Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- 153 Paternalism
- 154 Peoples
- 155 Perfectionism
- 156 Plan of life
- 157 Pogge, Thomas
- 158 Political conception of justice
- 159 Political liberalism, justice as fairness as
- 160 Political liberalisms, family of
- 161 Political obligation
- 162 Political virtues
- 163 Practical reason
- 164 Precepts of justice
- 165 Primary goods, social
- 166 The priority of the right over the good
- 167 Procedural justice
- 168 Promising
- 169 Property-owning democracy
- 170 Public choice theory
- 171 Public political culture
- 172 Public reason
- 173 Publicity
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
161 - Political obligation
from P
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- 153 Paternalism
- 154 Peoples
- 155 Perfectionism
- 156 Plan of life
- 157 Pogge, Thomas
- 158 Political conception of justice
- 159 Political liberalism, justice as fairness as
- 160 Political liberalisms, family of
- 161 Political obligation
- 162 Political virtues
- 163 Practical reason
- 164 Precepts of justice
- 165 Primary goods, social
- 166 The priority of the right over the good
- 167 Procedural justice
- 168 Promising
- 169 Property-owning democracy
- 170 Public choice theory
- 171 Public political culture
- 172 Public reason
- 173 Publicity
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Questions of political obligation concern people’s duties to obey the law. Rawls’s first sustained discussion of this subject was in his1964 article, “Legal Obligation and the Duty of Fair Play.” In this piece, Rawls assumes that in acceptably just modern societies, there is a moral obligation to obey the law, which rests on some general moral principle (CP 117). The principle to which Rawls appeals is the principle of fair play.
This principle was first clearly formulated by H. L. A. Hart in 1955 (Hart 1955, 185–186). Rawls’s formulation is as follows:
Suppose there is a mutually beneficial and just scheme of social cooperation,and that the advantages it yields can only be obtained if everyone, or nearly everyone, cooperates. Suppose further that cooperation requires a certain sacrifice from each person […] Suppose finally that the benefits produced by cooperation are, up to a certain point, free […] Under these conditions a person who has accepted the benefits of the scheme is bound by a duty of fair play to do his part and not to take advantage of the free benefit by not cooperating. (CP 122)
The moral basis of the principle is mutuality of restrictions. Under specified conditions, if members of a cooperative scheme make sacrifices in order to produce benefits that are also received by non-cooperators, the latter may have obligations to make similar sacrifices. As Rawls later says, “We are not to gain from the cooperative labors of others without doing our fair share” (TJ 96).
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- Information
- The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon , pp. 628 - 630Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014