Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 13.07.1981, Page 244
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this, or cheats during the game, one is guilty of precisely the same kind
of immorality as in the case of breaking a promise: in both cases the
wrongness consists in disappointing expectations that it can be assumed
that one has deliberately aroused by, in the one case offering or accept-
ing to play a game, and in the other by making a promise. But the im-
morality here involved is not determined by reference to any rule of the
specific practice, but by a principle of fair play which is presupposed by
the practice or the game. If there are constitutive rules that govem the
practice of promises, then engaging in the practice would presuppose
that one is going to follow the rules. ‘Don’t cheat’ is not one of the rules
of the practice. One may also fail to live up to expectations aroused if
one offers a person one knows to be a beginner, to play him at chess,
and then fails to produce a chess set. Chess can be played in notation,
but one has only a right to expect experts to be able to do without push-
ing actual chessmen about on a material chess-board. In all these cases
we have an example of the unfaimess of deliberately arousing in people
expectations that it is to their disadvantage to have. Such expectations
can of course be aroused in many other ways than by making a promise.
I have said that when one engages in rule-governed or partly rule-
governed activity, such as the playing of a game, or speaking a particul-
ar language, it is tacitly understood that one is going to abide by the
rales. But to claim with Robins that, in voluntarily entering into these
activities, one is making a promise, a promise which simply consists in
the will obligating itself, cannot be right. I have tried to show in
Promises and Reliance,10 that the immorality of breaking a promise or
making a false promise may derive from same source as deceiving or
misleading by nonlinguistic means. In spite of that, promises are essen-
tially linguistic or symbolic activities. Here surely Austin, Searle and
their followers are right. It serves no good purpose to equate ‘tacit
understanding’ with ‘tacit promise’. Do we in any case have such an
expression as ‘a tacit promise’ in English? In my own native language
the word for ‘promise’ is ‘loforð’ and the second part of this word
means ‘word’. One needs words ‘to give one’s word’ another expression
for ‘promise’ in English, although head shakings and nods may do duty
for words. One cannot, without circularity, appeal to a fundamental
‘promise’ to explain a presupposition of speaking languages.
10 Dialogue, 15, 1976, pp. 56-60. See also my Reply to New on Promises, The
Philosophical Quarterly, 19, 1969, pp. 260-63.