ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide an analysis of the concept of coercion. Accusations of coercion often underpin attempts to show that particular commercial practices involve the wrongful use of people, or the violation of their autonomy, or that any consent given is invalid. More specifically, it’s sometimes said that only people who were coerced would ‘volunteer’ to sell a body part, or to provide ‘sexual services’, or to be surrogate mothers. For, as Kligman and Culver put it,
an offer of payment can take on some of the qualities of manipulation, or even coercion; for example, if the offer is grossly unfair, or one party has no way of accurately assessing the value of his services, or one’s need for the offered sum is so pressing that one is not genuinely free to refuse the offer.3
