Is There a Reason to Keep a Promise?

Abstract

If promises are binding there must be a reason to do as one promised. There is a difficulty in explaining what that reason is. It arises because the reasons that promising creates are content independent. Similar difficulties arise regarding other content-independent reasons, though their solution need not be the same. Section 1 introduces an approach to promises, and outlines an account of them. The problems discussed in the chapter arise, albeit in slightly modified ways, for various other accounts as well. It is, however, helpful to use a specific account as a springboard leading to one explanation of promissory reasons, namely of the reasons that valid promises constitute for performing the promised act (Section 2). We can call it the bare reasons account. Sections 3 and 4 will raise difficulties with that account, leading to its abandonment in favour of an alternative in Sections 5 and 6.