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0 pointsmannykannot3y ago0 comments

In this analogy, it is the official demanding the bribe who corresponds to a blackmailer, and that is generally a crime. In many cases, a bribe is demanded in order to have done what should be done anyway.

More generally, one cannot, in practice, blackmail someone over a harmless fact. This is so even if no one but the victim regards the fact as having any importance.

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OscarCunningham3y ago· 1 in thread

For example a border officer could demand a bribe to let you into the country. In that case they are threatening not to let you in unless you pay them. But not letting you in is in fact illegal, since they have an obligation to their employer (the government) to let people in or not based on whatever criteria the government set, rather than their own interest.

So they are in fact threatening you with something illegal, unlike blackmail where they have the legal right to reveal embarrassing information about you.

mannykannotOP3y ago

Point taken; your have improved your argument by basing it on the illegality of the bribe-taker's acts of omission or commission - though there is a third class of bribery (perhaps the most common of all), where the bribe-taker is legally allowed to exercise their own discretion, and in such cases, the bribe acceptance itself is the only illegal act by the bribe-taker.† This brings us right back to the central fallacy (the composition fallacy - thanks, cinq!) of the paper we are discussing.

†Such as the recent college-admissions scandal in the US. That it is illegal, in some jurisdictions, to pay a bribe, is a point in your favor against the bribery analogy.

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