Political Philosophy

by Phil Parvin

  One important problem with the natural duties approach, described by Waldron, is that it is not clear why we should obey the state as opposed to any other just institution.

  Two examples illustrate the point. The first example is the IRA in Northern Ireland. As well as fighting for a united Ireland, the IRA also engaged in vigilantism in Northern Ireland, and particularly in Belfast. That is to say, the IRA would identify and punish those who had committed crimes such as drug dealing and stealing. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that the IRA is very good at this – perhaps even better than the police. Members of the IRA are more embedded in the community than the police are, and so they know better what is going on and who is committing crimes. Suppose, then, that the IRA performs its vigilantism justly. It accurately identifies the perpetrators, and applies appropriate punishment. Does that mean that the people of Northern Ireland are obliged to obey the commands of the IRA?

  The second example is given by John Simmons and quoted by Waldron. A Philosophy Society is set up to provide services for the community of philosophers. It publishes newsletters, assists needy philosophers, and keeps everyone informed of news in the philosophy world – jobs, publications and so on. What’s more, it is entirely just – the leadership is justly elected, subscriptions are at a just rate, and its funds for needy philosophers implement a just distribution of wealth. One day, Simmons imagines, a letter from the society arrives through his letterbox, demanding that he pay a subscription in the name of his natural duty to support just institutions. Simmons has never asked to be a member of this society. Is he obliged to pay?

  Waldron answers these examples by clarifying the duties we have to support just institutions. We are obliged to support those institutions which, firstly, do in fact act justly. This justice must be considered to apply to the institution taken as a whole. So, we might be able to eliminate the IRA by pointing out that, although its vigilantism is just, it is not just as a whole. It is a terrorist organization, its members are not elected, there are no mechanisms for accountability, and so on.

  Secondly, we are only obliged to obey those institutions which are most able to act justly. This claim has three parts:

  1 We are only obligated to obey institutions which are required by justice. That is to say, it must be necessary to justice that the institution exist. If there were no such institution, society as a whole would be unjust. This is why we are obliged to obey the law against murder, but are not obliged to pay the subscription to the philosophy society. A society with no law against murder would be an unjust society. On the other hand, although the philosophy society is internally just, it is not required by justice. A larger society which contained no philosophy society would not be unjust.

  2 The second part of the requirement that the institution be the one most able to act justly is that there should be only one institution regulating any one aspect of life, so as to avoid conflicts. So, it would be unjust if the citizens of Northern Ireland had to obey both the IRA and the police, because those two institutions might make conflicting demands.

  3 Finally, if there are several institutions competing for jurisdiction over one area, we are obliged to obey the one which is best at the function in question, and thus which is most likely to succeed. Usually, Waldron says, this will be the state – simply because the state has more resources than most other groups to maintain its rule and to discharge its functions effectively.

  Still, it will not always be the case that it is the state that is best at performing a function, and Waldron’s theory does entail that, if another institution is better, we are obliged to obey that institution rather than the state. Natural duties will often support a political obligation to obey the state, but not always.

  Conclusion

  The question of how we might justify political obligation is a crucial one, and there is more to be said about it than we can discuss here. For example, there is intense debate among legal positivists and natural law theorists about whether or not the authority of law is derived independently of morality, or whether unjust laws have as much authority as just ones. In general, theories of political obligation are a challenge to political philosophers: none seem to offer an entirely persuasive account of why we should obey the state and its laws, yet the vast majority of political philosophers (excluding anarchists) believe that we should. This chapter has discussed the strengths and weaknesses of three of the most important approaches to resolving this question. The issues raised in this chapter relate directly to more contemporary debates about justice and morality. It is to these debates that we will turn in Part Two.

  Case study: Anarchism

  Not everyone agrees that we need a state. Philosophical anarchism – found differently in the work of thinkers such as Peter Kropotkin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, William Godwin, Max Stirner, Mikhail Bakunin and Robert Paul Wolff – represents a fundamental challenge to the sorts of theories that we have discussed in this chapter. Anarchism is a diverse approach and has been defended in one way or another by libertarians, individualists, collectivists and communists. For all their differences, however, anarchists from different points on the political spectrum are nevertheless united in the general claim that all existing theories of political obligation of the kind that we have discussed thus far fail in their attempt to justify the authority of the state.

