Coercion
- For other uses, see Coercion (disambiguation).
Philosophical discussion of coercion has focussed on three distinct concerns. (1) What is coercion? (2) Is coercion ever morally or legally justified? (3) Is a person morally responsible for an action done because of coercion?
With respect to the first question, a person is coerced when he acts contrary to his preferences or will because of a threat administered by another agent.
Interest in the second question arises particularly in the context of political philosophy and legal theory especially given that the state uses coercion in forcing compliance to its laws. The orthodox view on this question is that state coercion is justified insofar as it promotes (roughly) overall well being. Whether private uses of coercion are ever morally justified is a controversial matter.
With respect to the third question, coercion is widely thought to limit a person’s freedom without depriving her of free agency. Determining moral responsibility requires careful attention to the context of the act, and in particular, such factors as the severity of the threat and consequences of the coerced action.
Historical Overview
In Nicomachean Ethics III, Aristotle explores the conditions under which it is appropriate to hold a moral agent blameworthy or praiseworthy for particular actions. He argues that praise and blame are withheld from involuntary actions, that is, actions committed under force or as a result of ignorance (1110a-1111b4). On the grounds of a discussion of excuses and mitigating conditions, Aristotle formulates a general account of moral responsibility for action. A moral agent is an appropriate candidate for praise or blame if and only if his action was voluntarily done. A voluntary action is one which has its origin within the doer, and is done knowingly (1110a-1111b4).
The interest of Aristotle’s account for the current discussion is in his understanding of the force condition on moral responsibility. Aristotle provides two types of examples illustrating this condition. The first type includes a case in which a man is carried off by the wind; the second where is carried off by a band of (e.g.) robbers. These are cases in which the agent has no choice at all and would today be classified as cases of compulsion. Essentially, compulsion leaves the agent no choice. He is dragged off by physical force.
Aristotle illustrates the ‘force’ condition on responsibility with two further examples:
“But with regard to the things that are done from fear of greater evils or for some noble object (such as if a tyrant were to order one to do something base, having ones parents and children in his power, and if one did the action they were to be saved, but otherwise would be put to death), it may be debated as to whether such actions are involuntary or voluntary.” (The Nicomachean Ethics, Book III Moral Virtue: 48)
Aristotle’s verdict is that these actions—e.g. doing something base to save one’s children—are both voluntary and involuntary. In one respect, the person chooses to perform the action; but in another, he would not have done so had he not thought that the lives of his family members were in danger. Therefore, although action was voluntary, considered at the moment, it was not, in the abstract, voluntary.
Such cases involve coercion. Acts done out of coercion are in the strict sense voluntary since a person ultimately has it in his power to choose to do or refrain from acting.
Is a person morally responsible for an action done out of coercion? Aristotle’s answer is this: it depends (though he does argue that certain actions such as matricide are never excusable no matter what the threat). There are no hard and fast rules for determining responsibility; it depends on the context.
Saint Thomas Aquinas also discusses coercion in the context of a discussion of moral responsibility. He understands coercion in terms of necessity, where a person is forced to act in a way such that he cannot do otherwise. Aquinas here seems to understand coercion in terms of compulsion—coercion is linked with a lack of choice and violence. Aquinas does recognise a distinction between compelled actions and those committed as a result of a threat. According to Aquinas, people are not morally responsible for acts of compulsion although one is responsible for actions done in the face of some sever threat. This is because the latter does not strictly render the action involuntary—and so the person maintained the power of choice.
Aquinas argues that the state’s is justified in its use of coercion and compulsion in the form of violent force and fear. This is because it must aim to control the vicious and irrational in order to preserve a state of harmony for non-offenders. However, he maintains that the use of power and force is, in general, the right of the state and not of private groups or individuals. One significant exception is the case of ‘imperfect coercive power’ in which the head of the household–usually the father—is justified in delivering punishments that do not inflict irreparable harm. Aquinas therefore advocates the use of coercion/compulsion in the form of patriarchy in both state and private sphere.
Later thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, in basic agreement with Aquinas, argued that coercion plays a central, justified and necessary part in the functioning of the state. Hobbes holds (again in agreement with Aquinas) that acts performed under threat are strictly voluntary so that one is fully responsible for them. This implies, for example, that contracts signed because of fear are legitimate; the use of bargaining ‘’power’’ is a rational way of effecting contracts so long as it does not conflict with the rule of law.
