Abstract
Coercion is by its very nature hostile to the individual subjected to it. At the same time, it often is a necessary evil: political life cannot function without at least some instances of coercion. Hence, it is not surprising that coercion has been the topic of heated philosophical debate for many decades. Though numerous accounts have been put forth in the literature, relatively little attention has been paid to the question what exactly being subjected to coercion does to an individual that makes it so hostile to his person. This paper develops an analysis of the subjective aspect of coercion whereby this hostility is explained. It is argued that coercion is not just a matter of interference with one’s agency, but also affects one’s morality. Because coercion is a form of subjugation it does more than merely limit one’s freedom, it constitutes an affront to one’s dignity as well. A new account of coercion is developed that pays particular attention to the subjectivity inherent in coercion. This account takes a middle ground in the ongoing debate between advocates of moralised and non-moralised conceptualisations of coercion. The paper closes by applying this account to two prominent issues in the literature on coercion: the use of coercion claims in attempts to avoid being held responsible for one’s actions, and the coerciveness of the law.
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Notes
This paper also formed the basis of Part I of my forthcoming book The Importance of Assent: A Theory of Coercion and Dignity (Van der Rijt 2011).
Some such concerns are mostly practical in their focus, such as whether or when a coerced person is to be held responsible for what he did (e.g. Wertheimer 1987; Frankfurt 1988a), or what to make of promises and agreements he was thus forced to make (Murphy 1981; Philips 1984). Others are primarily theoretical or philosophical in nature, encompassing more general worries about the autonomy and freedom of the coerced person (e.g. Hayek 1960; Knight 1953; O’Neill 1991; Rosenbaum 1986; Ripstein 2004).
For instance, some think that only threats are coercive (e.g. Nozick 1997; Gorr 1986; Fowler 1982; McCloskey 1980; Olsaretti 1998), whereas others believe that the direct application of physical force may also constitute coercion (e.g. Lamond 2001; Held 1972; Gunderson 1979; Bayles 1972); yet another group of philosophers claims that offers may be just as coercive as threats (e.g. Frankfurt 1988a; Lyons 1975; Stevens 1988; Held 1972), whereas some of their opponents are adamant that this is not the case.
I should stress that due to this specific focus, the presented account may, in its present form, not be particularly suited to address specific practical issues in which the subjective injury involved in coercion is not a matter of prime concern. For instance, in its present form it will not particularly suit the needs of lawyers who wish to use coercion exclusively as grounds for the complete negation of a person’s responsibility, and cannot afford to be too considerate of subjective particularities simply because of the way the law functions.Where possible, ways in which the account could be further developed are indicated, but the account presented is not intended as a unified conception that can address all possible questions connected with coercion.
It is tempting to directly align to coerce as a synonym of to force with the first type of coercion claims identified by Berman, and the independent concept of coercion with his second type of coercion claims. I am unsure such an alignment would hold under closer scrutiny, however (see Section 5).
This is not to deny that you cannot be angry at animals or that your actions cannot be wrong because of what you do to animals. Nonetheless, accusations of wrongdoing can only be made by and addressed to moral agents. For notational ease, I generally refer to both the coercer and coerced as persons in this paper; strictly speaking, however, coercion can also be exercised by certain collective agents. Collective agency is well-known to be a very tricky (and not wholly uncontested) subject in its own right, however, one I shall therefore not elaborate on here. Suffice it to say that I take at least certain collective agents, such as the state, to be capable of doing wrong and therefore also able to stand accused.
Here ‘sense of justice’ can be interpreted rather broadly: moral agents have some convictions or opinions as to how moral agents are to treat one another, what their mutual entitlements are. Whether these convictions and opinions are based on a moral sense as the term is understood by moral sentimentalists, are deemed to be derived through exercising a reason-based lawgiving ability as, for instance, Kantians hold, or are thought to come about in yet another fashion, does not matter here. Moreover, it is also not required that these moral views are the result of a settled disposition or that they form a particularly coherent whole. For the purposes of this paper, all that ‘having a sense of justice’ requires is that moral agents can make moral judgments about particular cases.
