Promises, Rights, and Deontic Control

Abstract

This article argues that the notion of a promissory right captures a central feature of the morality of promising which cannot be explained by the notion of promissory obligation alone: the fact that the promisee acquires a full range of control over the promisor’s obligation. It defends two main claims. First, it argues that promissory rights are distinctively grounded in our interest in controlling others’ deontic world. Second, it proposes a version of the ‘Interest Theory’ of rights (the ‘Deontic Interest Theory’) that incorporates our interest in purely deontic forms of control into the various human interests that constitute the grounds of our rights.