Consider this case: Tonya plans to doY, but Irving wants herto doX instead. Irving has tried unsuccessfully to provideTonya with reasons for doingX rather thanY. IfIrving is unwilling to resort to coercion or force, he might deployany of the following tactics to try to influence Tonya’s choice.For example, Irving might …

1. Charm Tonya into wanting to please Irving by doingX.
2. Exaggerate the advantages of doingX and thedisadvantages of doingY, and/or understate the disadvantagesof doingX and the advantages of doingY.
3. Make Tonya feel guilty for preferring to doY.
4. Induce Tonya into an emotional state that makes doingXseem more appropriate than it really is.
5. Point out that doingY will make Tonya seem less worthyand appealing to her friends.
6. Make Tonya feel badly about herself and portrayY as achoice that will confirm or exacerbate this feeling, and/or portrayX as a choice that will disconfirm or combat it.
7. Do a small favor for Tonya before asking her to doX, sothat she feels obligated to comply.
8. Make Tonya doubt her own judgment so that she willrely on Irving’s advice to doX.
9. Make it clear to Tonya that if she doesYrather thanX, Irving will withdraw his friendship, sulk, orbecome irritable and generally unpleasant.
10. Focus Tonya’s attention on some aspect of doingYthat Tonya fears and ramp up that fear to get her to change her mindabout doingY.

Each of these tactics could reasonably be called manipulation. Manyalso have more specific, commonplace names, such as “guilttrip” (tactic 3), “gaslighting” (tactic 8),“peer pressure” (tactic 5), “negging” (tactic6), and “emotional blackmail” (tactic 9). Perhaps noteveryone will agree thatevery tactic on this list isproperly described as manipulation. And in some cases, whether thetactic seems manipulative may depend on various details not specifiedin the case as described. For example, ifY is seriouslyimmoral, then perhaps it is not manipulative for Irving to induceTonya to feel guilty about planning to doY. It is alsopossible that we might revise our judgments about some of thesetactics in light of a fully worked out and well supported theory ofmanipulation—if we had one. Nevertheless, this list shouldprovide a reasonably good sense of what we mean by“manipulation” in ordinary discourse. It should also serveto illustrate the wide variety of tactics commonly described asmanipulation.

Manipulation is often characterized as a form of influence that isneither coercion nor rational persuasion. But this characterizationimmediately raises the question: Isevery form of influencethat is neither coercion nor rational persuasion a form ofmanipulation? If manipulation does not occupy the entire logical spaceof influences that are neither rational persuasion nor coercion, thenwhat distinguishes it from other forms of influence that are neithercoercion nor rational persuasion?

The term “manipulation” is commonly thought to include anelement of moral disapprobation: To say that Irving manipulated Tonyais commonly taken to be a moral criticism of Irving’s behavior.Is manipulation always immoral?Why is manipulation immoral(when it is immoral)? If manipulation is not always immoral, then whatdetermineswhen it is immoral?

• 1. Preliminaries
  • 1.1 Ordinary versus Global Manipulation
  • 1.2 Applications of a Theory of Ordinary Manipulation
  • 1.3 Two Questions about Manipulation
• 2. Answering the Identification Question
  • 2.1 Manipulation as Bypassing Reason
  • 2.2 Manipulation as Trickery
  • 2.3 Manipulation as Pressure
  • 2.4 Disjunctive, Hybrid, and Other Views
• 3. Answering the Evaluation Question
  • 3.1 Is Manipulation Always Wrong?
  • 3.2 Manipulation and Harm
  • 3.3 Manipulation and Autonomy
  • 3.4 Manipulation and Treating Persons as Things
  • 3.5 Other Suggestions
• 4. Further Issues
  • 4.1 Manipulating Persons versus Manipulating Situations
  • 4.2 Manipulation and Intent
  • 4.3 Manipulation, Vulnerability, and Oppression
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Preliminaries

1.1 Ordinary versus Global Manipulation

Forms of influence like those listed above are commonplace in ordinarylife. This distinguishes them from forms of influence described as“manipulation” in the free will literature. There, theterm “manipulation” typically refers to radicalprogramming or reprogramming of all or most of an agent’sbeliefs, desires, and other mental states. Such global manipulation(as we might call it) is also typically imagined as happening viadecidedly extra-ordinary methods, such as supernatural intervention,direct neurological engineering, or radical programs of indoctrinationand psychological conditioning. Global manipulation is typicallythought to deprive its victim of free will. This common intuitiondrives the “manipulation argument”, which seeks to defendincompatibilism by claiming that living in a deterministic universe isanalogous to having been the victim of global manipulation. (For adetailed discussion of this argument, see the discussion ofmanipulation arguments in the entry onarguments for incompatibilism.)

Despite the differences between what we might call “ordinarymanipulation” and the forms of manipulation in the free willliterature, it is still worth wondering about the relationship betweenthem. If global manipulation completely deprives its victim of freewill or autonomy, might more ordinary forms of manipulation dosomething similar, but on a more limited scale? If Tonya succumbs toone of Irving’s tactics, should we regard her as being lessfree—and perhaps less responsible—for doingX? Sofar, few people have explored the connections between ordinarymanipulation and the forms of global manipulation discussed in thefree will literature. (Two exceptions are Long 2014 and Todd2013).

1.2 Applications of a Theory of Ordinary Manipulation

Until recently, ordinary manipulation has seldom been the subject ofphilosophical inquiry in its own right. However, the fact that it iscommonly thought to undermine the validity of consent has led to itsfrequent mention in areas where the validity of consent is atissue.

One such area is medical ethics, where proposed conditions forautonomous informed consent often reference the need to ensure thatconsent is not manipulated. In fact, one of the earliest sustainedphilosophical discussions of manipulation appears in Ruth Faden, TomBeauchamp, and Nancy King’s influential book,A History andTheory of Informed Consent (1986). The view that manipulationundermines the validity of consent is widely held among medicalethicists. However, there is far less agreement about how to determinewhether a given form of influence is manipulative. Nowhere is thislack of agreement more apparent than in recent discussions of“nudges”.

The concept of a nudge was introduced by Cass Sunstein and RichardThaler to refer to the deliberate introduction of subtle, non-coerciveinfluences into people’s decision-making to get them to makemore optimal choices (Thaler & Sunstein 2009; Sunstein 2014). Somenudges merely provide better and more comprehensible information;these nudges might seem best characterized as influences that improvethe quality of rational deliberation. However, even with“purely” informational nudges, one might worry that theselection ofwhich information is presented could bemanipulative; perhaps providing nutrition information on foodpackaging nudges people to make food choices based on healthconsiderations rather than taste, for instance. More pressing concernsarise with nudges that operate by psychological mechanisms whoserelationship torational deliberation is questionable atbest. Many of these nudges exploit heuristics, reasoning anddecision-making biases, and other psychological processes that operateoutside of conscious awareness. For example, some evidence suggeststhat patients are more likely to choose an operation if they are toldthat it has a 90% survival rate rather than a 10% fatality rate. Wouldit be manipulative for a surgeon to exploit this framing effect tonudge the patient into making the decision that the surgeon thinksbest? Is it manipulative for a cafeteria manager to place healthierfood items at eye level to nudge customers into choosing them? Thequestion of whether and when nudges manipulate has sparked a livelydebate.

Some defenders of nudges suggest that because it is often impossibleto frame a decision without pointing the decision-maker insome direction, there is nothing manipulative about framingsuch decisions in one way rather than another. For example, physiciansmust provide outcome information either in terms of fatality rate orsurvival rate (and if they give both, they must give one first), andcafeteria managers must choose something to put at eye level in thedisplays. This being the case, why think that deliberately choosingone way of framing the decision over another is manipulative? Somedefenders of nudges suggest that in cases where it is inevitable tointroduce a non-rational influence into decision-making, deliberatelydoing so is not manipulative. But there are reasons to be wary of thisline of thought. Suppose that Jones is traveling to a job interview ona subway car so crowded that it is inevitable that he will bump upagainst his fellow passengers. Suppose that he capitalizes on thisfact to deliberately bump his rival job candidate (who is on the samesubway car) out the door just as it closes, thus ensuring that he willbe late for his interview. Clearly the fact that it was inevitablethat Jones’s rival would be subjected tosome bumpingdoes not excuse Jones for intentionally bumping his rival out thedoor. Similarly, even if we inevitably introduce non-rationalinfluences into each other’s decision-making, that fact seemsinsufficient to prove that such influences can never be manipulative.No doubt this analogy is imperfect, but it should suffice to call intoquestion the assumption that a deliberate nudge is not manipulativesimply because some nudging is inevitable. (For a similar argument,see Douglass 2022.)