Hobbes’ countryman, John Locke, argued that although state use of coercion is necessary, this depends on the state’s control itself reflecting the consent of the people. There is in his view, therefore, a fine line between law and tyranny. A tyrant’s use of coercion is unjustified; the state’s use of coercion is justified only insofar as it protects the majority rather than terrorises them.
Immanuel Kant emphasises the use of state coercion in securing the rights and freedoms of the people. He argues that people are inclined to obey the law for two reasons: Firstly an ethical or rational motivation: one has a duty to obey the law so as to preserve an orderly society; secondly, a judicial motivation, which applies to those who do not have respect for the law but follow it to avoid punishment. Although Kant acknowledges that coercion impinges upon freedom, he maintains that when used in a proper manner by the state it also secures freedom. Impinging on the freedom of a few is justified to secure freedom for the majority.
John Stuart Mill (see On Liberty) represents to some extent a departure from the concerns of his predecessors by focussing on unjustified forms of coercion. His central understanding of coercion appears closely tied to the notion of interference. State coercion / compulsion is justified in so far as it is used to protect the general population. However, the state (or anyone else for that matter) should not be allowed to force (rational) people to do what may in fact be in their own best interests. This would constitute an unacceptable interference and infringement on individual liberty. In this respect, Mill is an opponent of strong forms of paternalism.
Mill discussion of coercion also includes the power of public opinion in forcing adherence to the law, such as, for example and that the stigma attached to law breaking and its punishments. For example, the threat of ruined reputation may itself be a coercive influence in its own right. Furthermore, and again in contrast with his predecessors, Mill recognises that civil institutions are just as capable of coercion as the state. He observes that the ‘despotism of custom’ has a strong hold over people in that they are frequently coerced to act in a certain way (against their inclinations) due to civil, social (and often religious) conventions and rules. His examples include the position of a wife in the family, who had at the time (19th Century Britain) very limited rights. Mill also presents the phenomenon of child labour as an example of coerciveness. Mill therefore shows the extent to which coercion occurs in ways other than by direct state interference.
The Nature of Coercion
While the notion of coercion has played a significant role in the history of legal and political philosophy—especially with reference to the state’s use of coercion in forcing compliance with its laws—sustained analysis of the concept itself is a relatively recent occurrence. However, in 20th century analytic philosophy, probably as a result of an increasing focus on human rights, the concept of coercion has received significant scholarly attention.
Coercion and compulsion
To begin, it is worthwhile recalling the distinction between coercion and compulsion. Compulsion works through direct force—recall Aristotle’s example of the man ‘’carried off‘’ by a band of robbers In contrast with compulsion, which deprives an agent of a choice, coercion does not. Coercion works through threat of some harm or negative consequence. Consider: “Your money or your life!” Acts done from compulsion are (almost) always excused, whereas, while actions done under coercion are often excused, they are certainly not always.
Although there is a sharp distinction between compulsion and coercion above the two are often closely associated. Torture is a clear example: coercion (threats) is used to (e.g.) extract information; these threats are then backed up by physical inducements such as truth serum. The state too uses both coercion and force (to maintain law). The threat of state punishment (e.g. prison) is used to induce compliance. However, state punishment may also involve compulsion as for example when someone’s property is forcibly confiscated.
Nozick’s analysis of coercion
So much then for the distinction between coercion and compulsion; what about the nature of coercion itself? In significant measure the current state of understanding of coercion is due to Robert Nozick’s landmark work Coercion and the writings it inspired. Nozick’s analysis has been enormously influential—accepted in large measure by almost all significant contributors to the debate.
Nozick analyses coercion as follows: Person P coerces Q into not doing (refraining from doing) act A if and only if: (1). P (the coercer) threatens to bring about some consequence if Q (the coercee) does A; Q understands this threat; (2) Action A, as a result of the threatened consequence, is made substantially less eligible as a course of conduct for Q than A ‘’without’’ this threatened consequence; (3) P’s threat is credible; (4) Q does not do A; (5). At least part of Q's reason for not doing A is to avoid the consequence that P has threatened to bring about (adapted from Ryan, 1980: 483, Nozick, 1969: 441-445).
