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Threats and Coercion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Martin Gunderson
Martin Gunderson*
Affiliation:
Macalester College
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Abstract

There is nearly universal agreement that coercion is an evil. Even when it is necessary to avoid a greater evil or to attain some good, it is still a necessary evil. There is also nearly universal agreement that, other things being equal, one ought not to exercise coercion. Here the agreement ends. There is little agreement about just when coercion is justified. More surprisingly, there is little agreement about what coercion is. This latter controversy is more fundamental, and this paper is an attempt to shed some light on it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , June 1979 , pp. 247 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1979

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References

1. Bayles, Michael D., “A Concept of Coercion,” in Coercion, ed. J., Roland Pennock and Chapman, John W. (Chicago: Aldine, Atherton, Inc., 1972), p. 17Google Scholar.

2 Bernard, Gert, “Coercion and Freedom,” in Coercion, ed. Pennock and Chapman, p. 47.Google Scholar

3 See, for instance, Bayles, p. 24. See also Nozick, Robert, “Coercion” in Philosophy, Science, and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel, ed. Morgenbesser, Sidney, Suppes, Patrick and White, Morton (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1969).Google Scholar

I use the term ‘action’ loosely when I speak of coercion relating persons and actions. In some cases of occurrent coercion the victim's body might be forced to undergo certain sorts of motion when the victim cannot properly be said to be acting at all. This was brought to my attention by Elizabeth Raabe.

4 Robert Nozick also notes that there are degrees of coercion, although he does not make this part of his explicit analysis of coercion. (pp. 464-65) Nozick points out that the degree to which one is coerced depends on the degree to which one's reason for acting is the fact that one was threatened. When Nozick speaks of being motivated by the trhreats of another he seems to mean being motivated by a desire to avoid the consequences threatened by another (p. 442). I shall make use of all of this in my analysis of coercion.

5 Frank Underkuffler suggested this example to me. Whether this accurately describes what goes on in Japanese subways does not really matter.

6 The various forms of indirect coercion with which I deal were noted by Robert Nozick. He refers to them as noncentral cases of coercion (p. 446).

7 Bayles, p. 24. In analyzing dispositional coercion Bayles claims that if X coerces Y to do A the following conditions must obtain: (1) Person X intends that Y do A. (2) X further intends to harm Y if he does not do A. (3) X threatens Y with harm if Y does not do A. (4) Y does do A. (5) Y would have acted otherwise had he so chosen. (6) Y would have chosen otherwise had he not been threatened.

8 Nozick, p. 442. Nozick illustrates this point with a somewhat more fanciful example than the one I give.

9 Bayles, p. 24. Nozick also seems to hold this view. He states that Q must believe, and P must believe that Q believes, that P's threatened consequences would leave Q worse off if Q does not comply (p. 443).

10 Bayles, p. 24.

11 Nozick, p. 444.

12 Bayles, pp. 24 and 26.

13 I am indebted to David Vanney for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.