More nuanced discussions of whether nudges manipulate tend to focusless on the inevitability of nudging in some direction or another, andmore on the mechanisms by which the nudging occurs, and the directionin which it pushes the person being nudged. Although there is wideagreement that some nudges can be manipulative, so far no consensushas emerged about which nudges are manipulative or how to distinguishmanipulative from non-manipulative nudges. (For a sample of approachesto the question of whether and when nudges manipulate, seeBlumenthal-Barby 2012; Blumenthal-Barby & Burroughs 2012; Saghai2013; Wilkinson 2013; Hanna 2015; Moles 2015; and Nys & Engelen2017. For arguments that nudges can be sometimes morally justifiedeven when they are manipulative, see Wilkinson 2017 and Nys &Engelen 2017).

Questions about the legitimacy of nudges go beyond the medicalcontext. Thaler and Sunstein advocate their use by government,employers, and other institutions besides the health care industry.The use of nudges by government raises additional concerns, especiallyabout the paternalism behind them (Arneson 2015; White 2013).Questions about other forms of manipulation in the political spherehave also been raised by philosophers and political theorists. Theidea that political leaders might gain, retain, or consolidatepolitical power by means that we would now call manipulative can betraced back at least as far back as ancient Greek figures likeCallicles and Thrasymachus. Niccolo Machiavelli not only details butrecommends political tactics that we would likely regard asmanipulative. More recent philosophical work on political manipulationincludes Robert Goodin’s 1980 book onManipulatoryPolitics and Claudia Mills’s important paper,“Politics and Manipulation” (1995), as well as Dowding(2016), Riker (1986), Ware (1981), Gorton (2016), Whitfield (2020),and the papers collected in (Le Cheminant and Parrish 2011); for anoverview of this literature, see Noggle (2021).

In the field of business ethics, much philosophical attention has beenfocused on the question of whether advertising is manipulative. Theeconomist John Kenneth Galbraith famously called advertising“the manipulation of consumer desire” and compared beingthe target of advertising with being

assailed by demons which instilled in him a passion sometimes for silkshirts, sometimes for kitchenware, sometimes for chamber pots, andsometimes for orange squash. (Galbraith 1958)

Several philosophers have made similar criticisms of advertising.Often, these criticisms are limited to forms of advertising that donot simply convey accurate factual information. As is the case withpurely informational nudges, the presentation of accurate informationin advertising might not be manipulative in and of itself, thoughperhaps the selection of which information is presented might bemanipulative. Be that as it may, most advertising attempts toinfluence consumer behavior by means other than or in addition topurely providing accurate information. Such non-informationaladvertising is the most apt target for worries about manipulation. TomBeauchamp and Roger Crisp have made influential arguments that suchadvertising can be manipulative (Beauchamp 1984; Crisp 1987). Similarcriticisms claim that non-informational advertising can subvertautonomy or improperly tamper with consumers’ desires (e.g.,Santilli 1983). Such critiques are either versions of or closerelatives to critiques of advertising as manipulation. On the otherside, Robert Arrington argues that, as a matter of fact, advertisingvery seldom manipulates its audience or undermines itsaudience’s autonomy (Arrington 1982). Michael Phillips hasmarshalled a large body of empirical evidence to argue that while someadvertising is manipulative, its critics vastly overestimate its powerto influence consumers (Phillips 1997).

1.3 Two Questions about Manipulation

As will be apparent from our discussion so far, two main questionsneed to be answered by any satisfactory theory of manipulation.

One question—call it theidentificationquestion—concerns definition and identification: How can weidentify which forms of influence are manipulative and which are not?A satisfactory answer would presumably involve a general definition ofmanipulation, which explains what the diverse forms of manipulativeinfluence have in common. In addition to illuminating how the variousinstances of manipulation are manifestations of a single more basicphenomenon, an answer to the identification question should alsoprovide criteria for determining whether a given instance of influenceis manipulative. Such an analysis might, of course, show that some ofthe phenomena that we were pre-theoretically inclined to count asmanipulation are relevantly different from clear cases ofmanipulation, so that we might be led to revise our usage of the term“manipulation.”

A second question—call it theevaluationquestion—concerns morality: How should we evaluate themoral status of manipulation? A satisfactory answer to this questionshould tell us whether manipulation is always immoral. And ifmanipulation is not always immoral, it should tell us how to determinewhen manipulation is immoral. But more importantly, asatisfactory answer to the evaluation question should explainwhy manipulation is immoral when it is immoral. What featureof manipulation makes it immoral in those situations when it isimmoral?

Although the identification and evaluation questions are distinct,they are not entirely independent. Any analysis of why manipulation isimmoral (when it is immoral) will presuppose some account of whatmanipulation is. Thus, our answer to the identification question willconstrain our answer to the evaluation question. But an answer to theidentification question might do more thanconstrain ouranswer to the evaluation question: it might alsoguide it. Ifan account of manipulation identifies its underlying characteristic asbeing relevantly similar to some other thing that we have independentgrounds for regarding as morally wrong, then we would likely want toargue that manipulation is wrong for similar reasons. Finally, wemight need to adjust our answers to one or both questions if theytogether imply implausible consequences. For example, if we definemanipulation as every form of influence besides rational persuasion orcoercion, and then claim that the wrongness of manipulation isabsolute, we will be forced to conclude that no form of influencebesides rational persuasion is ever morally legitimate. This is aradical conclusion that few would be willing to accept, but it is aconclusion that results from combining a certain answer to theidentification question with a certain answer to the evaluationquestion.

2. Answering the Identification Question

A number of accounts of manipulation have been put forward. They canbe grouped roughly into three main categories: those that characterizemanipulation as an influence that bypasses reason; those that treat itas a form of trickery, and those that treat it as a form of pressure.These are rough categories, and a single theory might fit into morethan one of them. But they are useful groupings nonetheless.

2.1 Manipulation as Bypassing Reason

Manipulation is often said to “bypass” the target’srational deliberation. It is not always clear, however, whether thisclaim is meant as a definition of manipulation or merely as astatement about manipulation (perhaps one that partly explains itsmoral status). But let us consider whether the idea that manipulationbypasses reason can serve as a definition of manipulation.

The thought that manipulative influences bypass the target’scapacity for rational deliberation is appealing for at least tworeasons. First, it seems reasonable to think that because manipulationdiffers from rational persuasion, it must influence behavior by meansthat do not engage the target’s rational capacities. Second, itseems intuitive to describe forms of influence that do clearly bypassthe target’s capacity for rational deliberation as manipulative.For example, suppose that subliminal advertising worked in the waythat it is commonly—though probablyinaccurately—portrayed, so that being exposed to a subliminalmessage urging you to “Drink Coke” could influence yourbehavior without engaging your mechanisms of rational deliberation.Intuitively such an influence would seem to be a clear case ofmanipulation.

Subliminal advertising tactics—along with hypnosis andbehavioral conditioning—are commonly portrayed as effectivemethods to influence others without their knowledge and thus withoutengaging their capacities for rational deliberation. The effectivenessof such tactics is almost certainly wildly exaggerated in the popular(and sometimes philosophical) imagination. However, if we imagine themworking as well as they are sometimes portrayed, then they wouldconstitute clear examples of what it might mean to say thatmanipulation bypasses reason. Thus, we might understand manipulationin terms of bypassing rational deliberation, and understand“bypassing rational deliberation” in terms of exploitingpsychological mechanisms or techniques that can generate behaviorwithout any input from rational deliberation.

Another way that manipulation might bypass rational deliberation wouldbe for it to appeal to non-conscious motivations. Eric Cave exploresthis idea in a pair of papers (Cave 2007, 2014) on what he calls“motive manipulation.” Cave distinguishes between“concerns,” which are conscious pro-attitudes, andunconscious “non-concern motives.” He then defines motivemanipulation as influence that operates by engaging unconsciousnon-concern motives. This theory clearly implies that appeals tonon-conscious motives, as well as influences that operate via“quasi-hypnotic techniques” and “crude behavioralconditioning” are manipulative (Cave 2014: 188). Although Cavehimself does not claim that all forms of manipulation are of this sort(Cave 2007: 130), would such a claim be plausible? Or could we add theappeal to non-conscious motives to the list of psychologicalmechanisms that bypass reason, and define manipulation in terms ofexploiting such mechanisms?