  The reason for this is that such justification is impossible if we are to genuinely respect freedom and equality. States are coercive: they exist to force us to do things that we would otherwise choose not to do and, hence, they are straightforwardly antithetical to individual freedom. And they are hierarchical: they establish a class of rulers and a class of the ruled and, hence, violate equality. Theories of political obligation do little more than obfuscate and confuse the issue, they believe. Despite what the vast majority of political philosophers think, anarchists maintain, a thoroughgoing commitment to individual freedom and equality will ultimately require the rejection of the state as unfair, unjust and contrary to humane moral and political values.

  Anarchism is a rich and diverse philosophical tradition which has, it must be said, become rather misrepresented in contemporary political discourse. Anarchism has for many people become synonymous with chaos, violent protest and riots. It is an open question as to the extent to which those involved in the riots that swept the UK in 2011 or in the violence associated with the antiglobalization movement and so on are drawing on a coherent set of ideas characteristic of philosophical anarchism. Nevertheless, anarchist critiques of the state (and, hence, all existing arguments which seek to explain political obligation) represent a profound challenge to many mainstream assumptions about the nature of authority, the legitimacy of state institutions, and the implications of a commitment to freedom and equality, which have not been wholly refuted by defenders of states.

  Key ideas

  Political obligation: The question of why, and on what normative grounds, we might be said to be required to obey the state and the laws that it passes.

  Consent: The idea that the moral authority of political institutions and laws is rooted in the consent, either hypothetical or tacit, of the people who are to be subject to it.

  Fair play: The idea that political obligation is justified by the idea of reciprocity. If you benefit from the fact that others have relinquished a degree of their own freedom in order to provide you with the benefits of living under a state, then it is only fair that you subject yourself to similar constraints.

  Natural duties: The idea that human beings have certain moral duties that they are required to fulfil regardless of their particular preferences, or whether they have consented to the particular system of institutions under which they live. Natural duties tends to be linked to the idea of justice.

  The state: The locus of political authority under which individuals live, and the source of laws. States need the authority to coerce their members to do things that they would not otherwise choose to do.

  Dig deeper
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  Ronald Dworkin, ‘The Original Position’, in Norman Daniels (ed.), Reading Rawls (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975).

  Ronald Dworkin, Law’s Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).

  H.L.A. Hart, ‘Are There Any Natural Rights?’, Philosophical Review 64 (1955), pp. 175–91.

  John Horton, Political Obligation (London: Macmillan, 1992).

  Ruth Kinna, Anarchism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld, 2005).

  George Klosko, Political Obligations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

  John Locke, Two Treatises on Government [1690] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

  Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Basic Books, 1974).

  Carole Pateman, The Problem of Political Obligation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979).

  John A. Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979).

  Jeremy Waldron, ‘Special Ties and Natural Duties’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1993), pp. 3–30.

  Fact-check

  1 Who argued that life in the state of nature was ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’?

  A Jeremy Waldron

  B David Hume

  C Thomas Hobbes

  D John Locke

  2 What is the difference between Locke’s and Hobbes’s account of political obligation?

  A Locke argues that actual consent is needed for obligation

  B Locke argues that the state of nature is not necessarily the worst situation

  C Locke has a more optimistic view of human nature

  D All of the above

  3 What sort of consent is Hobbes’s theory based on?

  A Hypothetical rational consent

  B Tacit consent

  C Actual consent

  D Historical consent

  4 Which of the following is an example of tacit consent?

  A Accepting a government-provided student loan

  B Asking a police officer for help

  C Voting

  D All of the above

  5 What is a natural duty?

  A A duty to protect nature

  B A duty that does not depend on consent

  C A duty that people naturally want to fulfil

  D All of the above

  6 ‘You should obey the law because other people are obeying the law.’ Which theory of political obligation is expressed in this quote?

  A Fair play theory

  B Natural duty theory

  C Social contract theory

  D Anarchism

  7 Which of the following criticisms best applies to natural duty theory?

  A It does not succeed in obligating everyone

  B It does not succeed in showing why our obligations apply specifically to the state

  C It does not succeed in protecting freedom

  D It does not succeed in protecting equality

  8 Which of the following criticisms best applies to social contract theory?

  A It is historically inaccurate

  B It is unrealistic

  C It cannot rely on meaningful consent

  D It does not succeed in showing why our obligations apply specifically to the state

  9 Which of the following criticisms best applies to fair play theory?

  A It does not succeed in obligating everyone

  B It is historically inaccurate

  C It does not succeed in protecting equality

  D It does not succeed in protecting freedom

  10 Which of the following best describes anarchism?

  A It is the belief that violence is good

  B It is the belief that all states are unjust

  C It is the belief that no one would consent to a state

  D It is the belief that existing theories of political obligation fail

  Part Two

  Contemporary theories and debates

  9

  Utilitarianism

  It is now time to explore how political and moral philosophers used concepts in normative theories about justice, the roles and responsibilities of the state, and the obligations that individuals have toward one another. We begin with utilitarianism, which, until the publication of Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1971, was the dominant normative theory of politics.