An account of coercion is said to be moralised if it implies one must commit to a moral judgment in order to determine whether a specific instance of interaction constitutes coercion.
In fact, in some instances it may even be beneficial to one’s long-term agency, as in the case of paternalistic coercion.
This holds in particular when a person is coerced to refrain from performing a specific action.
Strikingly, these problems are generally acknowledged even by proponents of moralised notions of coercion, who often propose such notions somewhat reluctantly. E.g. Wertheimer (1987, p.8): ‘Of the two [the moralised and the non-moralised, empirical theories of coercion], it must be said that an empirical theory would be more attractive—if it turned out to be true.’.
Moralised accounts that imply that the coercer has acted wrongly cannot account for justified coercion because this would entail that the coerced would have acted wrongly (otherwise no coercion) and not wrongly (otherwise it cannot be justified) at the same time. (Note that moralised accounts do not just hold coercion to be prima facie wrong, but demand that an actual wrong has occurred.)
Some authors, e.g. Lamond (2000), draw a distinction between coercion and a proposal’s being coercive. This distinction is mostly used to differentiate between unsuccessful and successful attempts to coerce (where only the latter are called coercion and the former merely coercive). For the purpose of this paper, I do not adhere to this distinction.
For Zimmerman’s reply to Alexander, see Zimmerman 1983.
Of course, some cases of coercion may involve harm to a person’s interests or physical person as well as affront, but it is its offensive nature that makes coercion problematic even in the absence of such more tangible harms.
The motivational aspect plays a particularly prominent role in that part of the literature on coercion that focuses on the distinction between threats and offers to discern coercive proposals from non-coercive ones. The usual way of making such a distinction is by trying to determine a relevant baseline. As Steiner (1994, p.22–32) showed, however, such baselines have no relevance from a purely motivational point of view.
Of course, in practice these two different aspects need not be independent.
In this light it is worth keeping in mind that the dignity and status of the moral agent is usually connected primarily to his having a sense of justice (his morality), not to his ability to set and pursue goals.
A possible Frankfurtian reply to this problem may be to point out that the victim of the highwayman in this example may act on a desire he endorses, but still does not hand over his money wholeheartedly (cf. Frankfurt 1988b). This is probably true. However, this lack of wholeheartedness is not a matter of not acting in accordance with one’s higher-order commitments, nor is there any lack of coherence in these higher-order commitments, for we may assume that the victim fully and unequivocally identifies with his decision to put the wellbeing of his family above his desire for vengeance. How wholeheartedness fits in a Frankfurtian framework if it is not based on such higher-order commitments as would have to be the case here, is unclear to me.
In the cited paper Olsaretti only refers to the absence of acceptable alternatives but does not directly refer to welfare or wellbeing. In later works, though, she develops the notion of acceptable further, defining it in terms of an objective standard of wellbeing (e.g. Olsaretti 2004).
In the slave master example, Nozick introduces a slave master whose standard practice is to beat his slave. At some point he proposes to the slave that he shall not be beaten this time, if the slave performs a certain act. As the normal course of events is that the slave gets beaten, he would not be coerced to perform the act, since declining the proposal would not make him worse off than would normally be the case.
B may, for instance, hide the fact that he feels this way, or be dishonest about it in order to achieve certain responses from others.
In fact, all coercion accounts that focus on a person doing something he does not want to do, are subjective in a very similar fashion.
Coercion can, of course, also be used to make a person refrain from performing a specific action, i.e. not to do X. For notional easy, however, I omit the phrase ‘or not to do X’ throughout this paper, assuming that X can also be a “negative” action.
This does not mean that such unintended offence cannot cause injury as well, but it is not the same kind of humiliating affront as that inflicted when one is deliberately subjugated to somebody else’s will.
I.e. A knows of B’s moral objections to her interference but maintains her interference nonetheless, or A does not know of B’s moral objections, but would have maintained her interference even if she had.
