Duties to Assist Others and Political Obligations

Politics, Philosophy & Economics

Volumn 3, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 143-159

  Klosko, George ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Copp; political obligation; rescue

Indexed keywords

EID: 34248045553     PISSN: 1470594X     EISSN: 17413060     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1470594X04042961     Document Type: Article

References (31)

1. A. John Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). In this article, I generally use language of ‘political obligations’ in a loose, non-technical sense, as moral requirements to obey the law. For discussion of political obligations, see Simmons, Moral Principles, Chs 1-2; G. Klosko, The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligations, new edition (Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), Ch. 1.
2. M.B.E. Smith, ‘Is There a Prima Facie Obligation to Obey the Law?’, Yale Law Journal 82 (1973); J. Raz, The Authority of Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), Ch. 12.
3. Most notably, for consent, see H. Beran, The Consent Theory of Political Obligation (London: Croom Helm, 1987); for fairness, see R. Arneson, ‘The Principle of Fairness and Free-Rider Problems’, Ethics 92 (1982); Klosko, The Principle of Fairness; for gratitude, see A.D.M. Walker, ‘Obligations of Gratitude and Political Obligation’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 18 (1989).
4. For association, see J. Horton, Political Obligation (London: Macmillan, 1992); M. Gilbert, ‘Group Membership and Political Obligation’, Monist 76 (1993); R. Dworkin, Law's Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 190–216. For natural duty, see C. Wellman, ‘Toward a Liberal Theory of Political Obligation’, Ethics 111 (2001); D. Copp, ‘The Idea of a Legitimate State’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 28 (1999); also J. Waldron, ‘Special Ties and Natural Duties’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1993).
5. A. Buchanan, ‘Political Legitimacy and Democracy’, Ethics 112 (2002); Copp, ‘Idea of a Legitimate State’; W. Edmundson, Three Anarchical Fallacies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
6. ‘Associative Political Obligations’, Ethics 106 (1996).
7. Although granting the necessary assumptions defuses the most important objections to the principle of fairness, this does not mean that all other objections are also defused, although I believe they can be dealt with. For discussion of the principle of fairness that addresses many objections, see Klosko, Principle of Fairness.
8. For an excellent defense of such a duty, see J. Feinberg, Harm to Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 126–186.
9. For complexities in moving from individual to collective cases, see F. Kamm, ‘Does Distance Matter Morally to the Duty to Rescue?’, Law and Philosophy 19 (2000).
10. Cf. L. Becker's account of the large-scale duty to reciprocate for large-scale benefit in Reciprocity (London: Routledge, 1986), pp. 105–124; see also Wellman, ‘Toward a Liberal Theory’, pp. 748–750.
11. For convenience, the terms ‘state’ and ‘political institutions’ can be used loosely and interchangeably. Both can be characterized as possessing two main features: large size and significant coercive force.
12. In addition, because the issues under discussion concern moral requirements, I will avoid complex questions concerning justification of coercion to enforce requirements to rescue. I will assume that, if it would be wrong for Smith not to contribute her share to collective rescue efforts, then she can justifiably be compelled to do so through coercive means. For discussion of some of the issues involved here, see Wellman, ‘Toward a Liberal Theory’, pp. 746–750.
13. For detailed discussion of the principle of fairness, see Klosko, Principle of Fairness.
14. Simmons argues that public goods can be ‘accepted’, but this is only in a metaphorical sense. See Moral Principles, pp. 118–136.
15. See esp. R. Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), pp. 93–95.
16. Both quotations from Simmons, On the Edge of Anarchy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 258; see also Simmons, ‘Fair Play and Political Obligation: Twenty Years Later’, in his Justification and Legitimacy: Essays on Rights and Obligations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), especially pp. 33–36.
17. Copp, ‘Idea of a Legitimate State’.
18. Wellman, ‘Toward a Liberal Theory of Obligation’.
19. On this, see Klosko, ‘Samaritanism and Political Obligation: A Response to Christopher Wellman's “Liberal Theory of Political Obligation” ’, Ethics 113 (2003).
20. Wellman, ‘Toward a Liberal Theory of Obligation’, pp. 742–743.
21. More complete discussion of these assumptions is provided in Chapter 2 of my book-in-progress, Political Obligations (under contract with Oxford University Press).
22. I set aside questions concerning the political obligations of inhabitants of other kinds of societies.
23. See, e.g., D. Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom (New York: Harper and Row, 1973); M. Rothbard, For a New Liberty (New York: Macmillan, 1978); also B. Benson, The Enterprise of Law (San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1990).
24. For brief discussion of game theoretic solutions to problems of providing public goods, see Klosko, ‘The Natural Basis of Political Obligation’, Social Philosophy and Policy 18 (2001).
25. Friedman characterizes defense as ‘the hard problem’; his suggestions are highly speculative (Machinery of Freedom, Ch. 34). Rothbard's suggestions are similarly improbable (For a New Liberty, pp. 237–241, also Ch. 14). Benson concedes the need for governmental defense (Enterprise of Law, p. 373). Simmons devotes little or no attention to defense in Moral Principles or his other books; see On the Edge of Anarchy; The Lockean Theory of Rights (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).
26. See esp. T. Cowen, ‘Law as a Public Good: The Economics of Anarchy’, Economics and Philosophy 8 (1992); and W.M. Landes and R.A. Posner, ‘Adjudication as a Private Good’, Journal of Legal Studies 8 (1979).
27. Becker, Reciprocity, p. 3.
28. See Klosko, ‘Political Obligation and the Natural Duties of Justice’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 23 (1994); ‘Samaritanism and Political Obligation’.
29. John Rawls, Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 114. I should note that consequentialist theorists generally deny such cost qualifiers. For discussion, see S. Kagan, The Limits of Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
30. Rawls, Theory of Justice, p. 117.
31. I am grateful to Colin Bird, Richard Dagger, Micah Schwartzman and an anonymous reviewer for this journal for helpful comments and suggestions on previous drafts of this article.