Moral Principles and Political Obligations

251 Pages·21.226 MB·English

by  A. John Simmons.

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CONTENTS
PREFACE Vii
INTRODUCTION 3
CHAPTER I. Obligations 7
Li. Obligations and Final Judgments 7
I.II. Obligation and Duty 11
Lin. Positional Duties and Moral Requirements 16
I.iv. "Prima Facie" Requirements 24
CHAPTER II. The Problem of Political Obligation 29
II.i. The Limits of the Investigation 29
II.II. Political Obligation and Political Language 38
II.III. Utilitarianism and Political Obligation 45
II.iv. The Standards of Success 54
CHAPTER III. The Consent Tradition 57
III.i. Consent Theory 57
III.ii. The Major Assumptions 61
III.III. Majority Consent 71
CHAPTER IV. The Argument from Tacit Consent 75
IV.i. Consent Defined 75
IV.II. Tacit Consent 79
IV.III. Locke and the Failure of Tacit Consent 83
IV.iv. Tacit Consent and Residence 95
CHAPTER V. The Principle of Fair Play 101
V.i. Hart and Rawls on Fair Play 101
V.n. Fair Play and Justice 109
V.III. Fair Play and Political Obligation 114
V.iv. Nozick's Arguments 118
V.v. The Principle in Political Communities 136
CHAPTER VI. The Natural Duty of Justice 143
VI.i. Rawls on Political Obligation 143
VI.II. When Institutions "Apply to Us" 147
Vl.m. Justice and Political Bonds 152
CHAPTER VII. Gratitude 157
VII.i. The Benefits of Government 157
VII.II. Debts of Gratitude 163
VII.III. Gratitude as a Ground of Political Obligation 183
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER VIII. Concluding Remarks 191
VIII.i. Political Obligation and Disobedience 191
VIII.II. Political Obligation and Legitimacy 195
NOTES 202
BIBLIOGRAPHY 219
INDEX 229
PREFACE
It is in a way remarkable that the problem of political
obligation continues to puzzle political philosophers.
That it is a "core" problem has seemed obvious to
thinkers of many different times and persuasions. Cer-
tainly the liberal tradition in political theory has con-
tinued to stress its importance over many centuries. The
classical political treatises of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau,
and Kant all display the centrality of the problem of polit-
ical obligation quite clearly. Nor have contemporary
writers overlooked it. Yet in spite of this, it is difficult
today to find two philosophers who even agree on a basic
approach to the problem, let alone on its solution.
There are, no doubt, many reasons for this apparent lack
of progress toward an accepted result. Surely the absence
of agreement on any general theory of justification in
ethics is responsible for much of the confusion. And the
distressing inadequacies of consent and contract theories
(on which much of the liberal political tradition is built)
have led to a great deal of aimless wandering. But equally
important in this respect have been the philosopher's in-
sistence on regarding the problem as rather simpler than
it is, his failure to examine the full range of possible solu-
tions to the problem, and his refusal to make clear from
the start what could count as a genuine solution to the
problem.
This essay is an attempt to understand and answer the
ancient questions about political obligation in a way
which I hope will strike the reader as careful and system-
atic. A successful effort in this area would, of course, be
important to political philosophers. But I hope that my
arguments and conclusions will be of interest to others as
well, for we all surely have a common stake in these mat-
ters. Only a very unusual man will have never at least
seriously considered disobeying the law. And while dis-
viii PREFACE
obedience is often a relatively trivial matter of conven-
ience, this is not always so. Disobedience in the name of
widely shared moral values or fundamental political
principles is also a commonplace. It is natural in such
contexts to wonder if our relationship to our government
constrains us to obey, or if such (real or imagined) politi-
cal bonds can be voided or overridden by competing
moral considerations. Few of us doubt that disobedience
is at least sometimes justifiable, but we may wonder if
there is a moral presumption in favor of obedience, which
can be overcome only in cases of obvious or prolonged in-
justice or oppression. Have we a moral obligation to obey
the law, or are we merely "obliged" to do so by the threat
of legal sanctions? Because moral obligations are taken
seriously by most of us, the answer to such questions will
influence our attitudes toward our political and legal
authorities and institutions. If a clear and satisfactory
account of our political bonds can be given, the results
should be of interest to nonphilosophers and directly rel-
evant to their conception of the ties which may exist be-
tween them and the political institutions of their coun-
tries of residence.
Accordingly, I have tried in this essay to present the
basic positions, the main lines of argument, and the im-
portant conclusions clearly and directly, with as little use
as possible of technical jargon. Because this book is in-
tended as a contribution to moral and political philoso-
phy, of course, there will be references and arguments
which nonphilosophers may find perplexing or unil-
luminating. But these should not prevent the primary
force of my presentations from being appreciated by any
careful reader. Parts of Chapters I, II, and III are specifi-
cally introductory in character, and should be especially
useful to those who are new to the subject. Sections Li,
I.iii, II.i, and IILi, for instance, include arguments which
will already be familiar to many philosophers. But be-
cause discussions of these matters are essential pre-
liminaries to the arguments which follow, I encourage
PREFACE ix
even my philosophical audience not to pass over these
sections entirely.
There is, of course, a great deal of literature (not all of it
philosophical) on the problem of political obligation; and
while it would be both vain and foolish to ignore it, I can-
not possibly do justice to all of it in this essay. I discuss
many of the most important presentations in the text,
often beginning my own arguments with an examination
of the work of others. But many other useful works go
unmentioned. A reasonably complete list of these is in-
cluded in the Bibliography. In spite of the volume of liter-
ature on the problem, however, I am convinced that as yet
no adequate job has been done in handling the topic of
political obligation. Many treatments are simply too com-
pressed and incomplete to be useful, appearing in the
context of a discussion of some other issue (like civil dis-
obedience or democratic government). Many others de-
rive their conclusions only by way of background theories
(e.g., linguistic or justificatory) which are not at all con-
vincing. What is lacking almost throughout is a careful
presentation of the problem's complexities conjoined
with an analysis of the moral principles which might ac-
count for the ground of political obligation.
A major part of this essay will be devoted to my exami-
nation of a set of principles of duty and obligation. For
one can only plausibly maintain that political obligation
falls (or does not fall) under a particular moral principle,
if one demonstrates that the principle actually applies (or
does not apply) to citizens in normal political environ-
ments. And such a demonstration presupposes an ade-
quate account of the conditions which must obtain for the
duty or obligation to arise. Thus, we often read that politi-
cal obligation is grounded in the consent of the governed
(especially tacit consent), or in considerations of fairness,
or gratitude; and we expect an analysis of the moral prin-
ciples being appealed to. Yet such analyses are strikingly
absent from the literature on political obligation, and
surely in their absence no conclusions about political ob-