Unfortunately, this approach faces a serious problem. If we definemanipulation in terms of bypassing rational deliberation, and then usethe appeal to unconscious motives and exaggerated portrayals ofhypnosis and subliminal advertising to illustrate what it means tobypass rational deliberation, we will set a very high bar forsomething to count as manipulation. This bar would be too high tocount any of Irving’s tactics as manipulation, since none ofthem completely bypasses Tonya’s capacity for rationaldeliberation in the way that subliminal advertising, hypnosis,conditioning, or the appeal to unconscious motives would appear todo.

Perhaps a more promising account of what it might mean formanipulation to bypass reason would construe manipulation as aninfluence that is covert in a way that allows it to bypass reason.Certainly, if an influence is covert and thus escapes one’snotice, then it would also seem to escape any conscious reasoningprocess. An early version of the idea that manipulation is bestcharacterized as covert influence was suggested by the politicaltheorist Alan Ware (1981). Ware characterizes manipulation as aninfluence on the target which is covert in the sense that the targetlacks knowledge or understanding of how she is being influenced.

A more recent version of this view was put forward by Daniel Susser,Beate Roessler, and Helen Nissenbaum, who write that:“manipulation is hidden influence. … Covertly influencingsomeone—imposing a hidden influence—means influencing themin a way they aren’t consciously aware of, and in a way theycouldn’t easily become aware of” (Susser et al., 2019: 4).Alan Strudler suggests that “a sufficient even though notexhaustive characterization of manipulation” is that it involveschanging a person’s behavior “through a chain of eventsthat has the desired effect only because the person is unaware of thatchain” (Strudler 2005: 459).

This sort of view works well with influences like subliminaladvertising. But it would also appear to apply to other sorts ofpsychological influences that bypass conscious attention, such aspriming effects and the decision-making biases and other processesthat involve unconscious, fast processing made famous by the work ofDaniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and colleagues (see Kahneman 2013 foran overview). However, it faces obstacles in dealing with other clearcases of manipulation. Many manipulative influences, such as peerpressure, nagging, emotional appeals, guilt trips, do not appear to behidden influences. Indeed, it is difficult not to be aware of anattempted influence when that influence takes the form of nagging,peer pressure, or a guilt trip.

Perhaps, though, it is not the influence itself that must be covert inorder for it to bypass reason in the relevant sense. Perhaps it issufficient that the intent behind it must be covert. On this view, theinfluence itself may not bypass conscious attention. Yet it mightstill be the case that the covertness of the intent behind it rendersit less likely to trigger rational scrutiny by the target. Even if Iam aware of the attempt to influence me, if I am unaware of your trueintentions, I might fail to engage in rational deliberation aboutwhether I should try to resist your influence.

Such a view is defended by Radim Belohrad (2019), who claims that

In manipulation, the influencer is keen to create an impression thather motives are very different from what she projects. … Themanipulator always projects intentions that differ from her realintentions. (2019: 457–459)

Along similar lines, Gregory Whitfield (2020) claims that

An act of manipulation is any intentional attempt by an agent (A) tocause another agent (B) to will/prefer/intend/act other than what Atakes B’s will, preference or intention to be, where A does soutilizing methods that obscure and render deniable A’sintentions vis-à-vis B (2020: 11).

It is certainly true that manipulators often keep their trueintentions hidden. Iago wants Othello to think that he intends to behis friend, rather than the agent of his destruction. Exaggerating thebenefits of doing what the manipulator wants, while understating theadvantages of other options (tactic 2 on our list) probably worksbest, if at all, if the target falsely believes that the manipulatorintends to provide objective advice. However, there are other examplesof manipulation where the intent does not seem to be hidden. Theintent of a teenager nagging for a new cellphone is quitetransparent—to get the parent to provide the new phone.Similarly, when adolescents engage in peer pressure to get a fellow tosmoke, their intention—to get the target to smoke—is quitetransparent. Targets of guilt trips often—perhapstypically—know exactly what the guilt tripper intends to get thetarget to do. Perhaps anticipating these worries, Whitfield allowsmanipulation to occur when the manipulator has merely achieved“plausible deniability” about his true intentions. It isnot entirely clear, though, whether this feature allows the theory toescape the problem of forms of manipulation like nagging and peerpressure. It is certainly not obvious that such tactics only work, oronly count as manipulation, if their users can plausibly deny theirintentions.

Perhaps we might characterize manipulation not in terms of bypassingdeliberation altogether, but in terms of bypassingrationaldeliberation, that is, by introducing non-rational influences into thedeliberative process. Thus, we might follow Joseph Raz in claimingthat

manipulation, unlike coercion, does not interfere with aperson’s options. Instead it perverts the way that personreaches decisions, forms preference, or adopts goals. (Raz 1988:377)

Treating manipulation as bypassingrational deliberation, andthen characterizing “bypassing rational deliberation” interms of introducing non-rational influences into deliberation, wouldcohere nicely with the observation that manipulation is a contrary ofrational persuasion.

Despite its appeal, this approach faces a significant challenge: Manyforms of non-rational influence do not seem to be manipulative. Forexample, graphic portrayals of the dangers of smoking or texting whiledriving are not obviously manipulative even when they impart no newinformation to the target (Blumenthal-Barby 2012). In addition, moralpersuasion often involves non-rational influence. Appeals to theGolden Rule invite the interlocutor to imagine how it wouldfeel to be on the receiving end of the action underconsideration. It is difficult to believe that all such appeals areinherently manipulative, even when they appeal more to the feelingsthan to facts (of which the interlocutor may already be aware).Finally, consider something as innocuous as dressing up before goingon a date or an interview. Presumably, the purpose of such“impression management” is to convey a certain impressionto the audience. Yet dressing up on a single occasion provides littleif anyrational basis for conclusions about what thewell-dressed person is really like day in and day out. Thus,impression management of this sort seems to be an attempt atnon-rational influence. Yet it seems odd to count it asmanipulation—especially if we treat “manipulation”as having a connotation of being immoral. Of course, we might avoidthis problem by defining “manipulation” in a morallyneutral way, and then claiming that these forms of manipulation arenot immoral, while others are. But this would merely move the problemwithout solving it, for now we would want to know what distinguishesimmoral forms of manipulation from those that are not immoral.

Perhaps we could address this problem by defining reason more broadly,so that appeals to emotions could count as forms of rationalpersuasion. Such a move might be independently motivated by therejection of what some critics regard as the hyper-cognitivist radicalseparation of reason from emotion. However, it is not clear thatallowing emotional appeals to count as rational persuasion will get usvery far in defining manipulation in terms of bypassing reason. Forwhile we will have avoided the implausible implication that allappeals to emotion areipso facto manipulative, we now facethe question of which appeals to emotion are manipulative and whichare not. And that is close to the very question that the idea ofbypassing reason was supposed to help us answer.

Thus, despite the plausibility of the claim that manipulation bypassesthe target’s capacities for rational deliberation, using thisclaim todefine manipulation faces serious challenges: If wetake “bypassing” very literally, then the account seems tomiss many examples of genuine manipulation. But if we loosen ourunderstanding of “bypassing reason” so that it applies toany non-rational form of influence, then it seems to count asmanipulative many forms of influence that do not seem manipulative.And if we fixthat problem by adopting a conception of reasonaccording to which appeals to the emotions are notipso factonon-rational, then we are left with the original problem ofdetermining which appeals to the emotions are manipulative and whichare not. Perhaps there is a way to characterize “bypassingreason” that can undergird a plausible definition ofmanipulation in terms of bypassing reason. But the most obvious waysto define “bypassing reason” face serious problems.

Nevertheless, even if defining manipulation in terms of bypassingreason turns out to be a dead end, it is still possible thatmanipulation really does bypass reason insome sense. But itmay turn out that we need an independent definition of manipulationbefore we can determine inwhat sense manipulation bypassesreason. Some writers, such as Cass Sunstein and Jason Hanna, seem tohave such an approach in mind when they initially characterizemanipulation in terms of bypassing or subverting reason, but then goon to gloss “bypassing or subverting” in terms of someother account of manipulation (Sunstein 2016: 82–89; Hanna2015).

