Political Obligation

by John P. Horton

How should we understand the relationship between citizens and governments, and what are the obligations of citizens? In this substantially revised new edition of an influential text, John Horton challenges dominant theories by offering an 'associative' account focusing particularly on what it is to be a member of a political community.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Sergei Moska]

This is a Jekyll / Hyde type of book. As a review and critique of the main families that seek to justify political obligation (and overcome Simmons style philosophical anarchism), it is fantastic. Very clearly explained, clever, etc. When Horton proposes to ground political obligation on more or less associative grounds, though, things go off the rails. The long and sort of it is that he thinks that our membership in a polity is constitutive of our identity, and that this gives rise to obligations, much in the same way that it does amongst family members. Since our identity is (partially) constructed by way of our having grown up in one particular community, Horton believes that this effectively explains the feeling of obligation we have towards our particular community. Because these duties arise in a manner other than by giving consent, Horton's proposal avoids the arguments made against consent theorists.

That's fine, but

(1)the family analogy is weak. Horton and those who sympathize with him overstate the extent to which we owe family members duties. For one, there seems to be a big-time idealization of the family going on. It's not at all clear to me that anything is due to your abusive, or even indifferent family. And to the extent that duties are owed to loving families, it seems to me that they are owed by virtue of a reciprocity that is grounded on unstated but understood assumptions about how each member is to be treated. In other words, at least with adults, these "family duties" may break down into duties arising from consent, with all the problems that such duties bring

(2)to say that feelings of belonging emerge do not justify the moral worth of the actions that these feelings make us want to bring about, unless the criteria by which we evaluate said worth stems from the community itself. But that can't be right - having misogynist feelings and political views, and justifying them by reference to the community which gave you those views in the first place, is just plain circular

There's more to be said, but I'll stop here. Bottom line: a fantastic primer (and beyond) of the major schools of thought, but his positive proposals are just bad.