In her chapter “Duress and Moral Progress”, Seana Shiffrin offers a novel perspective on coerced promises. According to the dominant view, these promises confer no right to performance on the coercer and do not create new reasons for the victim. Shiffrin accepts that these promises fail to confer rights, but disagrees that they never alter the victim’s moral profile. She argues that they do at least where promises are ‘initiated’ by the victim, rather than ‘dictated’ by the coercer. The initiation of a promise, albeit in far from ideal circumstances, opens the door, Shiffrin claims, to valuable opportunities for moral progress. In this response, I argue that Shiffrin makes a misstep by not rejecting the dominant view altogether. I suggest that the older Hobbesian picture, according to which coerced promises do confer rights, is supported by our moral and legal practices. Furthermore, it makes moral progress more likely.

中文翻译：

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在胁迫下承诺

在她的“胁迫与道德进步”一章中，Seana Shiffrin 提供了关于胁迫承诺的新视角。主流观点认为，这些承诺没有赋予胁迫者履行的权利，也不会为受害者创造新的理由。Shiffrin 承认这些承诺无法赋予权利，但不同意它们永远不会改变受害者的道德形象。她争辩说，他们至少在受害者“发起”而不是由胁迫者“指示”的情况下做出承诺。Shiffrin 声称，承诺的启动，尽管远非理想情况，但为道德进步打开了宝贵的机会。在这个回应中，我认为 Shiffrin 没有完全拒绝主流观点是错误的。我建议更古老的霍布斯图景，根据该图景，胁迫的承诺确实赋予权利，我们的道德和法律实践支持。此外，它使道德进步更有可能。