Simon Keller’s argument for moral blackmail might, at best, come down to cases of emotional blackmail; at worst, they are just added motives to be a morally good person.

If I leave a note at your door telling you that I’m leaving for vacation and that if you do not feed my dog, then my dog will die and it will be on your conscience. Clearly what I am doing is wrong, but is it a case of “moral” blackmail? Keller seems to think so because I am manipulating the circumstances so that you are faced with the guilt of a starved dog if you do not comply with my desired end. But is the “guilt” in this scenario appropriately a consequence of a moral failure? It seems more supererogatory than a moral duty; as such, the appropriate feeling should then be something like “compunction.”

Keller places his argument in the context of fiduciary duties, but we can find general examples: for instance, the cashier asking if you would like to donate one dollar to charity. This sort of charity might be a nice thing to do, but it is beyond what morality demands of us; still, we might feel a bit bad if we do not donate. Again, whether it is a case of some internal conflict of thinking ourselves as charitable, it is still a case of emotional manipulation – that is, the consequence of not donating is a negative feeling of compunction.

However, what if I left a note telling you that you must take care of my ill grandmother because nobody else is around to take care of her in my absence? I think cases like this one indeed point to a moral duty, but it cannot be called “blackmail.” What I am doing here is reinforcing a duty you already have with added reasons to act morally. I do not want to say that I am morally in the clear for leaving you that note – clearly I am manipulating you. However, you already would have had strong reasons to take care of my ill grandmother since you always have the duty to rescue or aid somebody in immediate danger. For example, we would not call it “moral blackmail” when I tell my child that if he is mean to his sister then Santa will bring him a lump of coal. If Keller’s cases of moral blackmail are cases where there is a real moral duty, and if blackmail cannot entail cases where you would have had good reason to act the way I want you to, then Keller’s cases of moral blackmail are not legitimate cases of blackmail.

Now, this argument relies on counterfactual claims of what you would have done, and maybe the mere fact that I altered your choice structure is enough for a legitimate case of moral blackmail. That is, by leaving you the letter, you then are confronted with a moral dilemma of taking care of my grandma or ignoring the letter and letting her die; however, if I never gave you the letter, you would not be presented with the dilemma. In line with my previous argument, my giving you the letter presents you with a moral problem and the possibility to be immoral – the operative question is then this: Does me putting you in a circumstance to possibly be immoral constitute a case of moral blackmail?

I obviously do not think so, and I think parallel cases show why.  Imagine I bound you up, put you in a truck, and dropped you off in front of a drowning child; in this case (assuming you can swim) you have a duty to rescue this child. The fact that I kidnapped you and that it is a rotten thing for me to do is no excuse for you not to rescue the drowning child. If you reject your moral duty and choose not to rescue the child, then I do not harm you additionally because I put you in that circumstance. I may manipulate you, coerce you, harm you, but I do not blackmail you.