What Makes Threats Wrong?
Niko Kolodny, Professor of Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley
State coercion is thought to pose a moral problem. I try to make sense of this thought by asking why, in general, threats wrong those threatened, when they do, and then by applying the answer to the state’s threats, in particular. If state coercion poses a moral problem, I conclude, the problem, and its solution, are not what they are often thought to be.
Niko Kolodny is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.
His B.A. (1994) is from Williams, his M.A. (1996) is from Oxford, and his Ph.D. (2003) is from Berkeley. Before returning to Berkeley as Assistant Professor in 2005, he was an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University and Research Associate at the Research School of Social Sciences of the Australian National University.
His main interests lie in moral and political philosophy.