In the section of his essay entitled, "Can Saying Make It So?" Austin discusses the idea that certain utterances, such as to do with marriage or promises, are binding and therefore enforces the idea of this "spiritual shackle" that symbolizes one's willful intent behind his words.
Austin describes the spoken word/utterance as "the leading incident in the performance of the act," and hardly ever being "the sole thing necessary if the act is to be deemed to have been performed" (683). It is essential with these particular instances that other actions be true, such as intending to keep a promise, or in the case of marriage, not already being married to another person. He stresses that when you outwardly voice the words, "I promise to..." you must be committing yourself to keeping your word.
This idea reminds me of Locke's argument on the Abuse of Words, wherein he states, "he that hath words of any language, without distinct ideas in his mind to which he applies them, does, so far as he uses them in discourse, only make a noise without any sense or signification" (825). This example of the imperfection in our language directly correlates with Austin's opinions on the lines between true and false statements. In Austin's case, a promise that is not intended to be fulfilled is given in bad faith. He observes that, "in no case do we say that the utterance was false but rather that the utterance was void, or not implemented, or the like...his utterance is perhaps misleading, probably deceitful and doubtless wrong, but it is not a lie or a misstatement" (684).
With this in mind, I wonder how we can even know that our heart seeks to fulfill any promises we make, to marry, donate, or even be somewhere at an appointed time. Divorce is direct proof for the break of those traditional vows of marriage. So even if someone promises to marry someone "for good or for worse," whose to say they won't change their mind in twenty days or twenty years from that point? Locke describes men as deceitful creatures, concluding his essay with the statement, "it is in vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving, wherein men find pleasure to be deceived" (827). If our language allows us to make promises in bad faith, what's the point of having these long winded traditions of marriage vows or even make small promises?
I think that although promises have the capacity to be false, they are still a necessary part of language today. How else are we to indicate that we have a contract or agreement with another person, except by stating that we "promise" them something? Austin's discussion of active language indicates that language helps us solidify the actions that we take, as when we name something or when we make a bet. However, much of this active language is ceremonial, and so has a ritual action that goes with it. When we make small promises, there is generally no physical action that goes with the promise, and it is partly this which makes promises seem so hard to pin down. There is nothing except for the spoken word, the invocation, to indicate our intentions, which makes it easier to undo these intentions later. This seems to imply that, while language has power, it is how we ourselves implement language that gives it its real worth.
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