“Coercive offers” are murky. They enhance freedom by providing beneficial options yet feel
coercive. Consider, for instance, the case of a lecherous millionaire offering to pay for a child’s
life-saving treatment provided the mother agrees to become his mistress. While this may feel
coercive, such offers are often classified as voluntary – either because they provide a benefit
according to a baseline account or they aren’t seen psychologically irresistible. Coercive offers
are typically characterised by imbalanced bargaining powers, with the offeree dependent on
the offer to improve her vulnerable situation. Yet, she is free to decline, and it remains unclear
what renders the beneficial offer coercive.
The paper contends that such offers are coercive because they introduce the “wrong kind of
reasons” (WKR) as the only viable option for the offeree to improve her dire situation. Certain
decisions require particular reasons, and autonomous agents may seek to exclude WKR to
ensure that choices are aligned with their values and deep commitments. Coercive offers, while
satisfying the offeree’s immediate desire, may conflict with her higher-order desire to exclude
certain reasons, alienating her from her deep commitments. By introducing WKR as the only
viable option, these offers lead individuals to sovereignly act for reasons that, though satisfying
their first-order desires, conflict with their higher-order desires, impairing the appropriate
connection between sovereignty and non-alienation, and ultimately hindering the offeree’s
capacity for self-governance and self-authorship.