Friends, compatriots, and special political obligations

Political Theory

Volumn 29, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 217-236

  Wellman, Christopher Heath ^a  

^a GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035531686     PISSN: 00905917     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0090591701029002003     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. For the purposes of this essay, I use the terms duty and obligation and their cognates interchangeably.
2. Plato, Republic, bk. 4.
3. Ibid., bk. 3.
4. Aristotle, Politics, bk. 1, chap. 2.
5. Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach, "On Civic Friendship," Ethics 107 (October 1996): 97-128, pp. 108-9.
6. A. John Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 31-35 and 147-56.
7. Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
8. Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
9. Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 195. Of course, Dworkin was likely inspired by the work of communitarians like Michael Sandel and Alasdair MacIntyre.
10. Ibid., 196.
11. Samuel Scheffler, "Families, Nations and Strangers," The Lindley Lecture (University of Kansas, 1994); Michael Hardimon, "Role Obligations," Journal of Philosophy 41 (1994): 333-63; and Andrew Mason, "Special Obligations to Compatriots," Ethics 107 (1997): 427-47.
12. Samuel Scheffler, "Families, Nations and Strangers," The Lindley Lecture (University of Kansas, 1994); Michael Hardimon, "Role Obligations," Journal of Philosophy 41 (1994): 333-63; and Andrew Mason, "Special Obligations to Compatriots," Ethics 107 (1997): 427-47.
13. Samuel Scheffler, "Families, Nations and Strangers," The Lindley Lecture (University of Kansas, 1994); Michael Hardimon, "Role Obligations," Journal of Philosophy 41 (1994): 333-63; and Andrew Mason, "Special Obligations to Compatriots," Ethics 107 (1997): 427-47.
14. Please note that I am not mistaking motivation for moral obligation. Rather, I am acknowledging that the disparity in motivation reveals a difference in identification that in turn may be morally significant.
15. Samuel Scheffler, "Relationships and Responsibilities," Philosophy & Public Affairs 26 (1997): 189-209.
16. Joseph Raz, "Liberating Duties," Law and Philosophy 8 (1989): 3-21.
17. Mason summarizes Raz's argument this way in his "Special Obligations to Compatriots," 439.
18. Ibid., 440.
19. Ibid., 442.
20. Quoted in Louis L. Snyder, Encyclopedia of Nationalism (New York: Paragon House, 1977), ix.
21. Mason, "Special Obligations to Compatriots," 441.
22. In arguing that friendship generates no duties, I draw on more detailed arguments for an analogous position regarding gratitude which I make in my article, "Gratitude As a Virtue," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 80 (1999): 284-300.
23. H.L.A. Hart, "Are There Any Natural Rights?" reprinted in Political Philosophy, ed. Anthony Quinton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 45n. I should point out that, although I applaud Hart's general insight that not all moral reasons create duties, there are important differences between Hart's views and the position 1 advance here. For instance, whereas I use duty and obligation interchangeably in this essay, Hart insisted that clarity could be achieved by distinguishing between the two.
24. Given my characterization of friendship, it is not obvious how I can account for common locutions like "You owe it to her as a friend" or "A friend deserves better than that!" These expressions are problematic for my account, however, only if matters of desert and what one owes must be cashed out in terms of rights and correlative duties. But, as Claudia Card notes, "Not everything we owe is a duty. We can owe what others only deserve from us without having any right against us." See Claudia Card, "Gratitude and Obligation," American Philosophical Quarterly 25 (1988): 115-27, p. 121. Thus, I agree that people "ought" to give their friends the special treatment they deserve, but I suggest that this "ought" is constituted of "virtue-making" reasons rather than "duty-imposing" reasons. I say more about these two types of reasons in my essay, "Gratitude As a Virtue."
25. Of course, one might have a duty not to destroy this piece of art or article of nature, but it would be a duty regarding this object that is generated by the (legitimate) interests of others, not (in my view) a duty owed to this object in virtue of its intrinsic value. One would have no such duty, for instance, if one were the last person living.
26. As a reviewer from this journal put it, "considerations of duty and character may well be intertwined."
27. Terrance McConnell develops this approach regarding duties of gratitude in his excellent book, Gratitude (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993).
28. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1979), 47-48. Of course, invoking Mill on this point is not necessarily conclusive since there are some who contest Mill's conception of duty. A critic might cite duties of charity, for example, as a type of duty that cannot be exacted by others. This potential counterexample does not trouble me, however, because I think that our understanding of charity requires revision in a manner analogous to that which I advocate for friendship. Specifically, I would divide matters of charity into Samaritan situations (in which duties and correlative rights genuinely exist) and generic instances of charity (where we should abandon talk of duties - even imperfect duties - and use the language of virtue ethics instead). Ethicists have notoriously had difficulty explaining duties of charity. In my view, the problem arises not because charity is unimportant but because (with the exception of Samaritan crises) it is within the realm of virtue ethics. That is, we are ultimately concerned more with a person's settled disposition to respond charitably to others than the particular acts of charity she performs. (Some theorists conceive of imperfect duties in terms of dispositions, but, as I shall explain below, this strikes me as stretching the notion of duty beyond its appropriate boundaries in a misguided effort to explain all of morality in terms of some type of duty.)
29. It is important to note that I am not merely alleging that we would not want the government to protect Eric's right of friendship (which might be true for a variety of reasons); I am suggesting that Eric has no such right. Second, I do not assert that no one speaks of rights of friendship, but I do suggest that those who do, misspeak - that is, they fail best to capture the moral relations of friendship.
30. By comparison, notice that we do tax citizens (and criminally punish tax evaders) to enforce redistributive transfers among compatriots.
31. Joel Feinberg, "The Nature and Value of Rights," reprinted in Rights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 143-55.
32. Interestingly, Raz seems to believe that there are both duties and rights of friendship. For the reasons I list above, however, I am inclined to disagree. It is worth noting, though, that it is somewhat curious that Raz should posit claim rights of friendship because (as the article's title, "Liberating Duties," indicates) the whole point of his essay is to suggest that duties should not be thought of as merely correlative to and derivative from rights.
33. The different conceptions of imperfect duties are explained (and criticized) in Daniel Statman's article, "Who Needs Imperfect Duties?" American Philosophical Quarterly 33 (1997): 211-24.
34. Michael Stocker, "The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories," Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976): 453-66.
35. Ibid., 462.
36. I argue toward this end in "Liberalism, Samaritanism, and Political Legitimacy," Philosophy & Public Affairs 25 (1996): 211-37; and my "Relational Facts in Liberal Political Theory," Ethics 110 (2000): 537-62.
37. I argue toward this end in "Liberalism, Samaritanism, and Political Legitimacy," Philosophy & Public Affairs 25 (1996): 211-37; and my "Relational Facts in Liberal Political Theory," Ethics 110 (2000): 537-62.
38. Here, it may appear as though I endorse a straightforward "fairness" account of special political obligations; I do not. Although I agree that each of us has a duty to do her fair share to support political stability, my own view is that these duties ultimately stem from a Samaritan responsibility to ensure that others escape the perils of political instability. Thus, I believe that many of our political duties are rooted in samaritanism rather than merely fairness.
39. Notable efforts to supply these other approaches include Robert E. Goodin, "What Is So Special about Our Fellow Countrymen?" Ethics 98 (1988): 663-86; and Richard Dagger, "Rights, Boundaries, and the Bond of Community: A Qualified Defense of Moral Parochialism," American Political Science Review 79 (1985): 436-47.
40. Notable efforts to supply these other approaches include Robert E. Goodin, "What Is So Special about Our Fellow Countrymen?" Ethics 98 (1988): 663-86; and Richard Dagger, "Rights, Boundaries, and the Bond of Community: A Qualified Defense of Moral Parochialism," American Political Science Review 79 (1985): 436-47.
41. Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman, "Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory," Ethics 104 (January 1994): 352.
42. Of course, the topic of liberal education of citizens has attracted a great deal of attention recently, but I recommend in particular Schwarzenbach's article, "On Civic Friendship." This superb essay is especially relevant to the topic at hand because she advocates programs designed to inspire political friendship among fellow citizens. I resist the temptation to discuss her proposals here only because she is concerned with social unity rather than special political obligations. Also, since her suggestions constitute an ideal for which to aim rather than a description of exist-ing states, her view (even if correct) could not explain the special political obligations thought to currently exist.