Promises and Consistency
In Iskra Fileva (ed.),
Questions of Character. New York, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 215-230 (
2017)
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Abstract
Situationists in moral philosophy infer from empirical studies in social psychology that human beings lack cross-situational behavioral consistency: that is, for the most part, we human beings are not able to act in the same trait-relevant way across a range of distinct types of situations, because those situational differences trigger differences in behavior. In this paper we defend the following thesis: one who accepts this conclusion (that is, one who judges that human beings in general are not possessed of behavioral consistency) cannot make a promise in good faith. This has important consequences for the ethical institution of promising and its associated reactive attitudes.