Theory of Politics: Summary of the relevant theories of political obligation
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Course
Theory Of Politics
Institution
University Of Oxford
Summary of all the relevant theories of political obligation
Mainly based on Simmons' book "Moral Principles and Political Obligations" (1979) and the Standford Encyclopedia
- Consent Theory
- Principle of Fair Play (e.g. Rawls)
- Raz's service conception
- Political Anarchism (Standford ...
The problem of political obligation
Political obligation = any kind of political requirement (not just those incurred through voluntary
actions)
Requirement: an imposition upon the individual’s will
Most states assume that their citizens have political obligations. Indeed, the functioning of a state
depends on citizens fulfilling these obligations (either voluntarily or forcedly)
When is a state’s authority legitimate?
Philosophically: when it uses force permissibly
Historically:
- The citizens acknowledge its legitimacy
- The international community accepts it as an existing state
PROBLEM: Nagel’s coercion argument: states do not only coerce their own citizens but also
citizens of other states, e.g. coercion which prevents them to emigrate to the state
What is authority? -> Includes both
(a) permissibility in the use of force and
(b) its citizens have duties
Problem = absence of general agreement about the grounding for political obligation
Kurt Baier: “traditionally, the problem of political obligation has been construed as the problem of
whether there is any such thing.” (footnote 1 from Simmons’ introduction, p. 3)
“Have we a moral obligation to obey the law, or are we merely “obliged” to do so by the
threat of legal sanctions?” (Simmons, p. viii)
Without such grounding, it seems, “obligation” seems to be merely a façon de parler, e.g.
referring to the threat of legal sanctions for failing to meet the expectations of the state.
What political theorists (apart from Gilbert, 2013) are after is stating an answer to the
problem of political obligation in moral terms.
Political obligation is also typically understood to be content-independent; that is, to be a
duty to obey the law as such, or simply because it is the law [Hart 1982, pp. 254–55]. Where
a person has a duty obey the law, the fact that the law requires her to X suffices to provide
her with a reason to X, independent of any judgment she may make regarding the merits of
performing X / of any prudential reasons to perform X
“The right to command, and correlatively, the right to be obeyed” (Wolff 1970, p. 4) conflicts
with “the refusal to be ruled” (p. 18) that is at the heart of autonomy.
The question of political obligation might look particularly relevant:
For those who live under authoritarian regimes or suffer legal discrimination, structural
injustice, or policy brutality -> one might think civil disobedience could be justified in those
cases
in non-ideal circumstances, although it’s hard to answer even in more ideal circumstances
The notion of an obligation raises “3 basic questions” (Simmons, p. 3):
1. An obligation to do what? -> most fundamentally we may distinguish between two types
of concrete political obligations
- Obey the law
, - Be a good citizen by supporting the political institutions in other ways (Simmons, p. 5)
Rawls speaks of an obligation to “support and comply with” the political
institutions of one’s country of residence (Simmons, p. 5)
- 3 features of law”
o Institutionalized
o Wide Scope
o Morally fallible
The question of political obligation turns on whether there are moral reasons to
obey the mandatory requirements of a wide-ranging, morally fallible,
institutionalized authority.
2. To whom is this obligation owed? -> some political entity, specified differently by the
different theories
- Consent theory: the political authority, i.e. the government
- principle of fair play: one’s fellow citizens
- principle of gratitude: the state as a set of political institutions
NOTE that the different answers to these first two questions are a matter of
specification
HOWEVER, the three theories fundamentally differ in their respective answers to the
final, most fundamental question, which partly determines the specific answers to the
first two questions:
3. How does one come to be under this obligation, i.e. the question about the grounding of
political obligation
Traditionally political obligation is equated with a moral duty to obey the law of one’s country or
state.main “principles of obligation” which may be applied to political obligation
Voluntarist Theories
the consent of the governed (especially tacit consent)
- “obligation of commitment”
- Based on a deliberate undertaking
- Voluntarily undertaken
considerations of fairness or fair play:
- “obligation of reciprocation”
- based on the acceptance of benefits
- Voluntarily (Hart, Rawls) OR non-voluntarily (Klosko) undertaken
Non-voluntarist Theories (the principles justifying legal authority do not invoke the choice or will of
the subjects among its reasons for thinking they are bound to obey)
Instrumental justification
E.g. service conception (Raz)
considerations of gratitude:
- “obligation of reciprocation”
- based on the receipt of benefits
- non-voluntary
, Natural duty
- Based on moral requirements
- Non-voluntary
Considerations of Necessity
● Elizabeth Anscombe argues that the domain of authority is the domain of necessary social
functions “If something is necessary, if it is, for example, a necessary task to human life, then
a right arises in those whose task it is, to have what belongs to the performance of the task”
(Anscombe 1978, 17)
● Two questions
○ What tasks are necessary?
○ What rights are needed to perform then?
● Klosko (1992): ‘presumptively beneficial public goods’: Goods that anyone would want and
which require social co-operation to produce.
NOTE that Klosko’s view is a combination of necessity and fair play
● Finnis (1979): law must provide a comprehensive framework for realizing a list of supposedly
self-evident values including life, knowledge, play, and religion.
● But: many of the activities of a legitimate government are optional.
QUESTION: What conditions must a theory of obligation meet to be “successful”? -> Fred’s
proposition:
1) theoretically successful in grounding for political obligation
2) it’s plausible, i.e. it is attractive in the light of the moral standards we expect reasonable
beings to have (leaving out of the picture who these people might be; DON’T speak of
“morally attractive”)
3) success for grounding the political obligation for all or at least most citizens in a practically
feasible political system, preferably one like our own.
if a principle of obligation can only account for grounding for political obligations in a
utopia or only for a (small) part of a state’s citizens, it arguably fails to solve the issue of
the lack of agreed-upon grounding of political obligations which citizens of existing or at
least realistic states are presumed to have.
OBLIGATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS
Before we can discuss the different principles, we have to establish what is meant by political
obligation.
The term obligation can be taken in a wider sense, referring to any kind of requirement/duty
Distinction between political, legal and civil obligation
Simmons (pp. 16-23) draws attention to the distinction between moral requirements and positional
requirements, i.e. the requirement by some scheme to fulfill certain duties that are related or tied to
the position he holds in that scheme.
For our discussion, it is important that we do not confuse positional requirements related to the
political institutions, e.g. legal requirements imposed by the legal system, with the political
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