A deathbed scenario raises the question: how much power should a promise hold?

How much power should a promise hold, and when – if ever – should a promise be broken? In this brief animation, Sarah Stroud, the director of the Parr Center for Ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, lays out a complex scenario in which a dying woman asks for, and receives, promises from her wife, including that she never remarry. From this starting point, Stroud explores how philosophers including John Locke, David Hume and John Rawls have viewed the role of promises in the social contract, and in so doing makes a compelling case that axioms such as ‘don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep’ perhaps shouldn’t always apply.