However, a recent argument by Moti Gorin raises questions for theclaim that manipulation bypasses reason—even when that claim isnot being used to define what manipulation is (Gorin 2014a). Gorinargues that manipulation can occur even when the target is offeredonly good reasons. His argument turns largely on examples like this:James wishes for Jacques’s death, since this would enable Jamesto inherit a large fortune. James knows that Jacques believes that (1)God exists, and that (2) if God did not exist, life would bemeaningless, and he would have no reason to go on living. Jamesprovides Jacques with rational arguments against the existence of God.These arguments fully engage Jacques’s rational faculties, andconsequently Jacques concludes that God does not exist. Jacquespromptly commits suicide—just as Jack had hoped he would. AsGorin notes, James’s activities do not appear to have bypassed,subverted, or otherwise been detrimental to Jacques’s capacityfor reason—indeed, James depended on Jacques’s ability toemploy his rational faculties to draw (what James regarded as) thecorrect conclusion from his arguments. If we accept Gorin’scharacterization of James’s actions as manipulative, then hisexample poses a significant challenge to the claim that manipulationalways bypasses the target’s capacity for rationaldeliberation.

2.2 Manipulation as Trickery

A second approach to manipulation treats it as a form of trickery, andties it conceptually to deception. The connection between manipulationand deception is a common theme in both non-philosophical andphilosophical discussions of manipulation. In his 1980 bookManipulatory Politics, Robert Goodin argues that manipulationis inherently deceptive, and offers this test for whether an influenceis manipulative: “1. Is the interference deceptive? 2. Is theinterference contrary to the putative will of those subject toit?” (Goodin, 1980: 35). In the literature on advertising, thecharge that (at least some) advertising is manipulative often rests onthe claim that it creates false beliefs or misleading associations(e.g., linking the vitality of the Marlboro man to a product whichcauses lung cancer). Similarly, in his discussion of promises, T. M.Scanlon condemns manipulation as a means of inducing false beliefs andexpectations (Scanlon 1998: 298–322). Shlomo Cohen offers asomewhat different account of the relationship between manipulationand deception, according to which the distinction lies in the methodsby which the target is induced to adopt a false belief (Cohen 2018).But even on this more nuanced view, there is still a strong connectionbetween manipulation and deception.

Other views in this family treat manipulation as a broader category ofwhich deception is a special case. Whereas deception is the deliberateattempt to trick someone into adopting a faulty belief, these versionsof the trickery account see manipulation as the deliberate attempt totrick someone into adopting any faulty mental state—belief,desire, emotion, etc.

An early example of this version of the trickery approach tomanipulation can be found in a 1980 paper by Vance Kasten, who writesthat

manipulation occurs when there is a difference in kind between whatone intends to do and what one actually does, when that difference istraceable to another in such a way that the victim may be said to havebeen misled. (Kasten 1980: 54)

Although many of Kasten’s examples of misleading involvedeception, he also includes examples in which manipulation involvesinducing the target to have inappropriate emotions like guilt. Morerecently, Robert Noggle has defended a version of this more expansiveapproach, writing that

There are certain norms or ideals that govern beliefs, desires, andemotions. Manipulative action is the attempt to get someone’sbeliefs, desires, or emotions to violate these norms, to fall short ofthese ideals. (Noggle 1996: 44)

The norms or ideals in question will vary by mental state: a belieffalls short of its ideal if it is false; a pattern of attention fallsshort of its ideal if excessive attention is being paid to somethingless relevant for choice at hand; an emotion falls short of its idealif it is not appropriate to the situation (Noggle 1996: 44–47).

In a similar vein, Anne Barnhill writes that

manipulation is directly influencing someone’s beliefs, desires,or emotions such that she falls short of ideals for belief, desire, oremotion in ways typically not in her self-interestor likely notin her self-interest in the present context. (Barnhill 2014: 73,emphasis original; for a similar view, see Hanna 2015)

Claudia Mills offers a theory that can be considered as either aversion of, or a close relative to, the trickery account:

We might say, then, that manipulation in some way purports to beoffering good reasons, when in fact it does not. A manipulator triesto change another’s beliefs and desires by offering her badreasons, disguised as good, or faulty arguments, disguised assound—where the manipulator himself knows these to be badreasons and faulty arguments (Mills 1995: 100; see Benn 1967 and Gorin2014b for somewhat similar ideas).

A similar picture of manipulation emerges from the work of thepolitical theorist Keith Dowding (2016, 2018). Dowding does notattempt to characterize manipulation directly. Rather, he proposesideal conditions for persuasion in a deliberativedemocracy—conditions that would exclude manipulation. Theseconditions prohibit appealing to reasons that the persuader does notaccept, and appealing to emotions that the persuader does not share.These prohibitions seem to suggest a characterization of manipulationas the attempt to influence the target by appealing to what themanipulator sees as bad reasons or inappropriate emotions. Thispicture of manipulation is either a version of, or a close cousin to,the picture of the manipulator as trying to trick the target intomaking choices based on faulty beliefs or inappropriate emotions.

Thus, while all versions of the trickery view retain the connectionbetween manipulation and deception, some extend it to include trickingthe target into adoptingany faulty mental state, includingbeliefs, desires, emotions, etc. This view might be further expandedby adopting Michael Cholbi’s observation that the phenomenon ofego depletion might induce targets of manipulation to form faultyintentions (that is, intentions that do not reflect their consideredvalues) because their resistance to temptation has been worn down(Cholbi 2014).

The trickery view can be motivated by appeal to various examples, oneespecially fruitful set of which is Shakespeare’sOthello. It seems natural to describe Shakespeare’scharacter Iago as a manipulator. The activities in virtue of which hemerits this label seem to involve various forms of trickery. Forexample, through insinuation, innuendo and cleverly arrangingcircumstances (like a strategically placed handkerchief) he tricksOthello into suspecting—and then believing—that his newbride Desdemona has been unfaithful. He then plays on Othello’sinsecurities and other emotions to lead him into an irrationaljealousy and rage that both overshadow his love for Desdemona andcloud his judgment about how to react. The trickery view accounts forour sense that Iago manipulates Othello by noting that Iago tricks himinto adopting various faulty mental states—false beliefs,unwarranted suspicions, irrational emotions, and so on.

Proponents of the trickery view disagree over several details, mostnotably how to define afaulty mental state. Some proponentsof the trickery view argue that manipulation occurs when theinfluencer attempts to inducewhat the influencer regards asa faulty mental state into the target’s deliberations (Mills1995; Noggle 1996; this idea is built into Dowding’s account).Others argue that we should define manipulation in terms of theattempt to introduce anobjectively faulty mental state intothe target’s deliberations (Hanna 2015: 634; see also Sunstein2016: 89). Anne Barnhill suggests that our usage of the term“manipulation” is inconsistent on the question of whosestandards determine whether the influencer attempts to induce thetarget to adopt a faulty mental state (Barnhill 2014).

Although the trickery account has considerable appeal, it faces animportant challenge: It apparently fails to count as manipulative awhole class of tactics that seem, intuitively, to be manipulative.Tactics like charm, peer pressure, and emotional blackmail (tactics 1,5, and 9) do not seem to involve trickery. Yet it seems quite naturalto regard them as examples of manipulation.

2.3 Manipulation as Pressure

A third way to characterize manipulation is to treat it as a kind ofpressure to do as the influencer wishes. On this account, tactics likeemotional blackmail and peer pressure are paradigm cases ofmanipulation, since they exert pressure on the target by imposingcosts for failing to do what the manipulator wishes. One rationale fortreating manipulation as a form of pressure is the observation thatmanipulation is neither rational persuasion nor coercion. It seemsplausible, then, to suppose that there is a continuum between rationalpersuasion and coercion with regard to the level of pressure beingexerted, with rational persuasion exerting no pressure, coercionexerting maximum pressure, and the middle region, manipulation,exerting pressure that falls short of being coercive. In this way, wemight arrive at the idea that manipulation is a form of pressure thatdoes not rise to the level of coercion.

One of the earliest philosophical accounts of manipulation, by RuthFaden, Tom Beauchamp, and Nancy King, has this structure. They beginby contrasting using rational persuasion to convince a patient to takea medically necessary drug with simply coercing him to take it. Thenthey observe that

There are many in-between cases: For example, suppose the physicianhas made clear that he or she will be upset with the patient if thepatient does not take the drug, and the patient is intimidated.Although the patient is not convinced that it is the best course totake the medication, … the patient agrees to take the drugbecause it appears that acceptance will foster a better relationshipwith the doctor… Here the patient performs the action …under a heavymeasure of control by the physician’srole, authority, and indeed prescription. Unlike the first case, thepatient does not find it overwhelmingly difficult to resist thephysician’s proposal, but, unlike the second case, it isnonetheless awkward and difficult to resist this rather“controlling” physician. (Faden, Beauchamp, & King1986: 258)

They claim that such “in between” cases constitutemanipulation. However, they do not claim thatall forms ofmanipulation fall into the middle region of this continuum; they alsocount forms of deception, indoctrination, and seduction asmanipulative, and claim that

some manipulative strategies can be as controlling as coercion or asnoncontrolling as persuasion; other manipulations fall somewherebetween these endpoints. (Faden, Beauchamp, & King 1986: 259)

Nevertheless, the idea that at least some forms of manipulationinvolve pressure has been very influential.

