Hillel Steiner; III*—Individual Liberty, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 33–50, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristote.

Hillel Steiner; III*—Individual Liberty, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 33–50, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristote.

?Moral Black? and Whitemail? is a study of those modes of action which involve what I propose to call ?a raising of the moral stakes?. Illustration: A wants B to do X, and B wants to do Y; so A creates a situation in which doing Y would either be morally objectionable or more objectionable than it would have been but for A's intervention. Such modes of action include all the varieties of moral blackmail as well as such practices as (...) those of returning good for evil, putting people on trust, and some kinds of non?violent resistance. I try to expose the distinguishing marks of moral blackmail, why it is thought so objectionable, and how it is related to these other practices that also involve a raising of the moral stakes. The study as a whole is intended to underline the ambiguous nature of human action. (shrink)

In American legal journals over the last decade there were hundreds of pages of articles worrying over threats to justice and freedom arising from the power to withhold benefits. Government officials have tremendous discretion to offer or withhold foreign aid, ration-books, government contracts and jobs, welfare subsidies, public housing, tariff protection, academic grants, alien resident status, paroles, or exemption from conscription or combat, from arrest or prosecution or imprisonment. Right-wing economists have worried about welfare-state emphasis on administrative discretion rather than (...) the rule of law. And left-wing economists have worried about the rich man's power to intimidate the poor man by threatening to cut off his productive work. (shrink)