COERCION
SIN ON NOZICK 2016
Robert Nozick, “Coercion.” In White Morgenbesser (ed.), Philosophy, Science, and Method:
Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel. St Martin's Press. 440--72 (1969)
WHAT IS A THREAT? WHAT IS AN OFFER?
THREATS & OFFERS
• A threat takes away a person’s liberty; an offer enhances it.
• A threat worsens a person’s situation; an offer improves it.
COME TO WORK FOR ME, OR I WON’T GIVE YOU
THE MONEY.
IS IT A COERCION?
HOW FREE IS Q?
• P offers Q substantially more money than Q is earning at his
current job to come to work for P, and Q accepts because he wants
to increases his income
BETTER CONSEQUENCE? (BETTER THAN NORMAL)
• If it makes the consequences of Q’s action worse than they would
have been in the normal and expected course of events, it is a
threat.
• If it makes the consequences better, it is an offer.
THREAT OR OFFER?
• P is Q’s usual supplier of drugs, and today when he comes to Q he
says that he will not sell them to Q, as he normally does, for $20,
but rather will give them to Q if and only if Q beats up a certain
person.
IS Q WILLING TO MAKE THE CHANGE?
• Since Q prefers and P believes that Q prefers paying the money and
receiving the drugs to beating up the person and receiving the drugs,
and since Q would rather not beat up the person, P’s statement is a
threat to withhold the drugs if Q doesn’t beat up the person, and this
threat predominates over any subsidiary offer P makes for Q to beat up
the person, making the whole situation a threat situation.
WHAT IS THE NORMAL THING TO EXPECT?
• Q is in the water far from shore, nearing the end of his energy, and
P comes close by in his boat. Both know there is no other hope of
Q’s rescue around, a P knows that Q is the soul of honesty and that
if Q makes a promise he will keep it.
P SAYS TO Q “I WILL TAKE YOU IN MY BOAT AND
BRING YOU TO SHORE IF AND ONLY IF YOU FIRST
PROMISE TO PAY ME $10 000 WITHIN THREE DAYS OF
REACHING SHORE WITH MY AID.”
IS IT AN OFFER?
WHAT IF SUPPRESSION IS THE NORM?
• Suppose that usually a slave owner beats his slave each morning,
for no reason connected with the slave’s behavior. Today he says to
his slave, “Tomorrow I will not beat you if and only if you now do
A.”