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Full Idea
The institution of promise keeping operates to provide portable reliability, by offering a formula that will confer high deliberative priority on what might not otherwise receive it.
Gist of Idea
Promise keeping increases reliability, by making deliberation focus on something which would be overlooked
Source
Bernard Williams (Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy [1985], Ch.10)
Book Ref
Williams,Bernard: 'Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy' [Fontana 1985], p.186
A Reaction
This is a bit pessimistic. We do not perceive promise keeping as a mere suggestion that we should bear something in mind when making a decision. 'May I rot in hell if I fail you'.
| 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] |