The hybrid nature of promissory obligation

Philosophy and Public Affairs

Volumn 35, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 203-232

  Tognazzini, Neal A ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 35348990234     PISSN: 00483915     EISSN: 10884963     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1088-4963.2007.00108.x     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. For an example of this kind of view, see John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), especially pp. 344-50.
2. As it turns out, this 'special complaint' objection may have force against more than just a social practice view. See Margaret Gilbert, "Scanlon on Promissory Obligation: The Problem of Promisee's Rights," Journal of Philosophy 101 (2004): 83-109.
3. See T. M. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), chap. 7. All further references to Scanlon will be to this work.
4. See also Scanlon, "Promises and Practices," Philosophy & Public Affairs 19 (1990): 199-226
5. and "Promises and Contracts," in The Difficulty of Tolerance: Essays in Political Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
6. The term 'expectation view' is meant to contrast with a class of theories that might be called 'normative power views.' According to normative power views, a promissory obligation is created in virtue of the fact that when one utters certain words, one intends to undertake, by that very act of communication, an obligation so to act. A pure social practice view can be seen as a species of normative power view. For another species of normative power view that does not rely on a social practice, see Joseph Raz, "Voluntary Obligations and Normative Powers," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplement 46 (1972): 79-102.
7. I owe the terms 'expectation view' and 'normative power view,' as well as their respective explanations, to Gary Watson. For a similar taxonomy of theories into volitional and perlocutionary varieties, see Michael Pratt, "Promises and Perlocutions," in Scanlon and Contractualism, ed. Matt Matravers (London: Frank Cass & Co., 2003), p. 93.
8. This point in particular is why I have chosen to discuss Scanlon's view below, despite the fact that there are other plausible theories that also eschew the need for a social practice of promising. I am grateful to an Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs for pushing me to be clear about this issue.
9. Niko Kolodny and R. Jay Wallace, "Promises and Practices Revisited," Philosophy & Public Affairs 31 (2002): 119-54.
10. Scanlon, p. 298.
11. Scanlon, p. 300.
12. Scanlon, p. 300-01.
13. Scanlon: "The central concern of the morality of promises is therefore with the obligation to perform; the idea of compensation is of at most secondary interest," p. 302.
14. For more on the value of assurance, seemy discussion of Scanlon's case of the Guilty Secret in Section VII below.
15. Scanlon, p. 304.
16. Scanlon, p. 306.
17. Scanlon, p. 306.
18. Scanlon, p. 306.
19. For a similar problem in a different context, see David Lewis, "Utilitarianism and Truthfulness," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972): 17-19.
20. The objection can be found in Michael Pratt, "Promises and Perlocutions," pp. 106-09.
21. It is worth pointing out that the criticism of Scanlon's response that I have focused on in this section is distinct from the criticism that Kolodny and Wallace raise in their article. Kolodny and Wallace object that Scanlon's response does not allow promises to be created when the would-be promisor has no prior or nonmoral practice-based reasons to do as promised. Since "the distinctive utility of promising is not simply that it allows A to assure B that A will do X when A has prior or [nonmoral practice-based] reasons to do X ... but also that it allows A to assure B when A does not have any prior or [nonmoral practice-based] reasons to do X at all," Scanlon's response to the Circularity Objection entails that promising loses its distinctive utility (Kolodny and Wallace, p. 143). The objection I have been pushing, on the other hand, maintains that the prior reasons A has to do X in virtue of PrinciplesMand D will not even be enough to produce the assurance needed to trigger Principle F, if F is indeed a valid moral principle. Insofar as the objection from Kolodny and Wallace is a good one (and I aminclined to think it is), Scanlon's response fails for more than one reason.
22. Of course, not all hybrid views need involve components from Scanlon's theory per se (they may involve elements of some other expectation view), but since the two I discuss below do, I gloss over this point in the text.
23. Niko Kolodny and R. Jay Wallace, "Promises and Practices Revisited."
24. Kolodny and Wallace point out that this consequence may seem counterintuitive, but they give compelling considerations in favor of this consequence, despite its initial counterintuitiveness (p. 153). It is also worth noting that this feature is not limited to hybrid accounts per se. Indeed, even the defender of an expectation view will have to admit, if something like Rawls's principle of fairness is plausible, that every time someone takes part in the social practice of promising in order to make a promise, that person acquires two obligations.
25. See Kolodny and Wallace, "Promises and Practices Revisited," p. 153.
26. Scanlon, p. 297. Although Principle F is not yet formulated by this point in the book, it is clear from what Scanlon says later that this particular example is meant to be a nonpromissory scenario in which principle F is nevertheless engaged. See p. 306.
