Political Obligation: A Critical Introduction

by Dudley Knowles

First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics

219 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Dudley Knowles is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Glasgow.

Reviews

[Misha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an alright literature survey concerning the philosophical topic of political obligation. Although some sentences were nice and well-written, even poetic, I often found myself unmotivated to continue reading this; it was too dull. Though I do think the book is good (not amazing) at what it does: providing a reasonably short overview of what analytic philosophy has to say about political obligation (already quite a dull task). Moreover, I found myself disagreeing with Knowles' moral realist stance quite a lot. He writes that an 'imperfect' duty (opposed to a 'perfect duty) entails "a failure to comply being pathetically and shamefully immoral, hopefully a source of persisting feelings of guilt, but not liable to penal sanctions, legal or otherwise". Such moralising talk definitely reminds me of the kind of cruel ressentiment-filled stance towards wrong-doers rejected not only by Nietzsche, but also by Plato and Spinoza. It is a stance from which I like to distance myself as much as possible.

Nevertheless, this book will be useful for any student who needs to learn about what analytic philosophy has to say about political obligation. I have learned from it; there is no doubting that.