Political and Legal Obligation

Political and Legal Obligation PDF Author: J. Roland Pennock
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351499238
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 616

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Book Description
At a point in history marked by dramatic challenges to the existing political and social order, the question of legal and political obligation emerges as a focal point of international concern. Amid the clamor for radical change in the established order, theories of political obligation demand renewed examination. In this volume, eighteen leading specialists in the legal, philosophical, and political science aspects of the question offer their views on this timely topic. Part I examines the nature of moral, legal, and political obligation. The first essay presents a set of definitions that denies the very existence of obligation. While the second essay disagreeing particularly with respect to the relationship of political to moral tenets, and the third discussing the highly complex interplay between law and morality. The following essay approaches obligation as existing in the context of an established political and legal system and stresses the importance of evaluating the negative consequences of challenges to the law as well as those arising from the absence of challenges. The next paper maintains that political obligation is so complex that its very existence depends upon rational deliberation in particular contexts. The fifth, explores four significant theories but accepts only the one based on the broadest definition of obligation. While the final essay in this part considers political obligation a unique and generalized moral obligation. Part II takes up the conditions of obligation and of obedience. The first essay in this part discusses the conditions necessary to generate a "felt obligation." The second paper, concentrates on exposing key obstacles to empirical proof that behavior is or is not motivated by "felt obligation." While the third draws upon a large body of literature and court decisions dealing with compliance to the law. The forth essay is a case study of Rome probes the role of obligation during that city's seven cent

Political and Legal Obligation

Political and Legal Obligation PDF Author: J. Roland Pennock
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351499238
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 616

Get Book Here

Book Description
At a point in history marked by dramatic challenges to the existing political and social order, the question of legal and political obligation emerges as a focal point of international concern. Amid the clamor for radical change in the established order, theories of political obligation demand renewed examination. In this volume, eighteen leading specialists in the legal, philosophical, and political science aspects of the question offer their views on this timely topic. Part I examines the nature of moral, legal, and political obligation. The first essay presents a set of definitions that denies the very existence of obligation. While the second essay disagreeing particularly with respect to the relationship of political to moral tenets, and the third discussing the highly complex interplay between law and morality. The following essay approaches obligation as existing in the context of an established political and legal system and stresses the importance of evaluating the negative consequences of challenges to the law as well as those arising from the absence of challenges. The next paper maintains that political obligation is so complex that its very existence depends upon rational deliberation in particular contexts. The fifth, explores four significant theories but accepts only the one based on the broadest definition of obligation. While the final essay in this part considers political obligation a unique and generalized moral obligation. Part II takes up the conditions of obligation and of obedience. The first essay in this part discusses the conditions necessary to generate a "felt obligation." The second paper, concentrates on exposing key obstacles to empirical proof that behavior is or is not motivated by "felt obligation." While the third draws upon a large body of literature and court decisions dealing with compliance to the law. The forth essay is a case study of Rome probes the role of obligation during that city's seven cent

Political Obligation

Political Obligation PDF Author: Richard E. Flathman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000706842
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
"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.

Political Obligations

Political Obligations PDF Author: George Klosko
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191531308
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Political Obligations provides a full defense of a theory of political obligation based on the principle of fairness (or fair play), which is widely viewed as the strongest theory of obligation currently available. The work responds to the most important objections to the principle of fairness, and extends a theory based on fairness into a developed 'multiple principle' theory of obligation. In order to establish the need for such a theory, Political Obligations criticizes alternative theories of obligation based on a natural duty of justice and 'reformist' consent, and critically examines the non-state theories of libertarian and philosophical anarchists. The work breaks new ground by providing the first in-depth study of popular attitudes towards political obligations and how the state itself views them. The attitudes of ordinary citizens are explored through small focus groups, while the 'self image of the state' in regard to the obligations of its citizens is studied through examination of judicial decisions in three different democratic countries.

Legal and Political Obligation

Legal and Political Obligation PDF Author: R. George Wright
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
This book focuses upon the perennial question of the existence and nature of an obligation to obey the law. Leading writers have, at one time or another, emphasized considerations such as gratitude, 'divine ordering, ' prudence, contract, autonomy, and utility in seeking to justify, or to deny any justification for, some sort of obligation to obey the positive law. The book provides relevant selections from a sampling of the historical approaches to legal obligation taken by writers such as Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Thoreau, Bentham, Marx and Engels, and Martin Luther King, Jr. These classical discussions are augmented by critical questions and commentary, by independent discussions of the question of legal obligation by a wide range of contemporary writers, and by relevant judicial cases discussing matters such as conscientious objection and civil disobedience.

Moral Principles and Political Obligations

Moral Principles and Political Obligations PDF Author: A. John Simmons
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691020198
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
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?

Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation

Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation PDF Author: Thomas Hill Green
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Liberty
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description


On Political Obligation

On Political Obligation PDF Author: Paul Harris
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000706427
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
First published in 1990. The individual’s obligation to obey the law, the state and the government is a fundamental part of contemporary political theory. The contributors to this volume, drawn from a variety of disciplines including philosophy, political science and law, take a fresh look at the dilemmas of political obligation. They discuss the extent to which we should allow the need for conformity to override individual liberties, and ask whether individualism is indeed feasible without a highly developed sense of the ‘public interest’ or the ‘common good‘. The contrast between individualism and communitarianism is examined throughout the book. The contributors also look at the various means through which the state can coerce or persuade the individual to be obedient. The emphasis throughout this collection is on the substantive problems themselves, rather than on the way these issues have been addressed in the history of political thought. The book offers a number of different perspectives on political obligation, and will be valuable to students of moral, political, social and legal philosophy.

Political Obligation

Political Obligation PDF Author: Thomas McPherson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Authority
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description


A Theory of Political Obligation

A Theory of Political Obligation PDF Author: Margaret Gilbert
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199274959
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
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.

Why Should We Obey the Law?

Why Should We Obey the Law? PDF Author: George Klosko
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509521240
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
Whether we should obey the law is a question that affects everyone’s day-to-day life, from traffic laws to taxes. Most people obey out of habit, but the question remains: why are we morally required to do so? If we fail to obey, the state may enforce compliance, but is it right for it to do this, and if so, why? In this book, George Klosko, a renowned authority on political obligation, skillfully probes these questions. He considers various prominent theories of obligation and shows why they are unconvincing, contending that only an approach that interweaves multiple principles, rooted in "fair play," is fully persuasive. Klosko develops the fullest statement of his own well-known theory of political obligation while providing a clear overview of the subject. The result is both an essential introductory text for students of political theory and philosophy and a cutting-edge, original contribution to the debate.