27. Michael Pratt has also noted the peculiarity of Scanlon's use of parentheses in condition (1). See Pratt, "Promises and Perlocutions," p. 117, n. 18. Scanlon must have noted it as well, since in his more recent discussion, "Promises and Contracts," the parentheses are omitted.
28. In personal correspondence, Niko Kolodny has suggested an alternative way of understanding how the parentheses in condition (1) function. He suggests we might read condition (1) as follows: "A voluntarily and intentionally leads B either to expect that A will do X, or to expect that A will do X unless B consents to A's not doing X." On this reading, merely creating an expectation that Awill do X is enough to satisfy condition (1) of Principle F. But, as we saw in connection with the Circularity Objection, any principle according to which one can gain an obligation to do X unless someone consents otherwise merely by creating the expectation that A will do X (which one can do by including a relevant escape clause) must surely be an invalid moral principle.
29. Scanlon, p. 298.
30. Thanks to an Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs here.
31. Scanlon, p. 298. Scanlon intentionally leaves it open whether the Sacred Brotherhood of the Reindeer is a real organization, and whether A is in fact a member of this organization. All that Scanlon needs is that B believes both that A is a member of this organization and that being a Reindeer Brother is something that A takes seriously.
32. On the intuitive synonymy of "I promise" and "I swear" (as well as a number of other linguistic utterances),
33. see Judith Jarvis Thomson, The Realm of Rights (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), chap. 12.
34. Scanlon, pp. 323-26.
35. Scanlon himself points out that one of the distinguishing features of F-obligations is that when an F-obligation has been created, the hearer "has a 'right to rely' on this performance: That is to say, the second party has grounds for insisting that the first party fulfill the expectation he or she has created" (p. 305). It is exactly these "grounds for insisting" that I am denying exist in mere cases of oath taking.
36. I am grateful to Niko Kolodny and an Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs for pushing me to strengthen my argument here.
37. KW offer a scenario of their own, as well, but I think its fate is the same as that of scenario 1. See KW, p. 132. An Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs suggests that testimony alone might create the required assurance, as in a scenario where I say, "I hereby assure you that I will perform." But unless this statement is meant as some sort of a promise, I do not think it can succeed in creating the expectations required for genuine assurance. It would seem that such complex expectations cannot be createdmerely by uttering words to the effect that one is trying to create such expectations. The hearer needs some reason to believe that the speaker will in fact perform before she will be assured, and merely hearing the speaker utter the words above, it seems, cannot provide such a reason.
38. See the end of the current section for more about how promise-breakers exploit the social practice of promising according to my modified hybrid view. Thanks to an Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs for pressing me on this issue.
39. At first, it may seem that my modified hybrid view does not deserve to be called a 'hybrid.' For according to KW's hybrid view, promissory obligation is explained by, as it were, fusing Scanlon's expectation view with a social practice view. My modified account, by contrast, seems merely to acknowledge the existence of an obligation associated with a social practice view and an obligation associated with Scanlon's expectation view sans F. (Gary Watson makes this point in an unpublished manuscript.) But see note 43 below, along with the associated text.
40. Both Gary Watson and an Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs suggested something like this worry to me, although Watson credits Kolodny and Wallace with suggesting it to him.
41. Scanlon, pp. 300-01.
42. But why think that mere disappointed assurance is a significant enough loss to fall in the scope of Principle L? After all, Principle L is specifically about significant losses. Although it is not altogether clear what Scanlon meant by including the qualification 'significant,' I think we have good reason to think that disappointed assurance is indeed significant. See the case of the Guilty Secret that I discuss in the text below for this reason.
43. I am grateful to an Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs for pressing this objection.
44. Scanlon, p. 302, emphasis added.
45. Scanlon, pp. 302-03.
46. I am grateful to an Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs for this point.
47. Since one important interpersonal wrong that Scanlon's weaker principles explain is the wrong of disappointing assurance, and since assurance can only be created on my account by invoking the social practice of promising, my view is a genuine hybrid view after all (contrary to the objection raised in note 35). It is not just that two sets of obligations arise in parallel. Rather, there is one obligation in particular, the obligation not to disappoint assurance, that is governed by Principle L, but which can only arise given that there is a mechanism for creating assurance in the first place. Thismechanism can only be the social practice of promising.