Joel Feinberg offers a similar account of manipulation. He writes thatmany techniques for getting someone to act in a certain way

can be placed on a spectrum of force running from compulsion proper,at one extreme, through compulsive pressure, coercion proper, andcoercive pressure, to manipulation, persuasion, enticement, and simplerequests at the other extreme. The line between forcing to act andmerely getting to act is drawn somewhere in the manipulation orpersuasion part of the scale. (Feinberg 1989: 189)

Michael Kligman and Charles Culver offer a similar account:

The attempt to influenceB’s behavior takes on amanipulative character when …A’s primary intentis no longer to convinceB, in a good faith manner, thatacting as desired byA would be in keeping withB’s rational assessments of outcome; [but rather] toprocure or engineer the needed assent by bringing pressure to bear, ina deliberate and calculated way, on what he presume to be themanipulable features ofB’s motivational system.(Kligman & Culver 1992: 186–187)

Kligman and Culver go on to distinguish this manipulative pressurefrom coercion by claiming that the latter, unlike the former, involves“sufficiently strong incentives … that it would beunreasonable to expect any rational person not to so act”(Kligman & Culver 1992: 187). More recently, Marcia Baron andAllen Wood have also discussed forms of manipulation that seem bestcharacterized as forms of pressure (Baron 2003; Wood 2014).

Although we can treat the idea that manipulation consists of a form ofpressure as a full-fledged theory of manipulation, most of the authorsjust cited hold only that some forms of manipulation consist ofpressure. In particular, most agree with Faden, Beauchamp, and King,that other forms of manipulation are more akin to deception. Thus, itis somewhat artificial to speak of the pressure model as a theorymeant to cover all forms of manipulation. It is more accurate toregard the pressure model as claiming that exerting non-coercivepressure is sufficient (but perhaps not necessary) for an influence tocount as manipulative.

2.4 Disjunctive, Hybrid, and Other Views

Our discussion of the trickery and pressure accounts highlights arather striking fact: If we survey the tactics that seem intuitivelyto be examples of manipulation, we find tactics that seem bestdescribed as forms of trickery as well as tactics that seem bestdescribed as forms of pressure. This is puzzling, since, on the faceof it, trickery and pressure seem rather dissimilar. What should wemake of the fact that we use the sameconcept—manipulation—to refer to methods of influence thatseem to operate by such dissimilar mechanisms?

Several responses are possible. First, it is possible that the commonusage of term “manipulation” refers to such a diverse setof phenomena that no single analysis will capture every form ofinfluence to which the term is commonly applied. Felicia Ackermanargues that the term “manipulation” exhibits“combinatorial vagueness”: while it is connected tofeatures like inhibition of rational deliberation, unethicalness,deceptiveness, playing upon non-rational impulses, shrewdness,pressure, etc., “no condition on the list is sufficient,… and no single condition … is even necessary” foran instance of influence to be manipulative (Ackerman 1995:337–38).

Second, we might hold that the concept of manipulation is not vaguebut rather disjunctive, so that manipulation consists ofeither trickeryor pressure. Indeed, in one of theearliest philosophical analyses of manipulation, Joel Rudinow takesthis approach. Rudinow begins with the following thesis:

A attempts to manipulateS iffA attemptsto influenceS’s behavior by means of deception orpressure or by playing on a supposed weakness ofS. (Rudinow1978: 343)

He goes on to claim that that the use of pressure is manipulative onlyif the would-be manipulator directs it at some supposed weakness inhis target that will render the target unable to resist it; this leadshim to finalize his definition in terms of “deception or byplaying upon a supposed weakness” of the target, with the seconddisjunct meant to cover pressure-based tactics (Rudinow 1978: 346).Several other philosophers have followed Rudinow’s disjunctiveapproach to defining manipulation (Tomlinson 1986; Sher 2011; Mandava& Millum 2013). Indeed, as we have noted, it is common for peoplewho discuss manipulative pressure to claim that manipulation comes inother forms as well.

A somewhat different version of the disjunctive strategy might beginwith the pressure account’s continuum pressure of betweenrational persuasion and coercion, but go on to add a second dimensionconsisting of a continuum between rational persuasion and outrightlying. We might then define manipulation in terms of a two-dimensionalspace bounded by rational persuasion, outright lying, and coercion. Astrategy like this is suggested by Sapir Handelman, although he adds athird dimension that measures the level of “control” thata given form of influence exerts (Handelman 2009).

Patricia Greenspan suggests that manipulation is a sort of hybridbetween coercion and deception. She writes that

cases of manipulation seem to have a foot in both of the usualcategories of intentional interference with another agent’sautonomy, coercion and deception, but partly as a result, they do notfit squarely in either category. (Greenspan 2003: 157)

Thus, we might characterize her view as a “conjunctive”theory of manipulation, according to which it contains elements ofboth pressureand deception. It certainly seems truethat manipulators often use both pressure and deception. For example,a manipulator who employs peer pressure might also exaggerate theextent to which the target’s peers will disapprove of her if shechooses the option that the manipulator wants her not to choose.However, we can also point to relatively pure cases of manipulativepressure or manipulative trickery: Indeed, all of the items on thelist above can be imagined as involving either pure pressure or puretrickery. The apparent existence of cases of manipulation that involveonly deception or only pressure seems to be a problem forGreenspan’s hybrid view.

Strategies for characterizing manipulation that combine the trickeryand pressure accounts are appealing because they seem to do a betterjob than either the trickery or pressure account alone in accountingfor the wide variety of tactics that seem intuitively to count asmanipulation. However, this wider coverage comes at a price. If thedisjunctive approach simply puts an “or” between thetrickery and pressure accounts, then it will leave unanswered thequestion of what, if anything, makes all forms of manipulationmanifestations of the same phenomenon. Of course, it is possible thatthis question cannot be answered because, as a matter of fact, thereare two irreducibly different forms of manipulation. But this seemslike a conclusion that we should accept only reluctantly, after havingmade a good faith effort to determine whether there really is anythingin common between pressure-based manipulation and trickery-basedmanipulation. (For a recent attempt to locate a common feature ofmanipulative pressure and manipulative trickery, see Noggle 2020).

One possible answer to this challenge might be drawn from MarciaBaron’s important paper on “Manipulativeness”, whichdiagnoses the underlying moral wrong in manipulation in terms of anAristotelian vice. She suggests treating manipulativeness as the viceof excess with regard to “to what extent—and how and whenand to whom and for what sorts of ends—to seek to influenceothers’ conduct” (Baron 2003: 48). On her view,manipulativeness is at the opposite extreme from the vice of

refraining from offering potentially helpful counsel; or refrainingfrom trying to stop someone from doing something very dangerous, forexample, from driving home from one’s house while drunk. (Baron2003: 48)

Perhaps, then, we can understand the underlying similarity betweentrickery- and pressure-based manipulation as manifestations of acommon vice, as different ways of going wrong with regard to how andhow much we should try to influence those around us.

Although Baron’s remarks about the mind-set of the manipulatorare insightful and instructive, it is unclear whether they suffice toanswer the characterization question. For it is unclear whether, bythemselves, they can distinguish manipulation from other forms ofexcess with regard to influence, such as coercion.

The idea that manipulation should be characterized at least in part byreference to the mindset of the manipulator also appears in recentwork by Michael Klenk (2022). According to Klenk, the manipulatorinfluences negligently: manipulation involves influencing someone bysome method while disregarding whether that method reveals reasons forthe target to do, think, or feel as the manipulator wishes (Klenk2022: 97). While this view requires a certain mindset from themanipulator, it also has some affinities for the trickery view,inasmuch as the negligence required is negligence with regard towhether the influence tricks the target into changing how he feels,acts, or thinks for a bad reason or no reason at all. A hybrid viewalong these lines might allow us to integrate some of Baron’sinsights about the manipulator’s mindset with a more specificcharacterization of the sort of influence to which that mindsetleads.

3. Answering the Evaluation Question

A complete answer to the evaluation question should tell us about thesort of wrongfulness that manipulation possesses: Is it absolutelyimmoral,pro tanto immoral,prima facie immoral,etc.? It should also tell uswhen manipulation is immoral ifit is not always immoral. Finally, a satisfactory answer to theevaluation question should tell uswhy it is immoral in caseswhen it is immoral.

