The collective work of citizenship

Legal Theory

Volumn 8, Issue 4, 2002, Pages 471-494

  Kutz, Christopher ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 85014827931     PISSN: 13523252     EISSN: 14698048     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1352325202084033h     Document Type: Article

References (22)

1. Ian McEwan, ENDURING LOVE 11-17 (New York, 1997).
2. The locus classicus is Anthony Downs, AN ECONOMIC THEORY OF DEMOCRACY (New York, 1957).
3. Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky, DEMOCRACY AND DECISION: THE PURE THEORY OF ELECTORAL PREFERENCE (New York, 1993).
4. Derek Parfit, REASONS AND PERSONS (New York, 1984); and Jonathan Glover, It Makes No Difference Whether or Not I Do It, 49 PROC. ARISTOTELIAN SOC'Y 171-90 (1975). I should say that I use this etiolated example partly for expository ease, and partly because today, post-9/11, more realistic examples of rescue ring too close to home.
5. Thomas Nagel, EQUALITY AND PARTIALITY (New York, 1995), ch. 6. John Rawls deploys the similar idea of an “institutional division of labor,” in The Basic Structure as Subject, reprinted in POLITICAL LIBERALISM 268. (New York, 1996); however, for Rawls and unlike Nagel, the principles governing institutions are distinct from those governing individuals, so the institutions cannot be considered simply “repackagings” of individual obligations. For discussion, see Liam Murphy, Institutions and the Demands of Justice, 27 PHIL. & PUB. AFF. 251-291 (1998).
6. Donald Regan, UTILITARIANISM AND COOPERATION (New York, 1980).
7. Parfit, UTILITARIANISM AND COOPERATION note 4, at 77-78.
8. Immanuel Kant, GROUNDWORK OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS, ed. and trans. H.J. Paton (New York, 1964 [1785]), 90-91 [4: 423].
9. In Kant's treatment of lying, it is true that only when universalized does the lie come back to bite the liar. But the individual lie is fully causally responsible for the deception it creates.
10. National Center for Education Statistics, Voting Behavior, by Educational Attainment, available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/ce/c9637a01.html.
11. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Voter Turnout: A Global Survey, available at http://www.idea.int/voter_turnout/voter_turnout2.html.
12. National Center for Education Statistics, The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Voter Turnout: A Global Survey note 10.
13. Not to be confused with Rawls's Difference Principle. See my COMPLICITY: ETHICS AND LAW FOR A COLLECTIVE AGE (New York, 2001), 116.
14. Brennan and Lomasky, Not to be confused with Rawls's Difference Principle. note 3, at 186-89.
15. The following discussion roughly summarizes the theory of collective action I offer in Acting Together, 61 PHIL. & PHENOMENOLOGICAL RES. 1-31 (2000). The general view that action is to be explained both causally and teleologically is, famously, Donald Davidson's; see his Actions, Reasons and Causes, in ESSAYS ON ACTIONS AND EVENTS (New York, 1980), 3-20. Related accounts of collective action are Michael Bratman's, for which see his FACES OF INTENTION (New York, 1999), esp. Shared Cooperative Activity; and Margaret Gilbert, ON SOCIAL FACTS (Princeton, 1992).
16. The scope or content of participatory obligations might be a function of further constraints, such as general principles of fair burden-sharing, or of specific deontological obligations (such higher-ranking intergroup obligations). Liam Murphy argues in MORAL DEMANDS IN NONIDEAL THEORY (New York, 2000), 5, for such a constrained “collective principle of beneficence”: Roughly, moral agents should do “as much good as possible,” though they need not do more than they would if everyone were each doing as much good as possible. Thus compliers need not take up the slack of shirkers but do need to do at least as much as they would do if everyone did comply.
17. It is, in other words, a species of special obligation, defensible in part by reference to the relational goods it brings about. For discussion, see Samuel Scheffler, Relationships and Responsibilities, in BOUNDARIES AND ALLEGIANCES 97-110 (New York, 2001).
18. For an accessible account of the problems of social choice, see Dennis C. Mueller, PUBLIC CHOICE II (New York, 1989).
19. See their Democracy and Social Choice, in Coleman's MARKETS, MORALS, AND THE LAW; see also Joshua Cohen, An Epistemic Conception of Democracy, 97 ETHICS 26-38 (1986).
20. Jean Jacques Rousseau, THE SOCIAL CONTRACT, (Victor Gourevitch, ed. and trans., 1997), Bk. I.
21. The reading is derived from stressing the “will” element as much as the interest element in the constituents of the “moi commun” created by the social contract; id. at I.6.10. This is, clearly, to read Rousseau through the lens of Kant (and both through the lens of Rawls). I do not have occasion here to defend the plausibility of attributing this reading to Rousseau but plan to do so in other work.
22. For the argument that membership in the party of humanity is the only relevant participatory role, see Peter Unger, LIVING HIGH AND LETTING DIE (New York, 1996).