One further feature of Nozick’s analysis, not directly encapsulated in the above analysis is the notion of a baseline (Nozick, 1969: 447). This concept is introduced in order to capture the sense in which the coerced individual becomes worse off than he would have been. In most cases it is relatively clear to see how this works. For example, in the “your money or your life” case, threat has made the person’s normal course of events worse than they should have been. However, as Nozick himself realised, the phrase ‘normal course of events’ is not unproblematic. Consider for example a case in which a slave owner, who regularly beats his slave, offers to refrain from beating him if he agrees to do X. Given that being beaten is part of the ‘normal course of events’ the offer will not count as coercive because the slave will be better off as a result of the offer. On this point, Alan Wertheimer argues that regular unjustified beatings are not ‘normal’. So he moralises the concept of coercion itself by employing the notion of rights in his formulation of a baseline.
One way of characterising coercion would be to establish whether it deviates from reasonable expectations in a normal course of events, whether it deviates from the norms of expectability, and in effect make the recipient worse off than they ought to be. In Alan Wertheimer’s groundbreaking Coercion (1987) he argues for a normative baseline (taken from Nozick) that would establish whether coercion has taken place. As not all threats are coercive, in order for a threat to be characterised as coercive it needs to make the coercee’s situation worse than it ought to be if the demand is denied. The use of the baseline is what Wertheimer referred to as the proposal prong of his two-pronged approach to coercion.
Thee central features of this analysis are the following: firstly coercion uses of threats rather than physical force; secondly, coercion’s taking place is dependent on whether the coercer’s threat is credible to the coercee (even if the coercer is bluffing, the crucial factor is whether the coercee believes the threat to be credible); thirdly, the coercee has to accept the proposal in order for coercion to take place; if he does not accept the proposal, then coercion, strictly, has not occurred. In this way, Nozick builds in a success condition into his analysis.
Each of these features may be questioned. On the first point, can coercion proceed by means of offers rather than threats? (Threats and offers are both proposals.) Consider the following example:
If a man is drowning in a lake and another man offers to help him only if he gives him all his money, then the drowning man’s situation is indeed not worse off, as one would presume that he would rather have his life than his money, and the offer of the second man has actually increased the drowning man’s options. Another example of the same sort would be that of the millionaire who offers to pay for the life saving operation of a poor woman’s child only if the woman agrees to be his mistress.
Is this an example of a coercive offer? According to Feinberg the answer is ‘yes’: there is no relevant difference between the above scenario and typical cases of coercion. Both use superior power and may be assimilated to the “your money or your life” type case. So coercion may proceed by means of offers or threats; therefore, Nozick’s analysis must be supplemented.
David Zimmerman argues that these are examples of exploitation, rather than of coercion. Although the man in the above example and the millionaire take advantage of their respective situations they are opportunistic and not coercive. According to Zimmerman, in order for these to be coercive actions, they would have had to manufacture the situations (e.g. paying someone to throw the man in the lake); only then will these cases qualify as coercive offers.
Coercion and moral rightness
While the previous section discussed the nature of coercion itself, this section considers two central ethical questions surrounding the concept of coercion.
Is Coercion Wrong?
Intuitively, coercion would seem to involve a moral wrong. This is so, at least in the most commonly considered cases such as “your money or your life!” However, state coercion has been and continues to be firmly entrenched in almost every nation. Governments use coercion in order to maintain law and order. The penal system is a system of threats and inducements. But if state coercion is justified, then coercion cannot always be wrong.
One reason why acts of coercion may seem wrong is that they limit somebody’s freedom. However, as the above discussion of Aristotle, Aquinas and Hobbes highlights, describing the sense in which this is so is not altogether straightforward. After all, and unlike compulsion, coercion still involves a choice. For Aquinas and Hobbes, this indicates that the coercee is still acting as a free agent. The answer must be that coercion forces one to make a choice that would not ordinarily have to be made. And this is a limitation on somebody’s freedom.
However, as evidenced by the penal system, state coercion limits particular freedoms in order to enhance overall freedom. For example, insofar as the state endorses capital punishment, citizens are faced with a supreme threat should they perform certain unwanted actions. However, the fact that they are deterred from (coerced into not) doing these, secures the freedom of other citizens to walk their streets in safety. On this point, Kant acknowledged that coercion impinges upon freedom, but argues that when used in a proper manner by the state it also secured freedom, and that therefore the hindrance of freedom of a few is justified to secure greater freedom. Furthermore, it is sometimes said (Grant Lamond) that state has the right to coerce, whereas others do not; that in a certain sense people give over their freedom to the state (or even school, or church) to be protected. Libertarians such as Nozick and Mill argue state interference with personal liberty should be as minimal as possible.