3.1 Is Manipulation Always Wrong?

Suppose that Tonya is a captured terrorist who has hidden a bomb inthe city and that her preferred course of action is to keep itslocation secret until it explodes. And suppose that Irving is an FBIinterrogator who wants Tonya to reveal the bomb’s locationbefore it explodes. How would this way filling in the details of thecase change our moral assessment of the various ways that Irving mightinduce Tonya to change her mind?

One rather extreme answer would be: “not at all”. Thishardline view would hold that manipulation is always morally wrong, nomatter what the consequences. Inasmuch as this hardline view resemblesKant’s notorious hardline position that lying is always wrong,one might look to Kant’s ethics for considerations to supportit. But just as hardly anyone accepts Kant’s hardline positionagainst lying, the hardline view against manipulation also seems shorton defenders.

A less extreme position would be that while manipulation is alwayspro tanto wrong, other moral considerations can sometimesoutweigh thepro tanto wrongness of manipulation. Thus, wemight think that manipulation is always wrong to some extent, but thatcountervailing moral factors might sometimes suffice to makemanipulation justified on balance. What might such factors include?One obvious candidate would be consequences—for example, thefact that Irving’s successful manipulation of Tonya would savemany innocent lives. Non-consequentialist factors might also bethought to be countervailing considerations: Perhaps the immorality ofTonya’s character, or the fact that she is acting on an evildesire or intention, is a countervailing factor that can outweigh thepro tanto wrongness of Irving’s manipulation. It isimportant to note that, on this view, the fact that an action involvesmanipulation is always a moral reason to avoid it, even if strongercountervailing considerations render it not wrong on balance. Forexample, even if Irving’s manipulation of Terrorist Tonya is notwrong on balance (e.g., because of the innocent lives that will besaved), if Irving can get Tonya to reveal the bomb’s locationwithout manipulation (or anything else that is comparably immoral),then it would be morally better to avoid manipulating her.

By contrast, we might hold that manipulation is merelyprimafacie immoral. On this view, there is a presumption thatmanipulation is immoral, but this presumption can be defeated in somesituations. When the presumptionis defeated, manipulation isnot wrong at all (i.e., not evenpro tanto wrong). On thisview, we might say that while manipulation is usually wrong, it is notwrong at all in the terrorist scenario. On this view, not only isIrving’s manipulation of Terrorist Tonya not wrong on balance,but there is not even any moral reason for him to choose anon-manipulative method of getting Tonya to reveal the bomb’slocation if one is available.

A more complex—but, perhaps, ultimately moreplausible—view would combine theprima facie andpro tanto approaches. Such a view would hold thatmanipulation isprima facie immoral, but that when it iswrong, the wrongness ispro tanto rather than absolute. Onthis view, there are situations in which the presumption againstmanipulation is defeated and manipulation is not evenprotanto wrong. Perhaps bluffing in poker is like this. But wherethe presumption is not defeated, the wrongness of manipulation is onlypro tanto, and thus able to be outweighed by sufficientlyweighty countervailing moral considerations. In such cases, even if itis not wrong on balance to manipulate, it would still be morallypreferable to avoid manipulation in favor of some other, morallylegitimate, form of influence. Manipulating a friend into refrainingfrom sending a text to rekindle an abusive relationship might be anexample where thepro tanto wrongness of manipulation isoutweighed by other considerations. In such a case, it seems plausibleto maintain that it would be morally preferable to use reason ratherthan manipulation to get one’s friend to see that sending thetext would be a mistake, even if the facts of the situation wouldjustify resorting to manipulation. A view along these lines has beendefended by Marcia Baron (2014: 116–17). Although this view isfar less absolute than the hardline view, it retains the claim thatmanipulation isprima facie wrong, so that there is always apresumption that it is immoral, though this presumption is sometimesdefeated. It is also compatible with the idea that the term“manipulation” has built into it a connotation of moraldis-approbation.

However, the claim that manipulation is presumptively wrong might bechallenged. One might argue that “manipulation” is, or atleast should be, a morally neutral term without even the presumptionof immorality. On this view, whether a given instance of manipulationis immoral will always depend on the facts of the situation, and theterm itself includes (or should include) no presumption one way or theother. Clearly there are non-moralized notions of manipulation. Whenwe speak of a scientist manipulating variables in an experiment, or apilot manipulating the plane’s controls, our use of the term isdevoid of any hint of moral opprobrium. In the social sciences, we canfind cases of the term “manipulation” being used in amorally neutral way even when another person is the target ofmanipulation. For example, several papers by the evolutionarypsychologist David M. Buss and colleagues use the term“manipulation” more or less as a synonym for“influence” in their discussions of how humans influencethe behavior of other humans (D.M. Buss 1992; D.M. Buss et al. 1987).Of course, pointing out morally neutral usages of“manipulation” does not really settle the question ofwhether we should prefer a moralized or a non-moralized notion ofmanipulation. An argument for preferring a non-moralized notion ofmanipulation is provided by Allen Wood, who writes that

If we think that moral argument should proceed not merely by invokingour pro- or con- sentiments, or appealing to our unargued intuitions,but instead by identifying objective facts about a situation that giveus good reasons for condemning or approving certain things, then wewould generally do much better to use a non-moralized sense of wordslike “coercion”, “manipulation”, and“exploitation”—a sense in which these words can beused to refer to such objective facts. (Wood 2014: 19–20)

No matter how we answer the question of whether manipulation ingeneral is absolutely immoral,prima facie immoral,protanto immoral, or not even presumptively immoral, there areclearly situations in which manipulation is immoral. Any completeanswer to the evaluation question must explain why manipulation isimmoral in those cases where it is immoral. In addition, any view thatholds that manipulation is onlypro tanto and/orprimafacie immoral should tell us what sorts of considerations candefeat the presumption that it is immoral and/or outweigh itsprotanto immorality. Several accounts have been offered to identifythe source of the moral wrongfulness of manipulation (when it iswrong).

3.2 Manipulation and Harm

Perhaps the most straightforward way to explain the wrongfulness ofmanipulation (when it is wrong) would point to the harm done to itstargets. Manipulation is commonly used aggressively, as a way to harmthe manipulator’s target, or at least to benefit the manipulatorat the target’s expense. The harmfulness of manipulation seemsespecially salient in manipulative relationships, where manipulationmay lead to subordination and even abuse. The more minor economic harmof the extraction of money from consumers might be cited as awrong-making feature of manipulative advertising, and there has beensome discussion of how manipulation might lead targets to enter intoexploitative contracts. Systematic political manipulation may weakendemocratic institutions and perhaps even lead to tyranny.

But not all instances of manipulation harm their victims. In fact,manipulation sometimes benefits its target. If the harm to the victimis the only wrong-making feature of manipulation, then paternalisticor beneficent manipulation could never be evenpro tantowrong. But this claim strikes most people as implausible. To see this,consider that the debate about whether paternalistic nudges arewrongfully manipulative is not settled simply by pointing out thatthey benefit their targets. The fact that it seems possible for an actto be wrongfully manipulative, even though it benefits (and isintended to benefit) the target, presumably explains why there arefew, if any, defenses of the claim that manipulation is wrongonly when and because it harms the target. Nevertheless, itseems plausible to hold that when manipulation does harm its target,this harm adds to the wrongness of the manipulative behavior.

3.3 Manipulation and Autonomy

Another natural way to account for the wrongness of manipulation wouldbe to claim that it violates, undermines, or is otherwise antitheticalto the target’s personal autonomy. Manipulation, by definition,influences decision-making by means that—unlike rationalpersuasion—do not seem to be autonomy-preserving. Thus, it isnatural to regard it as interfering with autonomous decision-making.The idea that manipulation is wrong because it undermines autonomouschoice is implicit in discussions of manipulation as a potentialinvalidator of consent. But even outside of discussions of autonomousconsent, the claim that manipulation is immoral because it underminesautonomy is commonly made (and perhaps even more commonlyassumed).

However, there are reasons for caution about tying the moral status ofmanipulation too tightly to its effects on autonomy. One can imaginecases where it is not obvious that manipulation undermines autonomy.One can even imagine cases where manipulation might enhance thetarget’s overall autonomy. For example, a teacher mightmanipulate a student into taking a class which ultimately enhances herautonomy by opening new career options, improving her skills ofcritical self-reflection, etc. We might also imagine cases wheremanipulation is used to support the target’s autonomous choice.Suppose that Tonya has autonomously decided to leave an abusivepartner, but that she is now tempted to go back. If Irving resorts toa manipulative tactic designed to keep her from backsliding on herautonomous choice to leave her abuser, then his action might seem lesslike undermining Tonya’s autonomy and more like supportingit.

