Political Obligation

Michael Lacewing
enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk

© Michael Lacewing
 The question
• Do we have an obligation to obey the
laws of the state, and if so, why?
• People are free and equal - how can
they be legitimately coerced?
• ‘Because it is morally right’: do we
have a duty to obey laws that are
morally wrong?
• ‘Because we agreed’: have we?
Explicit consent
• Locke: ‘Men being…by nature all
free, equal and independent, no
one can be put out of this estate
and subjected to the political
power of another without his own
consent, which is done by agreeing
with other men, to join and unite
into a community for their
comfortable, safe and peaceable
living…they have thereby made that
community one body, with a power
to act as one body, which is only
the will and determination of the
majority…
 Explicit and tacit consent
• Locke: ‘And thus every man, by consenting with others to
make one body politic under one government, puts himself
under an obligation to everyone of that society to submit to
the determination of the majority…’ (Second Treatise §§95f.)
• But, as Locke realized, no one does this; we are born into
society. Explicit consent can’t be the basis of political
obligation.
• ‘Tacit’: not spoken, but understood to have been given: ‘every
man that hath any possession or enjoyment of any part of the
dominions of any government doth hereby give his tacit
consent…whether this his possession be of land to him and his
heirs for ever…or whether it be barely travelling freely on the
highway’ (§119)
 Tacit consent
• Hume: how can we express dissent,
then? ‘such an implied consent can only
have place where a man imagines that
the matter depends on his choice… Can
we seriously say that a poor peasant or
artisan has a free choice to leave his
country, when he knows no foreign
language or manners, and lives, from
day to day, by the small wages which he
acquires?’ (‘Of the Original Contract’ in
Essays Moral, Political and Literary)
• Consent is meaningless unless
understood as consent.
 Hypothetical consent
• Perhaps it is not actual consent that is
needed for political obligation, but just that
consent would be rational or is deserved.
E.g. it would be rational to agree to laws if
we didn’t have any.
• Freedom: That it would be rational for me to
consent does not mean that I do consent.
• Circumstance: that I would consent in a
state of nature does not mean it is rational
for me to consent now.
Hypothetical consent
• Self-interest: if
‘rational’ means ‘in
one’s self-interest’, we
won’t establish a
secure and stable
obligation
• Dworkin: a hypothetical
contract isn’t worth
the paper it isn’t
written on
 Voting
• Only democratic governments are legitimate,
i.e. we only have political obligation in
democracy. Does voting express consent to obey
the laws passed by the elected government?
• What if you voted for a different party? Is voting
a ‘blank cheque’ to obey whatever laws created
by whichever party wins? What if you voted for
a party that promised revolution?
• What if you abstain from voting? Is this dissent?
• Other forms of political activity; but this
doesn’t respect equal influence
 Benefits
• No theory of consent has provided grounds
for political obligation for everyone
• It is only fair that whoever receives a benefit
from the state owes obedience to its laws:
– Receiving v. accepting benefits - how can I avoid
them?
– Is obligation proportional to benefits received?
What if the laws are unfair?
• Utilitarianism: we are better off with society
– Overall, yes, but am I? Objections above
Morality
• Rawls: show that the
state is rational,
necessary and
legitimate
• Obligation then
becomes a moral duty
(of justice)
• But for this, we need
a just state