Moral Principles and Political Obligations

Moral Principles and Political Obligations
Author: A. John Simmons
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691213240

Outlining the major competing theories in the history of political and moral philosophy--from Locke and Hume through Hart, Rawls, and Nozick--John Simmons attempts to understand and solve the ancient problem of political obligation. Under what conditions and for what reasons (if any), he asks, are we morally bound to obey the law and support the political institutions of our countries?

Moral Principles and Political Obligations

Moral Principles and Political Obligations
Author: A. John Simmons
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 1981-09-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780691020198

Outlining the major competing theories in the history of political and moral philosophy--from Locke and Hume through Hart, Rawls, and Nozick--John Simmons attempts to understand and solve the ancient problem of political obligation. Under what conditions and for what reasons (if any), he asks, are we morally bound to obey the law and support the political institutions of our countries?

A Theory of Political Obligation

A Theory of Political Obligation
Author: Margaret Gilbert
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2006-05-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199274959

Margaret Gilbert offers an incisive new approach to a classic problem of political philosophy: when and why should I do what the laws of my country tell me to do? Beginning with carefully argued accounts of social groups in general and political societies in particular, the author argues that in central, standard senses of the relevant terms membership in a political society in and of itself obligates one to support that society's political institutions. The obligations in questionare not moral requirements derived from general moral principles, as is often supposed, but a matter of one's participation in a special kind of commitment: joint commitment. An agreement is sufficient but not necessary to generate such a commitment. Gilbert uses the phrase 'plural subject' to referto all of those who are jointly committed in some way. She therefore labels the theory offered in this book the plural subject theory of political obligation.The author concentrates on the exposition of this theory, carefully explaining how and in what sense joint commitments obligate. She also explores a classic theory of political obligation --- actual contract theory --- according to which one is obligated to conform to the laws of one's country because one agreed to do so. She offers a new interpretation of this theory in light of a theory of plural subject theory of agreements. She argues that actual contract theory has more merit than has beenthought, though the more general plural subject theory is to be preferred. She compares and contrasts plural subject theory with identification theory, relationship theory, and the theory of fair play. She brings it to bear on some classic situations of crisis, and, in the concluding chapter,suggests a number of avenues for related empirical and moral inquiry.Clearly and compellingly written, A Theory of Political Obligation will be essential reading for political philosophers and theorists.

Political Obligations

Political Obligations
Author: George Klosko
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2005-03-10
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780199256204

Providing a full defence of the theory of political obligation George Klosko presents arguments based on a number of key principles, as well as commenting on popular attitudes and how the state views them.

Rethinking Political Obligation

Rethinking Political Obligation
Author: D. Mokrosinska
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2012-07-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780230360754

What are the grounds for and limits to obedience to the state? This book offers a fresh analysis of the debate concerning the moral obligation to obey the state, develops a novel account of political obligation and provides the first detailed argument of how a theory of political obligation can apply to subjects of an unjust state.

The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation

The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation
Author: George Klosko
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2004-01-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1461645328

In The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation, George Klosko presents the first book-length treatment of political obligation grounded in the premises of liberal political theory. In this now-classic work, he clearly and systematically formulates what others thought impossible-a principle of fairness that specifies a set of conditions which grounds existing political obligations and bridges the gap between the abstract accounts of political principles and the actual beliefs of political actors. Brought up-to-date with a new introduction, this new edition will be of great interest to all interested in political thought.

Liberal Loyalty

Liberal Loyalty
Author: Anna Stilz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2009-07-26
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0691139148

Drawing on Kant, Rousseau, and Habermas, Stilz argues that we owe civic obligations to the state if it is sufficiently just, and that constitutionally enshrined principles of justice in themselves are grounds for obedience to our particular state and for democratic solidarity with our fellow citizens.

Political Obligation

Political Obligation
Author: Richard E. Flathman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2019-11-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000706842

"Under what conditions are obedience and disobedience required or justified? To what or whom is obedience or disobedience owed? What are the differences between authority and power and between legitimate and illegitimate government? What is the relationship between having an obligation and having freedom to act? What are the similarities and differences among political, legal, and moral obligations?..." Originally published in 1972, Professor Flathman discusses these crucial issues in political theory in a lucid and stimulating argument. Though mainly concerned to develop his own modified utilitarian standing point he also reviews both the classical and modern literature from Plato and Hobbes to Hare and Rawls. The treatment is philosophical but it is frequently related to practical issues of civil obedience and disobedience and in particular focuses on the relation between law, obligation and social change.

The Problem of Political Authority

The Problem of Political Authority
Author: Michael Huemer
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 391
Release: 2012-10-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1137281669

The state is often ascribed a special sort of authority, one that obliges citizens to obey its commands and entitles the state to enforce those commands through threats of violence. This book argues that this notion is a moral illusion: no one has ever possessed that sort of authority.

Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin

Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin
Author: Kei Hiruta
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2023-11-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691226121

For the first time, the full story of the conflict between two of the twentieth century’s most important thinkers—and the lessons their disagreements continue to offer Two of the most iconic thinkers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) and Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) fundamentally disagreed on central issues in politics, history and philosophy. In spite of their overlapping lives and experiences as Jewish émigré intellectuals, Berlin disliked Arendt intensely, saying that she represented “everything that I detest most,” while Arendt met Berlin’s hostility with indifference and suspicion. Written in a lively style, and filled with drama, tragedy and passion, Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin tells, for the first time, the full story of the fraught relationship between these towering figures, and shows how their profoundly different views continue to offer important lessons for political thought today. Drawing on a wealth of new archival material, Kei Hiruta traces the Arendt–Berlin conflict, from their first meeting in wartime New York through their widening intellectual chasm during the 1950s, the controversy over Arendt’s 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, their final missed opportunity to engage with each other at a 1967 conference and Berlin’s continuing animosity toward Arendt after her death. Hiruta blends political philosophy and intellectual history to examine key issues that simultaneously connected and divided Arendt and Berlin, including the nature of totalitarianism, evil and the Holocaust, human agency and moral responsibility, Zionism, American democracy, British imperialism and the Hungarian Revolution. But, most of all, Arendt and Berlin disagreed over a question that goes to the heart of the human condition: what does it mean to be free?