Entrapment: From the objection from temptation to the objection from moral alliance

Entrapment involves two parties: the agent, who entraps, and the target, who is entrapped. When entrapment occurs, the agent procures the target’s act by recommending, requesting or enjoining its performance. When an agent intentionally tempts a target, the agent presents the target with the opportunity to perform an act, with the intention that the target will experience an urge to perform it. Mere virtue testing is weaker: here, the agent intentionally presents the opportunity, but without the intention to tempt. One moral objection to entrapment has it that the entrapment is impermissible because it involves temptation. With the benefit of the aforementioned background material, we scrutinize, and reject, both this objection and a logically weaker one that is recoverable from it. We argue, instead, that when entrapment morally allies the agent, in a manner that we explain, with the target’s act then it is thereby impermissible