The legal justification of coercion
J.S. Mill and Robert Nozick argue that state intervention should be a purely protective measure. According to Nozick’s Libertariansim state coercion is justified only insofar as it conforms to the ‘harm principle’. In other words, the use of coercion is justified by the state when it prevents harm; similarly, the use of force is justified if it punishes those that cause harm.
Libertarianism is opposed to paternalism in the following way. For a libertarian, coercion is justified only if it prevents harm to others; however, one is free to do as one likes with one’s ‘’own’’ health, life, liberty, property and possessions. Therefore, outlawing gambling or prostitution illegal, would be, on the libertarian view, an unjustified use of state coercion—it would be using penal threats to coerce people into refraining from “victimless crimes”, i.e. acts that harm no one other than the agent of the act.
This view is not restricted to Libertarians. Even non-Libertarian thinkers accept that the use of coercion by the state is justified only as a protective measure. For example, Alan Wertheimer argues that coercion is justified in so far as it protects individual rights; in all other cases coercion involves only violating somebody’s rights.
Furthermore, whereas Nozick and Mill advocated the use of coercion (to some extent) by the state, they did not believe it to ever be justified when used in private. Many would disagree with this, as for example, if a man arrives home to find a burglar threatening to rape his wife, and the man threatens to shoot the burglar of he does not leave and the burglar complies, he has, at least by Nozick’s definition, been coerced into leaving the house and not raping the man’s wife (Ryan, 1980: 483). This is clearly a case in which the private use of coercion seems justified and furthermore the motivation was to protect what one has a right to protect.
Other examples of coercion motivated for the protection of oneself, loved ones or others include some forms of non-violent protest (such as sit-ins where one refuses to move unless certain demands are met, or Ghandi’s hunger strike), or instances of ‘tough love’ whereby a parent coerces their drug addicted child into going to rehabilitation by threatening to cut them off if they do don’t. It could be argued that because there is no legitimate threat in the first example, and that in the second the threat is not one of force, and that threats involving money or resources or even emotional support are not coercive, but would rather be described by the related terms of black mail or manipulation.
Still others would maintain that what some would call justified coercion is not coercion at all, Grant Lamond for example suggests that the coercer’s intentions are vital and that the coercer has to make a proposal that deliberately disadvantages the coercee. Therefore while state coercion may still be called justified coercion (as it could be argued that for the thief it is disadvantageous for them not to steal), the example of tough love used above would not be considered coercive because the coercer’s intention was not to disadvantage the other, but rather to advantage them.
Disagreement arises as to what extent the intervention and use of coercive measures by the state are justified. Furthermore, the state itself is not always just. While it is easy to see why the threat of enforcement of certain laws is generally considered good, governments are rarely (if ever) perfectly just, and some are decidedly unjust, therefore the coercive nature of their rule can not be seen as ‘justified coercion’, but rather as tyranny and maintaining order through terror and the imposition of unjust laws, thereby causing the majority of the population to act against their will, rather than the few morally depraved. Locke and Mill (section 2), both pointed out the dangers of coercion if used incorrectly by the state.
Coercion and moral responsibility
On Aristotle’s theory of moral responsibility there is no hard and fast rule for determining whether a person who has acted from coercion is blameworthy. It is important to notice that since coerced acts are always strictly voluntary, they are never automatically disqualified from responsibility. Responsibility depends on facts about the situation such as the gravity of the threat and the nature of the coerced act. For example, Aristotle holds it absurd that one could be coerced into killing one’s mother.
Most contemporary philosophers would agree with Aristotle, that coercion excuses at least some of the time. However, they have sought a specification of the conditions under which it does so. According to Harry Frankfurt, “a coercive threat arouses in its victim a desire—i.e., to avoid the penalty—so powerful that it will move him to perform the required action whether he wants to perform it or considers that it would be reasonable for him to do so” (1988: p. 78). Most philosophers reject Frankfurt’s analysis—at least as specifying a necessary condition for coercion—on the grounds that there are less extreme cases in which a person’s will is hardly over-ridden, and yet she can be said to have been coerced. In other words, Frankfurt’s analysis picks out certain extreme cases, but fails to accommodate others.
