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Toward A Theory of Coercion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Michael Gorr
Michael Gorr*
Affiliation:
Illinois State University, Normal, IL61761, U.S.A.
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Extract

Virtually everyone agrees that there is a strong moral presumption against the use of coercion. There is, however, considerably less agreement about the nature of coercion. For example, each of the following claims has been the subject of considerable controversy: 1. coercion is an essentially normative concept whose ‘conditions of application contain an ineliminable reference to moral rightness or wrongness’; 2. it is possible to coerce someone by means of an especially enticing offer as well as by means of a threat; 3. coercion sometimes consists in nothing more than the direct application of physical force; and 4. exploitation is a form of coercion. In this essay I shall propose and defend an explication of the concept of coercion which will entail the falsity of each of these claims. Such an analysis, although it will naturally start from and be guided by our intuitions about the subject, will not be bound rigidly by them. My primary objective will be to provide a reasonably precise and systematic way of describing a category of human behavior only the paradigm examples of which are clearly circumscribed by ordinary usage.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 383 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1986

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References

1 Zimmerman, David ‘Coercive Wage Offers,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 10 (1981) 122Google Scholar (Zimmerman himself, it should be noted, does not subscribe to such a view.)

2 My own views concerning some of the central features of action may be found in ‘Agency and Causation,’ Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 9 (1979) 3-14, and Willing, Trying and Doing,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 57 (1979) 237–50.Google Scholar

3 For a defense of this view see my paper ‘Omissions,’ in Whittemore, Robert C. ed., Studies in Action Theory (New Orleans: Tulane University Press 1979).Google Scholar

4 For a wider use of the term ‘voluntary’ see Bernard Gert, ‘Coercion and Freedom’ in Pennock, J. Roland and Chapman, John W. eds., Coercion: Nomos XIV (Chicago Aldine, Atherton 1972) 31–2.Google Scholar

5 Gunderson, Martin ‘Threats and Coercion,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 9 (1979) 248CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Bayles, Michael ‘A Concept of Coercion,’ in Pennock and Chapman, 17Google Scholar

7 Mark Strasser has pointed out to me that there are other, somewhat different sorts of cases, in which it might be more plausible to speak of physical coercion. Consider, for example, torturing a spy to make him talk. My own view (which I cannot fully defend here) is that cases of this sort characteristically involve elements of both physical compulsion and coercion. For a further discussion of the difference between coercion and the use of physical force, see McCloskey, H.J. ‘Coercion: Its Nature and Significance,’ The Southern Journal of Philosophy 18 (1980) 335–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 ‘Omissions,’ 100-2; see also Mack, Eric ‘Bad Samaritanism and the Causation of Harm,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 9 (1980) 230–59.Google Scholar

9 For further discussion of cases of indirect coercion see Robert Nozick, ‘Coercion’ in Morgenbesser, Sidney Suppes, P. and White, M. eds., Philosophy, Science and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel (New York: St. Martin's Press 1969) 445–7, and Gunderson, 254-5.Google Scholar

10 Nozick, 444

11 Note that there is no requirement that P intend that Q do B or even that P intend to bring about R if Q does (does not do) B. The former condition is unnecessary because, as Nozick points out (442), one may threaten someone simply to observe how he will react. The latter is unnecessary because as Gunderson points out (253), one can successfully rob a bank by threatening a teller with a fake pistol.

12 This condition is a slightly modified version of one proposed by Gunderson (253).

13 Gunderson, 254

14 I am grateful to Kent Machina for making clear to me the necessity of formulating the condition in this way.

15 Gunderson, 254; it should be noted that there may be cases of causal overdetermination in which there will simply be no clear answer to the question of whether or not coercion was involved.

16 I am grateful to Shelley Stillwell for drawing my attention to cases of this sort.

17 Frankfurt, Harry ‘Coercion and Moral Responsibility’ in Honderich, T. ed., Essays on Freedom of Action (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1973), 66Google Scholar

18 Suppose I tell you that I am going to kill you and that there is nothing you or anyone else can do that will make me desist. It seems to me that this is a threat (and not a warning) but, being unconditional. it is not obvious how it can be coercive. I suspect, however, that if you were to take evasive actions, it might be proper to describe those as having been indirectly coerced by my threat. Unfortunately these complications cannot be discussed here.

19 My analysis presupposes that P and Q are different persons. However, as Gregory Trianosky has pointed out to me, this leaves unaddressed an important question: Can a person threaten himself? Since such a ‘threat’ is revocable at will, I suspect not, though I am unable to argue for my answer here.

20 ‘If’ rather than ‘if and only if’ since I wish to distinguish clearly the ‘threat’ component of a typical coercive proposal from what I later characterize as the ‘neutral’ component.

21 Nozick, 460

22 Ibid.

23 Gunderson, 257-8

24 Nozick, 452

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., 447

27 Ibid., 452

28 See, for example, the criticisms made by Frankfurt, 67-75 and Zimmerman, 125-9.

29 Frankfurt, 69

30 Zimmerman, 128

31 Nozick, 451

32 Bayles, Michael ‘Coercive Offers and Public Benefits,’ The Personalist 55 (1974). 142Google Scholar

33 Benditt, Theodore ‘Threats and Offers,’ The Personalist 58 (1978) 383–4Google Scholar

34 Zimmerson, 133-5

35 The following sort of case might be thought to pose a difficulty for this analysis. Suppose P and Q agree, at t, that P will provide Q with a certain important service at some later time t’ if, at t, Q pays P $5000. Q does so. At t', P informs Q that he intends to renege on his promise unless Q pays him an additional $5000. Q reluctantly complies. Our intuition here, surely, is that Q has been coerced into paying the additional $5000, yet it is unclear that such a case meets our criteria since it is unclear what undesired state of affairs P is threatening to bring about should Q refuse to pay the additional sum. But if there is no such state of affairs, then the coerciveness of P's proposal would seem to be explicable wholly in terms of what he proposes to refrain from doing (viz., give Q what he is owed). in which case the argument in the text for sharply distinguishing coercion from exploitation is called into question. Fortunately this sort of case does not constitute a counterexample to my analysis. For by the original act of agreeing, at t, to provide Q with the desired services at t'. P initiated a sequence of events which, in the absence of the appropriate preventative measures on his part, would cause a state of affairs to exist at t’ that Q would find undesirable, viz., Q's being both without his original $5000 and without the services promised by P. Since analogous claims cannot be made about the case discussed in the text, the distinction I have attempted to draw between coercion and exploitation remains a viable one.

36 Zimmerman, 124

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., 125

40 I would thus endorse McCloskey's judgment that, ‘It is morally impossible accurately to generalize in these matters about all coercion in the abstract … Some coercion bears importantly on the degree of responsibility and on blameworthiness, some bears not at all’ (347). For a contrasting view, see Fowler, Mark ‘Coercion and Practical Reason,’ Social Theory and Practice 8 (1982) 329–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Zimmerman, 137

42 An earlier version of this paper was read before a philosophy colloquium at Illinois State University. For helpful comments I am grateful to Michael Davis, Kent Machina, Danny Shapiro, Shelley Stillwell, Mark Strasser, Gregory Trianosky, and Clark Zumbach.