Book dossier

Promises, oaths, and vows

by Herbert J. Schlesinger

"Civil society rests on the expectation that (most) people will do what they say they will do, i.e., essentially live up to their explicit or implicit promises. It is amazing then, that so little scientific attention has been given to the act of promising. A great deal of research has been done on the moral development of children, but none of it deals with the ability to make and keep a promise. Developmentally, what makes it possible, cognitively and emotionally for a child to make and then keep a promise? And what compels keeping a promise made with "good" intentions when there is no longer any realistic reason for doing so? How do we know when a promise is serious, one to be taken at face value, and how do we come understand that another is only a polite gesture?" "In Promises, Oaths, and Vows: On the Psychology of Promising, Herbert Schlesinger addresses these questions. He draws on a variety of sources: the literature of moral development in children, the psychotherapy of a patient who regularly broke promises that were unnecessary in the first place, others who were regarded as "promising youngsters" but who did not fulfill their "promise", and still others who feared that if they made a promise, a commitment, or a threat, the utterance would take on a life of its own once made and could never be taken back. He illustrates the breadth of these issues by examining the use of promises, oaths, and vows as organizing themes in classical literature, such as Greek drama and the plays of Shakespeare, as well as the motivating and reifying power of the promise in Western religious traditions."--BOOK JACKET.