RegardingA Theory of Political Obligation

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter begins with a brief overview of the author’s book A Theory of Political Obligation (2006) and goes on to address a number of questions about it from several commentators. Topics addressed include the reasonableness of thinking of political societies as constituted by one or more joint commitments, the content of any such constitutive commitments, the possibility of “signing on” to a joint commitment, the nature of the obligations of joint commitment and their relationship to moral requirements, the fact that the author’s theory of political obligation relates to the obligations of joint commitment as opposed to moral requirements, and the relationship of the theory to “actual contract” theories of political obligation.