bwv812 wrote:zhensley is calling everything that hasn't been done a promise.
"gift/gratuitous promise" v. "(conditional) promise constituting consideration"
which most people would think of as promise v. offer, given the way the question was asked.
an extremely poorly written and dumb way of answering the question, especially in saying that the gift promise constitutes consideration (which it doesn't if you take the accepted view that consideration is a two-way street and that when we talk about there being consideration for a promise we're talking about the inducement for the promise; to take the [tautological] view that the promise itself is always consideration—to the extent that it is a promise to do something—I think the normal response is: "no shit, that's what the word 'promise' means")
I really don't know what your problem is. I've already stated that I was making my first post simplistic so as to bracket everything but the issue at hand. I'll take responsibility for your not understanding what I wrote in the first post. The fact that you still don't understand is due to your denseness, I think.
If you go back and look at this conversation again between cannoneer and myself, you'll see the problem I was trying to point out. When you equivocate, you run the risk of sliding between the two different senses of the word 'promise'. That is, at one point, cannoneer was claiming that the term 'promise' referred only to gratuitous promises. Then, by the end of it, he was claiming that (using his own terminology) that illusory promises aren't promises at all. Assuming that illusory promise=gratuitous promise, then he's claimed on the one hand that all promises are gratuitous/illusory and that no gratuitous/illusory promise is a real promise.
So, again, if you want me to say that my original post was misleading, then that's fine. I'll admit that, but you seem incapable of realizing that my subsequent posts have clarified that.
Now, I never claimed that a gratuitous promise was consideration. What I said was that, if I stated, "I'll pay you $100" and you said "I accept" the big problem with it is that YOU didn't offer anything as consideration. That is, the entire contract doesn't have to be explicit. State it this way: If I say to you "I'll give you $100" and you, because you're a good law student, reply, "Well, I'll mow your lawn for that $100." Since the promise doesn't have to be completely explicit, a court very easily could take it that given the context in my promise was implied an offer; in fact, it is likely that a court would find a contract even if you didn't respond with a promise, but by actually mowing my lawn. I'm not saying that they definitely will, but it's possible. The point is this: that phrase, "I'll give you $100" can function as consideration; or at least it can be offered as consideration. I did not say that a gratuitous promise was supported by consideration. What I said was that in the example where I say, "I'll give you $100" is that YOU didn't offer anything as consideration.
Again, you seem to excel at missing the point: my point was never to claim that an offer doesn't have to be in exchange for something; nor have I ever claimed that a gratuitous promise constituted consideration (if by consideration you're here using it as that which will make an agreement legally binding, but I said that I would have offered a promise as consideration, but was not met with any consideration from you). I was merely saying that the term 'promise' was being used by several previous posters that was likely to lead to confusion because of equivocation (as has been made readily apparent in, for example, cannoneer's postings).