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Biography
Other usesA promise is a commitment by someone to do or not do something.
In the law of contract , an exchange of promises is usually held to be legally enforceable, according to the Latin maxim pacta sunt servanda .
Types
Both an oath and an affirmation in law|affirmation can be a promise. One special kind of promise is the vow .
A notable type of promise is an election promise .
In contract law , a promise is a manifestation of intent to act or refrain from acting in a specified way at some point in the future.cite book | title=Promises and Contract Law | last=Hogg | first=Martin | year=2011 | publisher= Cambridge University Press | isbn=978-0-521-19338-2 | pages=1–57 It is communicated by one party, to at least one additional party, to signify a commitment has been made. The person manifesting intent is the Promisor. The person to whom the manifestation is addressed is the Promisee. Where performance of the promise is intended to benefit a person other than the Promisee, that person is a third-party beneficiary. In contract law, the word "promise" is used to refer to manifestations of intent resulting in the receiving party reasonably relying on some form of performance in the future. From this promise, a legal duty will arise, the breach of which the Promisee may recover damages or restitution. For example, A orally agrees to sell land to B (an offer). B agrees to buy the land and pays $1000 to A (acceptance of the offer). If the land did not legally belong to A, A fraudulently misrepresented himself to B, which would entitle B to recover his $1000 by virtue of the Theory of Restitution. If the promise is misunderstood or defective, there is no agreement, or the agreement is voidable at the election of one or both parties. An agreement between two parties may consist of two promises, which is referred to as a bilateral contract.
Oath: Individuals that take oaths should be honest and sincere about their statement or goal and be committed to fulfil a specified oath.cite journal |author=Buetow SA, Adams P |title=Oath-taking: a divine prescription for health-related behaviour change? |journal= Medical Hypotheses |volume=74 |issue=3 |pages=422–7 |year=2010 |month=March |pmid=20056339 |doi=10.1016/j.mehy.2009.06.035 |url= http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0306-9877(09)00466-6 |accessdate=2011-12-08
Examples
My friend promised me she would be there for my birthday.
My friend promised to do as I say.
My stepfather promised not to be cruel to me. - Cinderella
She gave me her promise.
I promise to watch this tv show before i go to bed.
Conditional commitment
In loan guarantee s, a commitment requires to meet an equity commitment , as well as other conditions, before the loan guarantee is closed.
Religion
Religions have similar attitudes towards promises.
Christianity
Main|OathIn Christianity, a distinction is made between simple promises and oaths or vows. An oath is a promise invoking God as a witness.cite book | title=Catholic Almanac 2010 | last=Bunson | first=Matthew | year=2010 | publisher= Our Sunday Visitor | isbn=978-1-59276-614-7 | page=149 A vow is a solemn form of a promise typically made to commit oneself to a moral good with God as witness, and binds oneself to its fulfillment over time.Bunson, op. cit. p.160
Some groups of Christians, such as the Religious Society of Friends and the Mennonite s, object to the taking of both oaths and affirmations, basing their objections upon a commandment given in the Sermon on the Mount , and regard all promises to be witnessed by God.
See also Covenant (biblical)|biblical covenants and Alliance (Bible)|biblical alliance .
Islam
In An-Nahl , god forbids Muslim s to break their promises after they have confirmed them. All promises are regarded as having Allah as their witness and guarantor. In the Hadith , the Muhammad|Prophet states that a Muslim who made a promise and then saw a better thing to do, should do the better thing and then make an act of atonement for breaking the promise.Citation needed|date=April 2010. It is frowned upon/forbidden to break a promise in Islam. However when someone does break a promise, they are required to beg for forgiveness. One of the many ways of doing so is fasting for a prescribed amount of time. One of the four types of promises that are punished quickly is when you want to harm a relationship when the other person wants to keep it ."Greater Sins." Al-Islam.org by the Ahlul Bayt DILP - Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. < http://www.al-islam.org/greater_sins_complete/26.ht
Philosophy
Philosophers have tried to establish rules for promises. Immanual Kant suggesed promises should always be kept, while some Consequentialism|cosequentialists argue that promises should be broken whenever doing so would yield benefits. In How to Make Good Decisions and Be Right All the Time , Iain King tried to reconcile these positions, suggesting that promises should be kept 'unless they are worth less to others than a new option is to you,' How to Make Good Decisions and Be Right All the Time: Solving the Riddle of Right and Wrong (2008), p.142 and that this requires a relevant, unforeseen and reasonably unforeseeable change in the situation more important than the promise itself arising after the promise is made. How to Make Good Decisions and Be Right All the Time: Solving the Riddle of Right and Wrong (2008), p.143
Politics
Promises are made to offer assurance, especially during election. Political tactic to offer promise that would guarantee a better future to lure voters. However, certain promises are made with few realistic supports to ever become existent. 2008 US presidential election, candidate Obama promised to "Prevent drug companies from blocking generic drugs from consumers." The promise was to prevent drug companies producing newer drugs to be granted the permission to block alternative drugs to be offered at a cheaper price, forcing consumer to purchase drugs with a heightened retailed price. Since his election as president, Obama has proposed a bill to counteract the current problem. However, after the introduction of the bill, no further progress has been made. Louis Jacobson, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/72/prevent-drug-companies-from-blocking-generic-drugs/ “Legislation unlikely to be enacted this year”, “Tampa Bay Times”, Mar 9th, 2012
See also
Contract law
Asmachta
Documentality
References
Plato , The Republic (Plato)|The Republic (ca 370 BC) Book I, 33IB
Cicero , De Officiis (ca 20 BC) I, C. IO, III, cc. 24-25
Decretales of Gregory IX lib. II, tit. 26, C. 27, canon law did not enforce all promises
Reinach, The Apriorischen Grundlagen des Bürgerlichen Rechtes (1922) §§ 2-4, that all rational societies need to have some way of making promises binding
