Abstract

Coercion is often thought to undermine the moral responsibility of its victims. To say that one was coerced is to claim that one had no choice, or that one did not act of one's own free will, and that one ought not therefore be blamed for what one did. This dissertation attempts to explain how, and in what circumstances, coercion has this effect. ;In part one, a comprehensive normative theory of coercion is presented, that defines coercion as an illegitimate form of bargaining which results when the coercer wrongfully takes control of some item of the victim's person or property , and proposes to trade that item for some other object or service that the victim possesses . If the victim agrees to carry out the trade thus proposed, she has been coerced. ;In part two, the relationship between coercion and responsibility is examined. It is argued that the mitigating effects of coercive behavior take the form of a combination of both excuse and justification. To the extent that a victim's decision to comply with a coercer's proposal is morally permissible, then she ought to be excused for performing the compliant actions. Because she is simply carrying out a plan of action formulated on her behalf by the coercer, she cannot be said to be acting in the autonomous manner that is presupposed by ascriptions, of moral responsibility. In order to justify this decision to comply, however, the victim must show that she had a morally acceptable reason for surrendering control over her actions in this way. It is argued that compliance can only be justified in those cases when the victim is threatened with the immediate and permanent loss of her ability to live as an autonomous being