Coercion

The Nature of Coercion

To know whether or not a person's freedom has been undermined by coercion, it is first necessary to understand the nature of coercion. Coercion may be usefully divided into two categories—physical coercion and psychological coercion. Physical coercion occurs when one's bodily movements are physically forced. In cases where one person physically coerces another person, the victim's body is used as an object or instrument for the purpose of fulfilling the coercer's desires. Physical coercion does occur in business. For example, a factory worker may be physically compelled to remain at work until a quota is met. Nazi Germany used physical coercion to force laborers to work in wartime factories. In Alabama, as recently as 1928, African American men were taken from city streets and brought to mines where they were physically coerced into mining coal for large mining companies. And in workplaces throughout the world, women employees continue to be physically coerced by coworkers, or managers, into complying with sexual demands.

Unlike cases of physical coercion, psychological coercion involves the threat of violence or of some other form of harm such as economic harm. But what, precisely, constitutes coercion? Is someone who must choose between a bad, poorly paid job and no job at all coerced? To answer this question, it is necessary to have a proper understanding of the nature of psychological coercion. Philosophers have produced a substantial literature that seeks to clarify this matter. Two principal views have emerged in the literature—the moralized view of psychological coercion and the empirical view of psychological coercion. The moralized view maintains that the truth conditions of coercion claims rest on prior moral claims. According to this view, we cannot determine whether one person has coerced another person into performing a specified action without first determining whether the alleged coercer has a right to make the supposedly coercive proposal and whether the recipient of the threat has an obligation to resist that proposal. The empirical view maintains that the truth conditions of coercion claims are empirical. According to this view, we cannot determine whether one person has coerced [Page 332]another person without first determining whether the alleged victim is under significant psychological duress, whether the alleged victim is capable of resisting the coercer, or some other fact pertaining to the situation.

The moralized view of coercion is flawed and should be rejected for at least two reasons. First, proponents of the moralized view acknowledge that appeals to rights and obligations assume prior moral judgments. However, such judgments are of little use for adjudicating claims between individuals who disagree over those judgments or the substantive moral claims that support them. What is needed is a morally neutral account of coercion. Second, the moralized view is unable to account for the prima facie wrongness of coercion. Coercion is prima facie harmful because it undermines individual freedom. This judgment is based on a strong moral presumption against the forced restriction of individual freedom. One centrally important task of any adequate theory of coercion is to explain how coercion undermines individual freedom. To analyze coercion primarily in terms of rights and obligations, or other moral considerations such as utility maximization, does not adequately highlight the fact that coercion constrains individual freedom and undermines individual autonomy. For these reasons, it is necessary to provide an empirical rather than a moralized account of coercion.

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