I should add, though, that the fact that the coerced is aware of both what the coercer wants him to do and the inducements she employs to get him to do so, does not preclude the possibility that he remains in the dark with respect to other aspects of the situation. The coercer’s deeper reasons for wanting him to perform the specific action may, for instance, be unknown to him, as may be the full extent of the consequences of his doing X. Similarly, it is possible that the incentives the coercer provides are, unbeknown to the coerced, mere bluffs, on which she is either unable or unwilling to follow through.
In this paper I do not address the particular situation where B judges A to have acted morally correctly only because she herself was coerced by a third party.
This notion is inspired by the well-known INUS condition introduced by Mackie (INUS stands for ‘an insufficient but necessary part of condition that is itself unnecessary but sufficient for the result’ Mackie 1999, p.414). I use the term ‘constitutive reason’ here instead of the term INUS condition itself because an INUS condition is developed within the context of a theory of causation, and the relevant setting here is one of reasons. Moreover, an INUS condition is by definition never sufficient to account for the consequence it is said to (partially) bring about, and Mackie therefore usually speaks of ‘at least an INUS condition’. I use the term ‘constitutive reason’ as equivalent to this: obviously in cases of coercion we do not want to exclude the possibility that A’s interference is in itself sufficient to account for B’s doing X. We do want to allow for the fact that B’s doing X is also based on other relevant considerations that are not attributable to A’s interference, however. (In the highwayman case, for instance, B’s desire to stay alive is as relevant in accounting for his handing over the money as is the presence of the gun).
I am of course not implying that one may never have valid reasons to overrule or dismiss someone’s moral objections, but I am saying that taking a person seriously as a moral person implies regarding his moral beliefs—especially those directly regarding himself—as relevant, and that when someone is made to comply with such treatment despite his moral objections, this constitutes a notable injury to his person.
An interesting theoretical implication is that a moral nihilist cannot be coerced on this account of coercion, though others can of course be coerced by him. A true moral nihilist can be forced to do something, and may even feel anger because of this, but because he denies both his own morality and that of others, he must believe he cannot be wronged by others whatever they may do to him. Therefore he can, strictly speaking, not be indignant.
Or that B judges A’s actions to be wrongful, but that it is not B who is wronged by them (for instance if A’s seductive proposals to B are incompatible with her responsibilities to another person C).
This also means that we should not deny that people of particularly weak character are coerced when they comply in situations where we feel they ought to have resisted. Whereas acknowledging the fact that they are coerced does not commit us to holding the weak-willed any less responsible for their actions when they comply in cases of coercion where they should have resisted, this should not lead us to deny the truism that people of weak character are more easily coerced than those of strong character.
To my knowledge, Rawls also does not deny the injury experienced by coerced unreasonable persons. He merely regards this injury as easily justifiable.
This also implies that the indoctrinated or brainwashed are not considered coerced when they accept the directives of their instructors. Whereas the process of indoctrination or brainwashing may very well involve coercion, once this process has been completed the acts they then choose to perform in compliance with their masters’ wishes can be regarded as expressions of their new personalities. These new personalities constitute who they now are, and how they got to be this way is of little concern when addressing the question of whether these persons, as they now are, are coerced to perform the actions they now choose to perform (see also McCloskey 1980). A similar point can be made for so-called happy slaves.
It is worth mentioning that the statement ‘you are morally right to coerce me’ is self-contradictory in this account of coercion. The statement ‘you are morally right to force me’ is not self-contradictory, however, nor is the retrospective statement ‘you were morally right to coerce me’ or the forward-looking ‘you will be morally right to coerce me’. For instance, suppose person B is addicted to some narcotic substance and his friend A locks him in a room to beat this addiction. Then it is quite possible that B objects to this treatment, regarding A as acting morally reprehensibly while he is locked in the room, but would afterwards agree that this was a case of justified coercion. Alternatively, anticipating this change of perspective when the symptoms of withdrawal have begun to set in, he could also claim before being locked up that his friend will be justified to coerce him should he later start raising objections.