Frankfurt’s view attempts to locate the conditions of moral responsibility for coercion in structural features of the coercee’s will. In particular, a person is coerced insofar as his will is overridden by a powerful desire arising from the coercive threat. However, many other theorists have insisted that this is incomplete: features of the ‘’environment’’ in which the agent acts are crucial in determining responsibility.
One of the most important aspects in attributing blame is whether the act or acts committed bring about harm to others; and if this could reasonably have been avoided by the coercee. Moreover, the strength of the threat, as well as severity of the consequences of non-compliance, in relation to the result (harm) of the demanded action must be weighed. For example, one may be excused for (e.g.) stealing a car under the threat of being killed, but not if one were merely threatened with a slap on the wrist. It is generally agreed that a person is not responsible for an action insofar he or she is unaware of negative consequences of committing the coerced act. Though the laws of most countries accept coercion as an excusing factor, the individual circumstances in each case are usually needed to ascertain culpability.
Examples of coercion in media
- In the first season of 24, Jack Bauer was coerced into assisting a political assassination, by threat of harm to his wife and daughter.
- By threat of blackmail, the five main characters in The Usual Suspects are coerced into paying back a debt to Keyser Soze.
- In The Empire Strikes Back, Lando Calrissian is coerced by Darth Vader into double crossing Han Solo, as bait to trap Luke Skywalker.
- In the Alex Rider spy novel series, Alex is coerced into becoming a spy for MI6, by threat of him losing his guardian and being sent to an institution.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
Anderson, Scott A. (undated), "Towards a Better Theory of Coercion, and a Use for It", The University of Chicago (URL: http://ptw.uchicago.edu/Anderson02.pdf)
Carr, Craig L. (1988). “Coercion and Freedom.” American Philosophical Quarterly 25: pp. 59-67.
Edmundson, William (1995). “Is Law Coercive?” Legal Theory 1: pp. 81-111.
Feinberg, Joel (1986). Harm to Self. (New York: Oxford University Press): especially chs. 23-24.
Feinberg, Joel (DATE?). Coercion. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Fowler, Mark (1982). “Coercion and Practical Reason.” Social Theory and Practice 8: pp. 329-355.
Frankfurt, Harry (1988 [1973]). “Coercion and Moral Responsibility.” In The Importance of What We Care About. (New York: Cambridge University Press). First published in Essays on Freedom of Action. Edited by Ted Honderich. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul): pp. 65-86.
Lamond, Grant (2000). “The Coerciveness of Law.” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 20: pp. 39-62.
McCloskey, H. J. (1980). “Coercion: Its Nature and Significance.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 18: pp. 335-352.
Mill, John Stuart (1909-14 [1859]). On Liberty. Vol. XXV, Part 2. The Harvard Classics. Edited by Charles W. Eliot. (New York: P.F. Collier & Son).
Nozick, Robert (1969). “Coercion.” In Philosophy, Science, and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel. Edited by Sidney Morgenbesser, Patrick Suppes, and Morton White. (New York: St. Martin's Press): pp. 440-472.
Ryan, Cheyney C. (1980). “The Normative Concept of Coercion.” Mind 89: pp. 481-498
Warner, Stuart. D. (April 1989). “Review of Coercion, by Alan Wertheimer” Ethics, Vol.99,No.3. pp642-644.
Wertheimer, Alan (1987). Coercion. (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Zimmerman, David (1981). “Coercive Wage Offers.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 10: 121-145.
- Anderson, Scott A. (undated), "Towards a Better Theory of Coercion, and a Use for It", The University of Chicago [1]
- Hayek, Friedrich A. (1960) The Constitution of Liberty, University of Chicago Press.
- Hodgkin, Thomas (1886) (trans.) Letters of Cassiodorus, London: H. Frowde.
- Lifton, Robert J. (1961) Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, Penguin Books.
- Popper, Karl R. (1945) The Open Society and Its Enemies
- Rhodes, Michael R. (2000), "The Nature of Coercion", Journal of Value Inquiry, 34 (2/3)
- Rothbard, Murray N. (1982), "F. A. Hayek and the Concept of Coercion", in The Ethics of Liberty, Humanities Press [2]
da:Tvang de:Nötigung es:Coerción fr:Coercition ja:強制 ru:Насилие fi:Pakkovalta tr:Baskı
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
