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Coercion and Consciousness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Anne C. Minas
Anne C. Minas*
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
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Extract

A person's action is coerced when he is forced into the action. He does not act voluntarily and coercion is a kind of unfreedom. However, it is not easy to understand how someone can be forced into doing something against his will. At least in many instances of purported coercion, it appears that the individual being coerced could have resisted the person who coerced him. Since he did not resist, his action must have resulted from his own choice. Hence, the appearance of his having been forced is a mere illusion.

Aside from pathological cases which will only be briefly mentioned at the end of this paper, I believe that most people, most of the time can resist attempts to coerce them. Nevertheless, on many occasions they do not resist, and so perform actions they do not want to perform. The following is an attempt to explain how this is possible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 301 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1980

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References

1 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 1110a 4-19. Aristotle essentially agrees with Hobbes that this type of action should be classified as voluntary, since it is done for a reason that would be preferred by any rational person under the circumstances (“on condition of securing the safety of himself and crew any sensible man does so“). However, Aristotle adds, it is also correct to describe the action as involuntary, because “the end of the action is relative to the occasion” and “no one would choose any such act in itself”. I think what he means is something I touch on very briefly at the end of this paper. There is a sense in which a choice can be ‘forced’ by a bad situation. Although there is nothing defective in the manner in which he chooses, the alternatives open to the person are all ones which he would never rationally choose under more ordinary circumstances.

2 Frankfurt so defines ‘coercion': “Q's motive is not one which Q wants, but one which P causes him to have”. Frankfurt, Harry G. ‘Coercion and Moral Responsibility' in Honderich, Ted Essays on Freedom of Action, (London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1973), p. 83.Google Scholar This is close to what I am arguing, except for my stress on the victim's abandonment or possible abandonment rather than adoption of motives under the influence of the coercer. Dworkin's definition of acting freely is “A does X freely if A does X for reasons which he doesn't mind acting from”. Dworkin, Gerald ‘Acting Freely’ in Nous 4 (1970), p. 381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Coercion, on this view, would be closer to Frankfurt's ideas than to mine.

3 Hence the current popularity of ‘consciousness raising’ as a method of combatting coercion.