A further reason why it would be infelicitous to restrict the types of interference that could give rise to coercion within a formal account of coercion is that the impact a specific kind of interference has on a person varies greatly from person to person. Especially since would-be coercers will typically look for the kind of interference their intended victim is most susceptible to, it is important not to rule out less foreseeable or more creative kinds of interference beforehand (see O’Neill 1991).
As an anonymous referee noted, allowing for unreasonable objections can at times lead to counterintuitive cases of coercion, especially if we also allow for coercive offers. Consider, for instance, the case of an obscure, self-appointed holy man, who sincerely believes he may not be touched by the impure. Knowing this, a local peasant woman with some grain to sell threatens to touch him if he does not buy her produce. Faced with these prospects, the holy man decides to buy the grain. Consequently, on this account, he is coerced. Just how counterintuitive this implication is deemed, will, I suppose, vary from person to person. Nonetheless, even if this is regarded as counterintuitive, it is worth keeping in mind that intuitions are not always reliable. In particular, intuitions are known to cause problems in atypical or strange situations (see e.g. Wilkes 1988) and when we are dealing with unreasonable objections, we can often easily account for the elusive nature of the case: if we did not find the objections so mind-boggling in the first place, we would not label them unreasonable.
If this is the case, however, then his mistaken belief might still be relevant as a possible excusatory factor: if it is solely the mistaken belief that one was wronged that lead a person to perform a wrongful action, but it was otherwise motivated by ‘the right reasons’ then such a person is morally less blameworthy than someone who acts out of less laudable motives.
When laws are said to be coercive, the question arises of who should be regarded as the coercer, as the law itself can hardly be regarded as a moral actor. I take it to be implied that when the laws are said to be coercive, it is the entity that institutes the laws (usually the state, the whole of society, or in some cases perhaps those in power) that can be regarded as the coercing actor.
In many cases of state coercion, such coercion will be unavoidable. As a law by its nature holds for (virtually) all citizens in society alike, it is impossible for the state to address all the moral objections to it that certain citizens may hold. In such cases the state may be perfectly right to disregard the moral grievances of some of the objectors. However, the fact that it may be justified does not mean such treatment does not do injury to the persisting objectors, so if there are viable ways in which the state can address or alleviate the moral objections of its citizens (be it by explanation, discussion or accommodation), it generally ought to do so; when feasible, coercion is to be avoided.
This of course does not imply that they are necessarily right in accepting such an authority, but merely that when they do so, they are not acting under coercion when they do as they are instructed.
I thank an anonymous referee for raising this point.
Consider, for example, a tenant with an otherwise perfect payment record who, having had to use his rent money to pay for his child’s emergency treatment a few days before the rent was due, now suddenly faces eviction at the hands of his cold-hearted landlady.
Whether the fact that contracts can be coercively enforced is indeed the crucial feature when it comes to distinguishing promises from contracts can be doubted, however. It seems more likely that what sets contracts apart from promises is that contracts grant a legal right to exact compliance and promises do not. This legal right to exact compliance implies a legal right to coerce, but where one party to the contract does not consider it wrongful from the other party that she exercises her legal right to exact compliance, there will be no coercion involved when she does so.
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Acknowledgements
Most of the research underlying this paper was conducted within the NWO project Modelling Freedom: Formal Analysis and Normative Philosophy carried out at the University of Groningen. I thank my colleagues there for their many helpful suggestions. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Netherlands School for Research in Practical Philosophy Summer School ‘Morality and Politics’ (Soesterberg, the Netherlands); ‘Brave New World 2007’ (Manchester, United Kingdom); and the 9th symposium ‘Contemporary Philosophical Issues’ (Rijeka, Croatia). I benefitted greatly from the discussions at these venues. For their helpful comments on previous versions of this paper I am grateful to Alon Harel, Robert Heeger, Thomas Hill, János Kis, Gerald Postema, Peter Schaber, Thomas Schmidt, and two anonymous referees.
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van der Rijt, JW. Coercive Interference and Moral Judgment. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 14, 549–567 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-011-9262-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-011-9262-2