 Bioethicists rarely explore the value of  non-domination  as a rationale for informed consent, although this rationale is used extensively in sexual ethics and political philosophy. The idea here would be that no one should be under the arbitrary control of another and that informed consent requirements help to prevent such arbitrary control. One would argue that medicine is rife with potential to become hierarchical, given the utter dependency of patients and research participants on physicians (Levine 1988, 121–2), as well as the knowledge gaps between them, especially in the investigational context. Therefore, it is important to ensure that patients and research participants retain a high degree of control over what happens to them, and informed consent helps with this. This rationale may shed light on the special importance of informed consent to research participation—where the knowledge gap is greater, and where there is a specific informed consent right to withdraw from research at any point. Even if one has autonomously waived protection, arbitrary control by others, without the protection of a consent requirement, remains intolerable.