The Obligation of Promises

A Promise Is Not Natural Obligation

The rule of morality which enjoins the performance of promises is not natural.

This will appear from these 2 propositions:

1. A promise would not be intelligible before human conventions had established it
2. Even if a promise were intelligible, it would not be attended with any moral obligation

I. A promise is not intelligible naturally, nor antecedent to human conventions.

A man, unacquainted with society, could never enter into any engagements with another, even if they could perceive each other's thoughts by intuition.
If promises are natural, there must be some act of the mind attending the words: "I promise".
    The obligation must depend on this act of the mind.
Let us run over all the soul's faculties and see which of them is exerted in our promises.

The act of the mind expressed by a promise, is:
    not a resolution to perform anything,
        For that alone never imposes any obligation.
    not a desire of such a performance.
        For we may bind ourselves:
            without such a desire, or
            even with a declared and avowed aversion.

We do not promise the willing of that action.
    For a promise always regards some future time.
    The will has an influence only on present actions.
If follows that the act of the mind which enters into a promise and produces its obligation is not the resolving, desiring, nor willing act to do any performance.
    It must necessarily be the willing of that obligation, arising from the promise.
This is not only a conclusion of philosophy.
    We commonly say:
        that we are bound by our own consent, and
        that the obligation arises from our mere will and pleasure.
    Is it:
        absurd to suppose this act of the mind?
        an absurdity that no discerning man could fall into?

All morality depends on our sentiments.
    Any action or mental quality is virtuous when it pleases us in a certain way.
    We are obliged to perform it if its neglect displeases us.
A change of the obligation supposes a change of the sentiment.
    A creation of a new obligation supposes some new sentiment.
We cannot naturally change our own sentiments, more than we can change the motions of the heavens.
    We cannot render any action agreeable or disagreeable, moral or immoral, by a single act of our will, that is, by a promise.
    Without that act, the promise would:
        have produced contrary impressions, or
        have been endowed with different qualities.
Therefore, it would be absurd to will any new obligation or any new sentiment of pain or pleasure.
    It is impossible that men could naturally fall into so gross an absurdity.
Therefore, a promise is naturally something altogether unintelligible.
    There is no act of the mind belonging to it.21

Footnote 21:

If morality were discoverable by reason and not by sentiment, promises could not change morality.
Morality is supposed to consist in relation.
    Every new imposition of morality, therefore, must arise from some new relation of objects.
    Consequently, the will could not immediately produce any change in morals, unless the will produces a change on the objects.
But the moral obligation of a promise is the pure effect of the will, without a change in the universe.
    It follows that promises have no natural obligation.

It is a pure sophism to assert that this act of the will is in effect a new object, producing new relations and new duties.
This can be detected by accuracy and exactness.
    To will a new obligation is to will a new relation of objects.
    If this new relation of objects were formed by the will itself, we should in effect will the will.
        This is absurd.
    Here, the will has no object.
    It must return on itself infinitely.
The new obligation depends on new relations.
    The new relations depend on a new will.
    The new will has a new obligation, and consequently new relations, and consequently a new will.
    This will again has a new obligation, relation and will, without end.
    Therefore, it is impossible we could ever will a new obligation.
    Consequently, it is impossible that the will could ever accompany a promise, or produce a new obligation of morality.

II. If there were any act of the mind belonging to a promise, it could not naturally produce any obligation.

This appears evidently from the foregoing reasoning.
    A promise creates a new obligation.
    A new obligation supposes new sentiments to arise.
    The will never creates new sentiments.
    Therefore, no obligation could naturally arise from a promise, even if the mind could will that obligation, which is absurd.

The same truth may be proved more by the reasoning that justice is generally an artificial virtue.
No action can be our duty unless human nature had some actuating passion or motive implanted in it, capable of producing the action.
    This motive cannot be the sense of duty.
    A sense of duty supposes an antecedent obligation.
When an action is not required by any natural passion, it cannot be required by any natural obligation.
    Since it may be omitted without proving any vice.
We have no motive leading us to the performance of promises, distinct from a sense of duty.
    If we thought that promises had no moral obligation, we would never feel inclined to observe them.
This is not the case with the natural virtues.
    Even if there were no obligation to relieve the miserable, our humanity would lead us to it.
        If we omit that duty, the immorality of the omission arises from us lacking the natural sentiments of humanity.
    A father knows it to be his duty to take care of his children.
        But he also has a natural inclination to it.
        If no human had that inclination, no one could have any such obligation.
But there is naturally no inclination to observe promises, distinct from a sense of their obligation.
It follows:
    that fidelity is not a natural virtue, and
    that promises have no force, antecedent to human conventions.

If anyone dissents from this, he must give a regular proof of these two propositions, that:
    there is a peculiar act of the mind, annexed to promises
    consequent to this act, an inclination to perform arises, distinct from a sense of duty.
It is impossible to prove either of these two points.
    I conclude that promises are human inventions founded on society's necessities and interests.