Why Is the Criterion of Estoppel Empty?

Abstract

This paper argues – pace Kinsella – that dialogical estoppel, the task of which is to justify rights to punish, is an empty criterion. What is the most damaging to the employment of estoppel is that the relation between a given act and a moral belief it demonstrates is one-to-many. That is, a given act might exemplify infinitely many moral principles an agent might be committed to. It is, we posit, this very fact that renders the estoppel criterion empty, for it always remains underdetermined on which moral principle an agent acts. But if so, then we can never know what it is that an agent is estopped from complaining. Moreover, we submit that any appeal to morally relevant description of the offender’s action either begs the question or invokes external moral reasons, which only shows that estoppel in and of itself – notwithstanding Kinsella’s pretenses to the contrary – is unable to perform its task.