Obligation, political

References and further reading

All of the below involve detailed and sometimes subtle argument, but all are accessible also to readers without formal training in philosohy.

	Beran, H. (1987) The Consent Theory of Political Obligation, London: Croom Helm. (The most complete contemporary defence of consent theory.)
	Dworkin, R. (1986) Law’s Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Chapter 6 offers a defence of communal obligations.)
	Gans, C. (1992) Philosophical Anarchism and Political Disobedience, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Attack on philosophical anarchism.)
	Green, L. (1988) The Authority of the State, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Good general discussion of problems of authority and obligation.)
	Green, T.H. (1882) Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1967. (Classic statement of a communitarian approach to political obligation.)
	Hare, R.M. (1976) ‘Political Obligation’, in T. Honderich (ed.) Social Ends and Political Means, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Utilitarian account of political obligation.)
	Hart, H.L.A. (1955) ‘Are There Any Natural Rights?’, Philosophical Review 64 (2): 175–191. (First clear statement of the fairness account of political obligation.)
	Hirschmann, N. (1992) Rethinking Obligation, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (A feminist critique and reorientation of political obligation theory.)
	Horton, J. (1992) Political Obligation, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. (The most thorough recent discussion of all aspects of the problem; comprehensive bibliography.)
	Hume, D. (1739–40) A Treatise on Human Nature, ed. P.H. Nidditch, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 1978. (Influential critique of consent theory and a defence of broadly utilitarian view is given in book III, part II, chapters VII–X.)
	Klosko, G. (1992) The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. (A nonvoluntarist fairness theory.)
	Locke, J. (1690) The Second Treatise of Government, in Two Treatises of Government, ed. P. Laslett, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960. (Classic statement of the consent theory of political obligation, centred in chapters 7 and 8.)
	Pateman, C. (1979) The Problem of Political Obligation, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (Discusses the history of the problem and defends a Rousseauian approach.)
	Pitkin, H. (1965–6) ‘Obligation and Consent, I and II’, American Political Science Review, 59 (4): 990–999 and 60 (1): 39–52. (Defends both a Wittgensteinian, communitarian approach and a version of hypothetical contractarianism.)
	Plato (c. 395–87) Crito, in Plato: The Collected Dialogues, ed. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961. (The first recorded discussion of the problem of political obligation.)
	Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (The most important hypothetical contractarian account of political obligation is given in chapter 6.)
	Simmons, A.J. (1979) Moral Principles and Political Obligations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Discusses individualist theories of political obligation and defends philosophical anarchism.)
	Taylor, C. (1979) ‘Atomism’, in A. Kontos (ed.) Powers, Possessions, and Freedom, Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press. (Defends a Hegelian approach and an ’obligation to belong’.)
	Walker, A.D.M. (1988) ‘Political Obligation and the Argument from Gratitude’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 17 (3): 191–211. (Develops a gratitude theory of political obligation.)
	Wolff, R.P. (1970) In Defense of Anarchism, New York: Harper & Row. (A defence of an a priori version of philosophical anarchism.)