assumptions are evident in the thinking that assumes that implied consent will reach the parts that generic consent does not reach; but proponents of specific consent procedures also assume that consent travels beyond the propositions to which it is explicitly and literally given in signing a consent form. Yet strictly speaking, consent (like other propositional atti tudes) is not transitive. I may consent to A, and A may entail B, but if I am blind to the entailment I need not consent to B. Consent is said to be opaque because it does not shadow logical equivalence or other logical implications: when I consent to a proposition its logical implications need not be transparent to me. Transitivity fails for propositional attitudes. Consent and other propositional attitudes also do not shadow most causal connections. I may consent to C, and it may be well known that C causes D, but if I am ignorant of the causal link I need not consent to D. Again, transitivity fails for propositional attitudes. When I consent to a proposition describing an intended transaction, neither its logical implications nor the causal links between transactions falling under it and subse quent events need be transparent to me; a fortiori I may not consent to them. Events at Alder Hey illustrate the opacity of consent. Some parents consented to removal of tissue, but objected that they had not consented to the removal of organs?although, of course, organs are composed of tissues. They did not agree that their consent to removal of tissue implied their consent to the removal of organs. As a point of logic the parents were right. These simple facts create a dilemma. The real limits of patient and donor comprehension suggest that it is unreason able to seek consent for every detail of a proposed treatment, or of a proposed research protocol, or of a proposed use of tissues. Yet the logic of propositional attitudes suggests that we cannot simply assume that implied consent will spread from one proposition to another, or from one proposition to the expected consequences of that which it covers, making any further consent unnecessary. There are many ways of skinning this cat. I conclude by sketching one approach that I think plausible.
propositional attitude SHOULD ONLY BE LEFT PARAGRAPH. Also, there's a bug in the code here.