Abstract
T. M. Scanlon has alleged that the social practice of promising fails to capture the sense in which when I break my promise I have wronged the promisee in particular. I suggest the practice of promising requires the promisee to have a normatively significant status, a status with interpersonal authority with respect to the promisor, and so be at risk of a particular harm made possible by the social practice of promising. This formulation of the social practice account avoids Scanlon’s concern without collapsing into what Elinor Mason has recently referred to as deflationism about promising.
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Notes
Mason (2005).
Kolodny and Wallace (2003)
Mason (2005, p 34).
(1971, pp 344–346). I borrow this concise synopsis from Mason (2005, p 34).
Scanlon (1998, p 295).
Rawls (1955)
Ibid., p 16.
Scanlon, op cit.
Mason (2005, p 36), emphasis mine.
Kolodny and Wallace (2003).
Mason (2005, p 39)
Ibid.
Mason (2005, p 45)
Gilbert (2004).
We should contrast these directed duties with general duties, say, to do good works or to perform my civic responsibilities. Of course we may have these general duties as well, and they may both be relevant in a particular context.
For an account of promising based on the status of the promisee, see Margaret Gilbert (2004). Gilbert rejects the practice based account of promising; however, I believe one can accommodate her insights into a practice based account. For a different, more restrictive role-based account of promising see Hardimon (1994)
I owe this objection to Caspar Hare and Josh Parsons.
Promises might well be made such that the holder of the role of promisee is a set of individuals. While this may make the practical mater of rational control more difficult, it does not change the normative significance attached to the status of promisee.
Of course we may use the term ‘assurance’ to provide a promise (and likewise in the case of ‘promise’). The point is that the assignment of the status of promisee, required for promising and not for assurance more broadly construed, allows us to differentiate the form of assurance provided by promising from other forms of assurance.
Of course if I provided assurance such that to each of those affected by my gaffe I add, “and you can hold me to it,” I am promising each of them.
Mason (2005, p 41).
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Shockley, K. On that peculiar practice of promising. Philos Stud 140, 385–399 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9151-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9151-7