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The Ethics of Deference Part 7

Trong trường hợp này, nó rất dễ dàng để xem một cảm giác nonmoral nghĩa vụ pháp lý có thể có nghĩa là bởi vì có một bộ máy thực thi truyền tải ý thức được nghĩa vụ. Trong trường hợp của lời hứa, sự vắng mặt của bộ máy như vậy làm cho nó khó khăn hơn để xem những gì có thể có nghĩa là một nghĩa vụ nợ nonmoral. | The Puzzle of Promise 109 result is the same failure to correspond to our normal concept of law that we explored in the previous chapter. In this case it is easy to see what a nonmoral sense of legal obligation might mean because there is an enforcement apparatus that conveys the sense of being obliged. In the case of promise the absence of such an apparatus makes it harder to see what could be meant by a nonmoral promissory obligation. By analogy to the legal case however an explanation can be constructed. If Jane promises Henry to remove the ice and gives him a deposit as security which Henry may demand particularly because he knows she thinks it is wrong to make this promise and thus she is more likely to change her mind the analogy with the ordinance is maintained. Henry now has the power to enforce the promise even though he may have no moral right to do so and even though it was wrong for Jane to make this promise in the first place. Thus we have an example of a promise that may be said to be nonmorally binding.7 promises that subsequently become unjust. I said earlier that questions about the duty to obey the law are typically raised when the law s prescriptions deviate from what one believes correct action requires. This deviation may seem less likely to arise in the case of promisors for the same reason it is less likely to occur in the case of our hypothetical snow-removal ordinance The act promised presumably already reflects the promisor s views about what constitutes correct action. But of course one can be wrong and change one s mind about the morality of the promised act. Or new facts can make a promised act that was originally morally neutral now morally suspect The classic example is the promise to return a weapon to someone who the promisor now thinks plans to use it to commit suicide in a temporary state of depression. But these possibilities for discovering a mistake can also occur in the case of the snow-removal ordinance. After voting for the