  Utilitarianism is the idea that the right thing to do, or the just thing to do, is whatever brings about the greatest utility. Utility has been defined in different ways by different utilitarians, but in general it refers to something like welfare or happiness. So, utilitarianism can be thought of as the idea that the right thing to do is whatever maximizes total happiness in society. Different versions of utilitarianism have been defended by thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, Bertrand Russell and Peter Singer.

  Consequentialism and deontology

  Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory. What this means is that, for utilitarians, the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by its consequences. Something is wrong if and only if it brings about bad consequences, and right if and only if it brings about good, or perhaps even the best possible, consequences. If we want to know what we should do in a particular situation, we should consider what the consequences of various alternative acts are likely to be, and choose whichever action brings about the best consequences.

  Consequentialism contrasts with deontological theories of justice or morality. Deontological theories hold that actions can be right in and of themselves, regardless of their consequences. Consequentialists argue that their approach provides a more attractive account of what constitutes moral behaviour than the deontological approach. For example, Kant makes the commonly held deontological claim that we are morally required to tell the truth. But imagine that you are disturbed one evening by someone desperately knocking on your door and asking to be given shelter because he is being chased by a violent would-be murderer. You let him in and, moments later, there is another knock on your door from the axe-wielding madman, who asks you if you have seen the first man. Telling the truth will result in murder. It seems clear that the morally right thing to do would be to lie and say that you have not seen the first man, so that the would-be murderer moves on and the man’s life is saved.

  According to consequentialists, this example shows that morality should be concerned with consequences rather than enforcing rules in and of themselves. Rules are only morally correct if they bring about desirable consequences. Since every rule will have exceptions, it makes more sense to abandon the idea that morality is based on rules in favour of the idea that morality is based on consequences. The right thing to do in any circumstance depends not on abstract, universal moral rules, but on the particular consequences of the alternative acts. The central rule of morality is: ‘Do whatever brings about the best consequences.’

  Utilitarianism is a variety of consequentialism which defines the best consequences as those which maximize utility. Individuals and states are thus morally required to act in ways which maximize utility.

  Utility

  Utilitarians disagree about how best to define utility.

  UTILITY AS PLEASURE

  The most basic way of defining utility is simply by identifying it with pleasure, as Jeremy Bentham does. On this definition, you maximize someone’s utility by maximizing their pleasure. It makes no difference what it is that gives them pleasure – whether the pleasure is long-lasting or temporary, whether it is brought about by scholarship and effort or by video games and drugs. Utility is the same as pleasure, and the morally right thing to do is whatever brings about the most pleasure.

  ‘By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question… I say of every action whatsoever; and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of
government… By utility is meant that property in any object whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness… or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or happiness to the party whose interest is considered: if that party be the community in general, then the happiness of the community: if a particular individual, then the happiness of that individual.’

  Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to The Principles of Morals and Legislation [1879] (Elibron Classics Series, 2005), p. 2.

  Spotlight: Bentham’s body

  Jeremy Bentham requested in his will that upon his death his body be preserved, placed in a wooden cabinet, and displayed as an ‘auto-icon’. His request was granted. For several years Bentham’s preserved corpse was kept by one of his disciples before being acquired by University College London in 1850. Bentham’s body remains on public display there to this day.

  This kind of approach has several problems. One problem is that, if pleasure is the ultimate value, we might miss out on things which are not pleasurable but which nevertheless seem valuable. For example, developing or understanding a scientific theory might be very difficult yet important. And many great artists like Van Gogh and Picasso famously found producing works of art stressful and difficult, but we still think that their endeavours had value.

  Conversely, there is the concern that a life dedicated to the relentless pursuit of pleasure is actually rather empty and vacuous, and not very moral at all. Life is complex, we might say, and often characterized by moral dilemmas which are difficult to resolve. Should a woman made pregnant by a rapist have an abortion? Should we agree to the withdrawal of medical treatment for an incurably ill loved one in order to let them die with dignity? The idea that in hard cases like these, individuals should simply do whatever makes them happiest seems to miss the point, and reduces profound, complex, life-changing decisions like this to a selfish and barren calculation of costs and benefits.