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Should Blackmail be Banned?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

David Owens
David Owens
Affiliation:
Girton College, Cambridge
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Extract

There is no right to blackmail. So says the law and so say most moral observers. A few libertarian voices have been raised in defence of blackmail (e.g. Mack) but such a defence is liable to be treated as a reductio of the defender's own free market philosophy. However, it is surprisingly difficult to say just what is wrong with blackmail.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 63 , Issue 246 , October 1988 , pp. 501 - 514
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1988

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References

1 Mack, E., ‘In Defense of Blackmail’, Philosophical Studies 41 (1982), 273–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Nozick, R., Anarchy, State and Utopia (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974), 84–87.Google Scholar

3 Scruton, R., Sexual Desire (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1986), 103–107.Google Scholar

4 I have benefited from the comments of Roger Teichmann, Brian Garrett and Peter Sandoe on earlier drafts of this paper.