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Full Idea
To make a promise is not merely to adapt an ingenious device for promoting the general well-being; it is to put oneself in a new relation to one person in particular, creating a specifically new duty to him, not reducible to promoting general well-being.
Gist of Idea
Promises create a new duty to a particular person; they aren't just a strategy to achieve well-being
Source
W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], p.38), quoted by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 2.3.a
Book Ref
Kymlicka,Will: 'Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn)' [OUP 1992], p.23
A Reaction
Of course, a politician might make a promise to society as a whole, but even there Ross seems to be right. 'I'll do it' is not the same as 'I promise you all I'll do it', which is more personal.
7 | Surely you don't return a borrowed weapon to a mad friend? [Plato] |
7127 | If men are good you should keep promises, but they aren't, so you needn't [Machiavelli] |
2374 | In the violent state of nature, the merest suspicion is enough to justify breaking a contract [Hobbes] |
22442 | If lies were ever acceptable, with would undermine all duties based on contract [Kant] |
5906 | Promise-keeping is bound by the past, and is not concerned with consequences [Ross] |
18622 | Promises create a new duty to a particular person; they aren't just a strategy to achieve well-being [Ross] |
4252 | Promise keeping increases reliability, by making deliberation focus on something which would be overlooked [Williams,B] |
3838 | Promises hold because I give myself a reason, not because it is an institution [Searle] |