a real cost to the community and society as a whole. Even putting aside the moral problems with you killing yourself and leaving your family, there's also a legal issue with you abandoning your dependents.

If a father goes and gets himself killed in a duel he's not just harming himself, he's harming both the children and mother of the children who depend on him.

And on a grander scale society has taken care of you for many moments in your life and it is only fair that you contribute back to the society that raised you.

Whether you like it or not you have certain duties to society and society has a legitimate interest in preventing you from getting out of those obligations by killing yourself.

Everything else aside, duels were basically always linked to 'honor' and the accompanying societal pressure. As soon as you get duels back on the table as an option for 'conflict settlement', your 'consent' is very much under pressure by the societal expectations.

People in the past did not go duelling because they really liked duelling or wanted to die, but because it was the only way to reclaim your 'honor' in society. That is really not a culture anybody should want coming back.

I think a solid middle ground could be notarized, witnessed contracts for ensuring the consensuality of dueling/bodily harm.

Since if someone asks to be killed they can’t exactly confirm that consent after the fact y’know?

Consent requires someone to be of sound mind though. Someone can't consent to sex when they're drunk. I would argue that there are some activities where simply consenting to them is demonstration of mental malady or incapacity. A rational and mentally well person would not consent to have themselves voluntarily killed by a serial killer. If you post an ad offering to let someone literally tear you to pieces, you're clearly not of sound mind. Now, I'm not in favor of punishing people for surviving an attempted suicide, but I am perfectly fine punishing people who would take advantage of mentally unwell suicidal people by getting them to consent to all sorts of horrible and lethal things.

It's different in the case of medically assisted suicide that the person is not irrational. Someone of perfectly sound and rational mind can recognize that a slow, painful, and humiliating death is worse than a quick and painless one. If religion weren't a factor, most people with diagnosis like Alzheimers or painful untreatable cancers would end up going that route.

Oddly Texas and Oregon both allow adults to have an altercation if they consent, but you are not allowed to kill them.

i think society in general just gets the ick from the idea of people consenting to things being done to their body that they personally dont understand or would never want and tries to stop it to satisfy their own feelings. we see this applied to all kinds of things like abortion, body modification, drug use, suicide, gender transition, sex acts, sexual partners, etc.

These are not all the same thing. Drug use costs society, not just the drug user. Bridge/train jumpers are some of the most selfish people out there; forcing your suicide onto an unrelated driver is the epitome of an asshole move.

Your body your choice is right, but that stops right at the line where it crosses over into other peoples lives.

My point being, duels to the death very easy to argue against simply because of the societal cost of managing them, while completely ignoring any so called 'ick factor' it may or may not have on the majority of people.

Would you be one the people to sign up for body cleaning duty? Would you be happy paying taxes for the dueling arena where it is impossible to prove that there was consent the whole time, every time?

If every dual ended with at least one dead - as opposed to incapacitated - then it’d probably be fine. The problems as I see it is that it can be both extremely easy and ridiculously difficult to kill someone. If you just wing the opposition do you then have to finish them? What if they’re left a vegetable - who pays to keep the machine on; or do you pop back to the hospital and complete the job at a later date?

So what about suicide assistance for people without any sort of illness?

How do you feel about bodily autonomy if the person is choosing to die at 18 just because they don't want to work 9 to 5 and believe they'll never be rich, and that alone makes them want to end it?