Abstract

A person's action is coerced when he is forced into the action. He does not act voluntarily and coercion is a kind of unfreedom. However, it is not easy to understand how someone can be forced into doing something against his will. At least in many instances of purported coercion, it appears that the individual being coerced could have resisted the person who coerced him. Since he did not resist, his action must have resulted from his own choice. Hence, the appearance of his having been forced is a mere illusion.Aside from pathological cases which will only be briefly mentioned at the end of this paper, I believe that most people, most of the time can resist attempts to coerce them. Nevertheless, on many occasions they do not resist, and so perform actions they do not want to perform. The following is an attempt to explain how this is possible.