One might respond that these examples do not undermine the claim thatmanipulation is wrong when and because it undermines autonomy becausethese autonomy-enhancing instances of manipulation are not wrong.However, this response faces a complication: Consider the case whereIrving manipulates Tonya into resisting the temptation to backslide onher resolution to leave her abusive partner. It seems plausible to saythat Irving’s manipulation in this case is not wrong on balance.But it also seems plausible to say that it was neverthelessprotanto wrong, since it seems plausible to think that it would havebeen morally preferable for Irving to find some non-manipulative wayto help Tonya avoid backsliding. But this judgment seems inconsistentwith the claim that manipulation is wrong when and because itundermines autonomy. Of course, it is open to defenders of theautonomy account of the wrongness of manipulation to bite the bullethere and deny that autonomy-enhancing manipulation is evenprotanto immoral.

Alternatively—and perhaps more plausibly—the defender ofthe autonomy account of the wrongness of manipulation might concedethat Irving’s autonomy-enhancing manipulation of Tonya ispro tanto wrong. But she might explain this by claiming thatwhile the manipulation is autonomy-enhancing overall, it neverthelessundermines Tonya’s autonomy in the short term. The fact thatIrving’s manipulation undermines Tonya’s autonomytemporarily explains why it ispro tanto immoral—andwhy it would be morally better for Irving to find a non-manipulativeway to help Tonya avoid backsliding. But the fact that themanipulation enhances Tonya’s autonomy overall explains why itis not immoral on balance. Of course, this strategy will not appeal tothose who hold that it is wrong to undermine a person’s autonomyeven when doing so enhances that same person’s overallautonomy.

A more significant threat to the link between manipulation andautonomy appears in an influential paper by Sarah Buss. She arguesthat “when we are obligated to refrain from manipulation ordeceiving one another, this has relatively little to do with the valueof autonomy” (S. Buss 2005: 208). Buss’s argument has twoparts. First, she claims that manipulation does not, in fact, depriveits victim of the ability to make choices; indeed, it typicallypresupposes that the target will make her own choice. But if themanipulation does not take away the target’s choice, Bussmaintains, it does not undermine her autonomy. (For a similarargument, see Long 2014). Second, Buss argues that it is false toclaim that an autonomous agent would rationally reject being subjectedto manipulative influences. To support this claim, Buss argues thatmanipulation and deception are “pervasive forms of humaninteraction which are often quite benign and even valuable” (S.Buss 2005: 224). Her most notable example is the cultivation ofromantic love, which often involves—and may evenrequire—significant amounts of behavior that is aptly describedas manipulation.

Defenders of the link between autonomy and the wrongness ofmanipulation are not without potential replies to Buss’sintriguing argument. For one thing, it seems possible to craft anotion of autonomy according to which having false information (orother faulty mental states) or being subjected to pressure (even whenit does not rise to the level of coercion) compromise a person’sautonomy. Even though false beliefs about how to achieve one’sends may not compromise one’s authentic values or one’spowers of practical reasoning, they do seem to compromise one’sability to achieve one’s autonomously-chosen ends, and it isplausible to regard this as a diminishment of (some form of) autonomy.Moreover, the defender of the link between autonomy and the wrongnessof manipulation might simply deny that the forms of manipulation towhich an autonomous agent would consent (for example, those requiredby romantic love) arewrongful cases of manipulation.

3.4 Manipulation and Treating Persons as Things

Several accounts of manipulation tie its moral status to the fact thatit influences behavior by methods that seem analogous to how one mightoperate a tool or a device. On this view, manipulation involvestreating the target as a device to be operated rather than an agent tobe reasoned with. As Claudia Mills puts it,

a manipulator is interested in reasons not as logical justifiers butas causal levers. For the manipulator, reasons are tools, and badreasons can work as well as, or better than, a good one. (Mills 1995:100–101)

The point here is that a manipulator treats his target not as a fellowrational agent, for that would require giving good reasons for doingas the manipulator proposes. Instead, the manipulator treats histarget as a being whose behavior is to be elicited by pressing themost effective “causal levers”.

Of course, the idea that treating a person as a mere object is immoralis a prominent feature of Kant’s account of respect for persons(see the entry onrespect). Thus, it would be natural to appeal to Kantian ideas to helpelaborate the idea that manipulation is wrong because of the way thatit treats its target. As Thomas E. Hill writes,

The idea that one should try to reason with others rather than tomanipulate them by nonrational techniques is manifest in Kant’sdiscussion of the duty to respect others. (Hill 1980: 96)

AlthoughKant’s moral philosophy is a natural place to look for the idea that the wrongfulness ofmanipulation derives from a failure to treat the target as a person,there are potential drawbacks to tying the account too tightly toKant. For Kant’s notion of rational agency appears to be of thehyper-cognitive, hyper-intellectual variety. Hence, if it is unethicalto fail to treat someone asthat kind of rational agent, wemight be pushed toward the conclusion that the only acceptable basisfor human interaction is the kind of coldly intellectual rationalpersuasion that excludes any appeal to emotions. But as we sawearlier, there are good reasons for regarding such a conclusion asimplausible.

These considerations certainly do not entail that it is hopeless tolook to some notion of treating persons as things for an account ofthe wrongfulness of manipulation. But they do suggest that more workmust be done before the claim that manipulation is wrong because ittreats a person as a mere thing can be regarded as much more than aplatitude.

3.5 Other Suggestions

Although harm, autonomy, and treating persons as things are the mostprominent suggestions about what makes manipulation wrong when it iswrong, one can find other suggestions in the literature. For example,Marcia Baron’s virtue-theoretic account of manipulativenesssuggests that we might account for what is wrong about manipulation interms of the character of the manipulator (Baron 2003). PatriciaGreenspan suggests that when manipulation is immoral, it is because itviolates the terms of the relationship between the manipulator and histarget—terms that will vary according to the nature of therelationship between them (Greenspan 2003). Such a viewsuggests—plausibly—that the moral status of a giveninstance of manipulation will depend at least in part on the nature ofthe relationship between the influencer and the target of theinfluence.

4. Further Issues

In addition to answering the identification and evaluation questions,a complete theory of manipulation should address several furtherissues.

4.1 Manipulating Persons versus Manipulating Situations

Discussions of manipulation often distinguish between cases where themanipulator influences his target directly, and cases where themanipulator influences the target’s behavior by arranging thetarget’s environment in ways that induce her to act one wayrather than another. Consider Joel Rudinow’s example of amalingerer who manipulates a psychiatrist into admitting him to thepsychiatric ward (Rudinow 1978). He does this by fooling a policeofficer into thinking he is about to commit suicide. The policeofficer brings him to the ward, reports that he is suicidal, andrequests that he be admitted. Although the psychiatrist is not fooled,her hospital’s rules force her to admit the malingerer at thepolice officer’s request. It seems clear that the malingerer hasmanipulated the police officer by tricking him into adopting a faultybelief. But the psychiatrist, while not falling for the feignedsuicide attempt and thus not adopting any faulty beliefs, isnevertheless induced to do what she did not want to do. Although itseems correct to say that the psychiatrist was manipulated, this formof manipulation seems different from what was done to the policeofficer. By feigning a suicide attempt, the malingerer has tamperedwith the police officer’s beliefs. But he has maneuvered thepsychiatrist into admitting him, not by tampering with herpsychological states, but rather by “gaming the system”,as we might say.

In his book,The Art of Political Manipulation (Riker 1986)the political scientist William Riker calls the latter form ofmanipulation “heresthetic,” and characterizes it as“structuring the world so you can win” (1986: ix). Hisfocus is on political tactics like gerrymandering, poison pillamendments, and strategic voting, all of which are often described asmanipulation, and all of which seem more like what Rudinow’smalingerer does to the psychiatrist than what he does to the policeofficer.

