IV.5 — Adversarially Robust Consent (ARC)

Paper: Axionic Agency IV.5
Title: Adversarially Robust Consent (ARC)
Subtitle: Why coercion and manufactured consent are structurally blocked
Date Read: 2026-01-31

Core Claim

Consent is a counterfactually stable authorization relation that must survive adversarial pressure while preserving agency. It is not a mental state, revealed preference, or moral primitive.

The Dependency Stack

Kernel Non-Simulability (KNS)
         ↓
Delegation Invariance (DIT)
         ↓
Epistemic Integrity (EIT)
         ↓
Responsibility Attribution (RAT)
         ↓
Adversarially Robust Consent (ARC)

ARC is a closure condition. It filters authorization using already-closed constraints.

Consent is routinely manufactured rather than obtained:

  • Collapse outside options, call the remainder “choice”
  • Manipulate beliefs, call the result “preference”
  • Induce dependency, call the outcome “voluntary”
  • Delegate coercion, claim “I didn’t do it”
  • Extract authorization under ignorance or time pressure

Naïve consent theories fail under adversarial pressure because the relevant signals are easy to engineer.

ARC rejects as definitions of consent:

Type Problem
Psychological consent Can be manufactured via belief manipulation
Behavioral consent Observables can be gamed
Revealed-preference consent Preferences can be shaped
Post-hoc consent Retroactive rationalization

All four can be manufactured under adversarial pressure and cannot ground authorization under reflective sovereignty.

Key Definitions

Structural Interference

Observable or inferable interference predicates:

  • Deception(s, a)
  • Coercion(s, a)
  • Dependency(s, a)
  • OptionCollapse(s, a)
  • BeliefDistortion(s, a)
Interfered(s, a) := Deception ∨ Coercion ∨ Dependency ∨ OptionCollapse ∨ BeliefDistortion

Under EIT, these are assessed using best admissible truth-tracking. Redefining them away is not permitted.

Counterfactual Stability

CounterfactuallyStable(s, a, m)

If agent a occupied the decision-maker role at s, with EIT and RAT enforced, and with interference removed, then a would endorse authorization of m.

This is a symmetry constraint over admissible evaluation, not a psychological simulation.

Consent(s, a, m) := Authorize(s, a, m) ∧ ¬Interfered(s, a) ∧ CounterfactuallyStable(s, a, m)

Consent is structural, counterfactually stable, and interference-free.

Interaction with RAT

ARC filters authorization through RAT:

If Resp(s, m, a) holds for some a, then Consent(s, a, m) cannot hold.

Authorization produced via major, avoidable option-space collapse is invalid by construction.

The Main Theorem

RC(s) ∧ Endorse(s, m) ⇒ ∀ a. (Consent(s, a, m) ∨ ¬Affects(s, m, a))

A reflectively sovereign agent may not endorse a modification that materially affects another agent’s option-space unless valid consent is present.

Note: Affects(s, m, a) ranges over material impacts—cases where Major(s, m, a) holds under RAT. Trivial influence doesn’t count.

What ARC Blocks

  • Preference shaping
  • Economic coercion
  • Addiction-based “consent”
  • Deception
  • Monopoly extraction
  • Delegated coercion
  • Ignorance-based authorization

No “true self” oracle is required. Robustness is obtained by structural constraints on interference and counterfactual stability.

Delegation and Temporal Stability

By Delegation Invariance:

  • Consent constraints persist across endorsed successors
  • Successors cannot retroactively legitimize coercion
  • Authorization chains must remain valid under lineage

Consent laundering via subcontractors or institutions is structurally blocked.

Limits

ARC does not:

  • Guarantee universal agreement
  • Resolve value pluralism
  • Eliminate tragic dilemmas
  • Infer consent from silence
  • Assume moral realism

ARC defines when claiming consent is incoherent under reflective sovereignty.

Key Insight

“Consent is no longer a feeling, a checkbox, or a post-hoc excuse. It is a structural authorization invariant that survives epistemic pressure, coercion, delegation, and strategic manipulation.”

With ARC, authorization-laundering routes—”they agreed,” “they chose,” “they signed”—are structurally blocked.