serve as counterevidence of the importance of promising in maintaining social relations of equality amid local conditions of vulnerability. Tongan society is so pervasively hierarchical that much of its social interaction and dialogue is colored by status differences.126

Whether or not Korn and Korn or Slackman are correct in the conclusions they draw about an absence of promise or about the insincerity of promise­ in the societies they observe, it does seem correct that an assumption about the universality of promise usually goes hand in hand with a natural law stance about the fundamental nature of promise in human society. Such a belief in the natural law basis of promises raises questions as to the source of the moral force of promises, an issue which is addressed in Chapter 2.

5.  Preliminary conclusions

What may be concluded about promises from the discussion thus far, a discussion which has been largely definitional in nature? A definition of a promise has been suggested, namely that a promise is

a statement by which one person commits to some future beneficial performance (or the beneficial withholding of a performance) in favour of another person.

This definition, which proved sufficiently robust to withstand a number of suggested criticisms of it, will be maintained for the purposes of the analysis to be undertaken in the remainder of this work, though it must be borne in mind that individual legal systems may (as will be seen) have somewhat differing conceptions of a promise.

It has been argued that promising is a human social institution whose nature is therefore determined by human beings. It has further been argued that, while the theory of promise rests upon the presence of a subjective intention by the promisor to be bound by the commitment, such an intention not only requires to be externally and objectively manifested by some words or conduct before it is held to give rise to a promise, but the existence and extent of such intention can only realistically be assessed from just such an objective perspective.

It has been noted that the definition proposed is sufficiently broad to encompass both conditional and unconditional promises, gratuitous and non-gratuitous promises, and unilateral and bilateral promises. The

126  Shiffrin, ‘The Divergence of Contract and Promise’, p. 714, n. 8.