Obligation, political

1. The problem

The problem of political obligation has been central to political philosophy from the earliest recorded philosophical texts to the most recent. While the actual term ‘political obligation’ is of relatively recent vintage, arguments as old as those of Plato’s early dialogue, Crito (c.395–87 bc), are clearly intended to address some version of the problem. Political obligations, as these are commonly understood, are the moral obligations (or duties) of citizens to support their countries, governments or political and legal institutions. They are usually taken to include at least the obligation to obey the laws of the land (or the just laws) and are often thought to include also further obligations of loyalty and ‘good citizenship’.

The problem of political obligation, then, is that of understanding the force and nature of these moral bonds and, most importantly, of understanding when (or if) and for what reasons (if any) the members of various kinds of states are subject to them. Peoples’ political obligations constitute the core of the moral relationship that exists between them and their polities, and they are thus closely related to such corresponding concepts as the legitimacy or de jure authority of the state (see Authority; Legitimacy). The question here is not: under what institutional requirements, backed by force, do we stand? Rather, political philosophers ask whether in addition to (or conceivably because of) the threat of institutional coercion, blind political habits and emotional grounds for obedience, there are also strong moral reasons for supporting and complying with the demands of our laws, governments or states.

The problem of political obligation has usually been understood conservatively. So understood, it is the problem of finding a sound justification for our intuitive conviction that most citizens (or at least those in certain familiar kinds of states) do in fact have political obligations. Conservative theorists will thus be centrally concerned with providing a suitably ‘general’ account of political obligation, one that shows why all citizens of good states have the obligations we suppose they have. But the problem can also be understood without any conservative commitments, so that an account’s lack of generality is not necessarily a defect. On this understanding, the theorist’s job is simply to give as full as possible an account of political obligation, without any special concern for justifying our pre-theoretical beliefs about the subject. Thus, an anarchist theory (which denied the existence of any political obligations) might on this latter understanding still constitute a successful (that is, valid, nondefective) theory of political obligation.

Theories of political obligation can be (roughly) divided into four groups, the most basic division being that between ‘communitarian’ and ‘individualist’ theories. Communitarians typically maintain that our very identities are constituted in part by our roles (such as ‘membership’) in political society and that our political obligations are tied conceptually to, and follow trivially from, these roles. Individualists maintain, by contrast, that we should not in this way think of ourselves as essentially political beings; instead, our political obligations rest not on our institutional roles, but on contingent relations between political associations and ourselves (such as our consent to them or our receipt of benefits from them).

Individualist theories of political obligation can be further divided into two classes. ‘Voluntarists’ ground people’s political obligations in their personal performance of politically significant voluntary acts, such as promises or contracts to obey, consent to authority, or free acceptance of benefits from a political scheme. ‘Nonvoluntarist’ (individualist) theories hold that no such voluntary performance is necessary for political obligation. Simple nonvoluntary receipt of benefits may bind us, for instance, or the moral qualities of a government may bring it under more general moral duties that require us to give it our support.

The fourth group consists of the anarchists. ‘Anarchist’ theories deny altogether the existence of political obligations. While the inspiration for an anarchist view can itself be either individualist or communitarian, anarchism rejects the conservative assumptions of the standard theories in both categories.

None of these four approaches to the problem of political obligation is new. Indeed, three of them are suggested in various passages in Plato’s Crito (see Plato §6). There, Socrates argues first that he must obey the state’s commands because it has made him what he is (50d–e), suggesting a communitarian derivation of obligation from his politically-constituted identity. But he later contends as well (in a more individualist fashion) both that his obligations stem from a tacit promise to obey (51e–53a) and that the care and benefits provided for him by the state bind him to obedience (51c–e) (suggesting, respectively, voluntarist and nonvoluntarist positions).