THE STATUS OF POLITICAL

OBLIGATION IN
CONTEMPORARY TIMES
BY: LALRUATDIKA RENTHLEI
A6257418064
 INTRODUCTION
• Political obligation may be defined as the moral obligation to obey the law.
• Traditionally, this has been viewed as a requirement of a certain kind, to
obey the law because it is the law, as opposed to the content of particular
laws.
• This conception of the ‘content independence’ of obligations dates back at
least to the time of Thomas Hobbes.
• The relationship between the state and the individual is expressed in terms
of ‘authority’. If the state possesses authority, then individuals have moral
requirements to obey its commands, and the state has ‘claim rights’ to their
obedience.
 POLITICAL OBLIGATION IN RECENT
TIMES
• Today, there is a growing consensus to the effect that no theory of political
obligation succeeds.
• However, not everybody infers from this that political obligation does not exist.
After all, the source and nature of moral requirements may not be adequately
captured by any theories.
• But few advance this as proof that we are not bound by moral requirements.
Theorists have failed to develop a satisfactory account of what is there (or at
least might be there).
• All possible grounds of political obligation are covered by these theories, such
that if political obligation cannot be derived from either consent, or fairness, or
gratitude, then there is no such thing as political obligation.
 PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM
• Philosophical anarchism is the term used to describe the position that there
is no prima facie duty to obey the law, even in a just state.
• Two kinds of philosophical anarchism can be distinguished: A posteriori
and a priori.
• According to a posteriori philosophical anarchism, no existing state is
legitimate or has a right to obedience, but political obligation might be
owed to an authority if it satisfied certain conditions.
• In other words, existing states are illegitimate because of their contingent
characters.
• A priori philosophical anarchism, by contrast, denies not only the
existence, but also the possibility of a legitimate state. There cannot be a
duty to obey the law on this view.
• Robert Paul Wolff argues that obedience – acting as the law requires just
because the law requires it – is incompatible with the overriding duty of
each individual to act in accordance with his or her own moral judgment.
• Differently put, obedience results in an abdication of moral autonomy,
which is immoral. This prevents citizens from acquiring political
obligation no matter what they say or do.
 CONCLUSION
• Philosophical anarchism offers something of a justification for political anarchism –
disobedience and resistance to the state.
• But one can have strong moral reasons for complying with directives issued by his
government without owing any obligations to that government. A state might deserve
obedience without being entitled to it. Moreover the acts and forbearances required by law
are in many cases morally required independently of the law.
• The fact that a citizen is free from political obligation means only that the law’s
demanding something of him is not in itself a morally relevant consideration for behaving
accordingly. The citizen’s pre-existing moral duties will in many (or even most) cases be
sufficient to prohibit his acting contrary to the law.
• Thus, the absence of political obligation does not challenge our understanding of when
morality demands conformity with law and non-resistance as dramatically as one might
expect.
 REFERENCES

• Klosko, G. (2005). ‘Political Obligations’. Oxford University Press.

• Simmons, A.J. (2001). ‘Philosophical Anarchism’ in his ‘Justification and
Legitimacy: Essays on Rights and Obligations’. Cambridge University Press.
• Wolff, R.P. (1970). ‘In Defense of Anarchism’. New York, Evanston and
London: Harper and Row.