POLITICAL OBLIGATION
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| Political Obligation |
Why should I obey the law? Apart from the obvious prudential and self-interested reasons (to avoid punishment, loss of reputation, and so forth), is there a moral obligation to do what the law requires just because the law requires it? If the answer is yes and the mere illegality of an act renders its performance prima faciemorally wrong, then I am under a political obligation. Political obligation thus refers to the moral duty of citizens to obey the laws of their state. In cases where an act or forbearance that is required by law is morally obligatory on independent grounds, political obligation simply gives the citizen an additional reason for acting accordingly. But law tends to extend beyond morality, forbidding otherwise morally innocent behavior and compelling acts and omissions that are discretionary from an independent moral point of view. In such cases, the sole source of one’s moral duty to comply with the law is his or her political obligation.
Theories of political obligation can be roughly divided into three camps: transactional accounts, natural duty, and associative theories.
Table of Contents
2. Natural Duty