In a similar way, the sociologists Donald Warwick and Herbert Kelmandistinguish between “environmental” and“psychic” manipulation (Warwick & Kelman 1973). Theirwork influenced Faden, Beauchamp, and King’s seminalphilosophical account of manipulation, which makes a similardistinction (Faden, Beauchamp, & King 1986: 355–68). AnneBarnhill distinguishes between manipulation that “changes theoptions available to the person or changes the situation she’sin, and thereby changes her attitudes” on the one hand, andmanipulation that “changes a person’s attitudes directlywithout changing the options available to her or the surroundingsituation” on the other (Barnhill 2014: 53). Drawing a similardistinction, Claudia Mills writes

IfA wants to getB to do act x, there are twogeneral strategies thatA might undertake.A mightchange, or propose to change, the external or objective features ofB’s choice situation; or alternatively,Amight try to alter certain internal or subjective features ofB’s choice situation. While some writers might callboth strategies manipulative, at least in certain circumstances, Iprefer to reserve the labelmanipulation for a subset ofmorally problematic actions falling in the second category. (Mills1995: 97)

Although Rudinow’s case provides a clear contrast between whatwe might call psychological manipulation and situational manipulation,this distinction—or at least its importance—is not alwaysso clear. Considertactic 9 above, where Irving threatens to withdraw his friendship if Tonyadoes not do as Irving wishes. Is this direct psychologicalmanipulation, or situational manipulation? The criterion offered byBarnhill and others counts it as situational manipulation, sinceIrving changes Tonya’s choice situation so that doing Y andretaining Irving’s friendship is no longer an option. But how isthis tactic any less of a direct interference with Tonya’sdecision than if Irving had engaged in some form of deception? Whywould it be more like what the malingerer does to the police officerthan what he does to the psychiatrist?

This is not to deny that there is a difference between psychologicaland situational manipulation. Instead, it is to ask what thatdifference is, and why it might matter. Presumably, the distinction ismeant to differentiate between tactics that affect a target’sbehavior by directly tampering with her psychology and those that donot. But if this is the distinction, then it seems plausible to thinkthat Irving’s use of emotional blackmail is at least as direct atampering with Tonya’s psychology as, say, Iago’s droppingof the handkerchief in a location where it will trick Othello intobecoming inappropriately suspicious. Yet criteria like those proposedby Mills and Barnhill seem to imply that these two forms ofmanipulation are on opposite sides of that distinction.

Nevertheless, there does seem something importantly different betweenwhat the malingerer in Rudinow’s example does to the policeofficer and what he does to the psychiatrist. But much work remains tobe done to provide a well-motivated account of that difference. Suchan account should not only get the intuitively right answers in casesof direct pressure (like emotional blackmail) and indirect deception(like Iago’s dropping the handkerchief), but it should alsoexplain whether and why the distinction makes a moral difference.

4.2 Manipulation and Intent

Some views of manipulation seem to suggest, if not require, thatmanipulators have fairly complex intentions—such as theintention to lead the target astray—for manipulation to occur.Marcia Baron and Kate Manne offer compelling reasons to think thatsuch requirements are too strong. Baron argues that manipulation canoccur even if the manipulator only has

a combination of intent and recklessness: the aim of getting the otherperson do what one wants, together with recklessness in the way thatone goes about reaching that goal. (Baron 2014: 103)

She goes on to argue that the manipulator need not be aware that shehas that intention (Baron 2014, 101). Manne agrees; to support thisclaim, she offers the example of Joan, who gives extravagant gifts torelatives who pay her less attention than (she thinks) they should(Manne 2014, 225). Manne tells Joan’s story in such a way thatit seems plausible to say both that Joan’s gift-giving is amanipulative attempt to make her relatives feel guilty, and that Joandoes not consciously intend to make her relatives feel guilty. IfManne’s description of her example is correct, then it seemsthat Joan can manipulate her relatives into feeling guilty withouthaving any conscious intention of making them feel guilty. (Later,Manne [2014, 235] goes even farther, suggesting that “people caneven behave manipulatively despite consciously intending notto.”) Of course, those who hold that manipulation requires moreconscious intention than Manne allows might simply deny thatJoan’s behavior is manipulative. Nevertheless, the argumentsoffered by Baron and Manne raise important questions about the levelof conscious intentionality required for an action to bemanipulative.

The question of what sort of intention is required for an act to countas manipulative has practical implications for assessing the behaviorof children, who sometimes behave in ways that seem aptly described asmanipulative even when they are too young to have the complicatedintentions that some theories of manipulation might require. Similarworries arise for assessing the behavior of people for whommanipulativeness has become a habit, or a part of their personalities.Indeed, certain personality disorders—such as borderlinepersonality disorder and antisocial personality disorder—areoften characterized by manipulativeness, as is the so-calledMachiavellian personality type (Christie & Geis 1970). Asprofessor of psychiatric nursing Len Bowers writes,

the manipulative behaviour of some personality-disordered (PD)patients is consistent and frequent. It is an integral part of theirinterpersonal style, a part of the very disorder itself. (Bowers 2003:329; see also Potter 2006)

In such cases, one wonders what level of intentionality lies behindbehavior that we would otherwise think of as manipulative. Even if weare inclined to regard childhood or certain personality disorders asfactors that mitigate the blameworthiness of manipulative behavior, itwould seem counterintuitive for a theory of manipulation to say thatchildren and persons with personality disorders are incapable ofacting manipulatively.

4.3 Manipulation, Vulnerability, and Oppression

The idea that manipulation can be a tool for the powerful to oppressthe less powerful is not new, even if the term“manipulation” has not always been used to express it.Marxian notions of ideology and false consciousness as mechanisms thatfacilitate the exploitation of workers by capital clearly resemble theconcept of manipulation as it is being used here. (Allen Wood exploressome of these connections in Wood 2014.) More recently, the concept of“gas lighting” has become a common feature of feministtheorizing about how the patriarchy manipulates women into doubtingtheir own judgments about reality. On a smaller scale, a bevy ofself-help books focus on how manipulative tactics can be used tocreate and maintain subordination within relationships (Braiker 2004;Simon 2010; Kole 2016).

A relative lack of socio-political power is almost certainly onesource of vulnerability to manipulation. But there are likely othersas well. The trickery model of manipulation suggests that people whoare less intellectually sophisticated are especially vulnerable totrickery and therefore to manipulation. The pressure model suggeststhat financial, social, and emotional desperation may make oneespecially vulnerable to pressures created by threats to worsen analready tenuous situation. Moreover, some forms of manipulation, likeso-called “negging” (tactic 6) and gaslighting (tactic 8) may work to increase the target’s vulnerability to furthermanipulation.

However, it may also be true that manipulation is a tempting tool foruse by the vulnerable against the powerful. As Patricia Greenspannotes,

manipulation is often recommended as a strategy particularly forwomen, or simply is treated as characteristic of women, at least in aworld where women cannot act openly to achieve their ends. A furtherargument for manipulation in these cases appeals to the limits on whatis possible in a position of subordination. (Greenspan 2003: 156)

Similarly, Len Bowers observes that

it is possible to interpret manipulation as a normal response toincarceration, rather than as being a pathological style ofbehavior,

…

manipulative strategies may be viewed as a low-key way of fightingback at a system which has deprived the prisoner of normal freedom.(Bowers 2003: 330)

Finally, it seems likely that one reason why children often resort tomanipulative tactics is that they often lack any other (or any otherequally effective) way to get what they want.

It is also worth noting that the idea that manipulation underminesautonomous choice might itself be used, somewhat paradoxically, toundermine autonomous choice, especially among the non-elite. Thispoint is comes out forcefully in a comment by Sarah Skwire (2015,Other Internet Resources) on George Akerlof and Robert Shiller’sbook,Phishing for Phools (Akerlof & Shiller2015). Akerlof and Shiller discuss a number of advertising, sales, andmarketing practices that they deem manipulative. Skwire suggests thatthe reason why Akerlof and Shiller call these practices manipulativeis that consumers subjected to them make choices that Akerlof andShiller think are sufficiently irrational that they would only be madeunder the influence of manipulation. Skwire writes that this approachto detecting manipulation demonstrates “contempt for thedecisions made by people who are poorer and from a lower social classthan the authors” (Skwire 2015, Other Internet Resources). Inshort, she suggests that Akerlof and Shiller are too quick to suspectmanipulation in cases where people make different decisions from theones they think best. Whether or not we agree with Skwire’scriticisms of Akerlof and Shiller, her point serves as a cautionaryone: Even if we accept that manipulation undermines autonomous choice,we must be careful not to use that as a reason to suspect that peoplewho make different choices from what we think are best must thereforebe victims of manipulation. It would be ironic—andunjust—to use the idea that manipulation is a wrongfulinterference with autonomy as a weapon to delegitimize the autonomouschoices of people with whom we disagree or whose situations, needs,and values we do not understand.

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