On Using the Concept of Hypothetical Consent

1989 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 793-808
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Subjective Meaning ◽  
Hypothetical Consent ◽  
The Right ◽  
As If

AbstractThis article argues that the concept of hypothetical consent advanced by Hanna Pitkin has little force as a basis for political obligation. It reformulates the meaning of hypothetical consent by emphasizing the subjectivity of consent, and it points out how this subjective meaning expresses the right of actual citizens to dissent. It suggests how subjective hypothetical consent can be used from the perspective of a sovereign as a standard that requires the sovereign to treat citizens as if they had consented, although they have not consented. It concludes by arguing that although this standard may appear to corrode political authority, instead it enhances political authority. It drives the sovereign to relinquish the claim that citizens are obligated to obey, and to treat them so they will have reason to obey.

Hypothetical Consent and Political Obligation

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-63
Author(s):  
Chris King ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Obligation ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Political Obligations ◽  
Hypothetical Consent ◽  
Normative Argument ◽  
As If

Hypothetical Consent Situations are widely employed in normative argument as if they help to justify normative claims or to explain normative facts. Historically, however, there is plenty of suspicion about them. In this light, there is a tendency to prefer theories of political obligation that do not depend upon hypothetical consent to explain political obligations – those that appeal, for instance, a general moral principle (like a natural duty) or to actual consent. This paper makes no full-throated defense of hypothetical consent. But it does try to identify more carefully than is usually done what sorts of cases they represent and to show that at least two concerns about them are unwarranted.

Hypothetical Consent and Political Legitimacy

1998 ◽  
pp. 232-238
Author(s):  
Cynthia Stark
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Hypothetical Consent

A commonly accepted criticism of the social contract approach to justifying political authority targets the notion of hypothetical consent. Hypothetical contracts, it is argued, are not binding; therefore hypothetical consent cannot justify political authority. I argue that although hypothetical consent may not be capable of creating political obligation, it has the power to legitimate political arrangements.

Authority, Deference, and Fair Play

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Dagger
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Play Theory ◽  
Standard Account ◽  
General Obligation ◽  
Service Conception ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right

This chapter defends the fair-play theory of political obligation and punishment by addressing two further challenges. According to the first challenge, recent revisions to the standard conception of political and legal authority lead to the conclusion that there is no general obligation to obey the law. On this standard account, to have political or legal authority is to have a right to rule, and those subject to authority have an obligation to obey the directives of those who have the right to rule. If this account is faulty, then the connection between political authority and political obligation is neither as straightforward nor as strong as the standard account assumes. According to the second challenge, the problem is not with authority but with what citizens owe to their polities. That is, citizens do have duties with regard to the law, but the weaker duties of respect or deference rather than an obligation to obey. This chapter responds to the first challenge by demonstrating the superiority of the standard account to the so-called service conception of authority and to the second by showing how appeals to respect or deference rely on a belief in political obligation.

Recognizing Rights: Hobbes on the Authority of Mothers and Conquerors

2003 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-60
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Maternal Authority ◽  
The Right ◽  
As If

This article follows Hobbes's distinction between man as the artificer of a commonwealth and man as the material of the commonwealth, by exploring the meaning of natural right and consent from the perspective of an artificer or potential sovereign. From this perspective, natural rights are transformed from alleged attributes of humans into decisions by a victor in war to treat the defeated as if they had natural rights. Similarly, consent is transformed from actions of subjects or citizens into a decision by a victor to recognize the defeated as if they had a right to consent and to treat them as if they had consented. Moreover, Hobbes's concept of a commonwealth by institution is understood as a definitional standard for the creation of commonwealths by force or acquisition, rather than as a possible historical event. Hobbes sought to explain and substantiate this view of natural right and consent by comparing the emergence of political authority from victory in war to the emergence of authority of a mother over her infant in a state of nature. According to Hobbes, just as maternal authority rests on a mother's recognition of the right of her infant to consent, political authority rests on the victor's recognition of the right of the defeated to consent. The practical policy thrust of Hobbes's thought emerges from his comparison of the authority of mothers and conquerors.

A Neo-Assyrian statue from Til Barsib

Iraq ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 79-87
Author(s):  
Arlette Roobaert
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Lower Portion ◽  
Maximum Height ◽  
Clear Indication ◽  
Large Hole ◽  
Relative Placement ◽  
The Right ◽  
As If ◽  
Medium Texture

During the 1993 season of excavations at Tell Ahmar, three pieces of a life-size basalt statue were found in a pit dug into one of the large walls surrounding an Iron Age vaulted tomb (Fig. 1). The head, the tors o and the lower part fitted together perfectly. When correctly assembled, these three pieces formed the figure of a standing beardless man with clasped hands (Fig. 2a−b). Only the feet were missing. The maximum height of the reconstructed statue is 1.45m. It was clear from the damage to portions of its body that the statue had been deliberately broken in antiquity. Details, such as a large hole on the right side of the chest, a smaller one on the top of the head and, above all, the defacement of the head suggest that the statue may have actually been “killed”.All three pieces of the statue, which was carved out of a blue greyish basalt of medium texture, were found lying on their backs (Fig. 4). The head lay next to the lower part of the statue, but was buried in a slightly deeper position. The relative placement of these fragments seems to be a clear indication that the statue was not knocked down at this particular spot, but was brought to this location in separate pieces, perhaps with the deliberate intention of burying them.The head was cut off as if the statue had been decapitated. The torso was separated from the lower portion of the statue by an oblique cut that divided the figure just below the waist. The cut runs downwards from the back and continues underneath the clasped hands at the front, leaving the hands almost completely undamaged. The lower part of the statue seems to have been separated from the missing feet by a horizontal cut. This may indicate that the base of the statue was left in situ, probably because it was solidly set in the ground.

Wyclif and the wheel of time

1997 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 177-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wilks
Keyword(s):  
Time Factor ◽  
Spiritual Power ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Ecclesiastical Authority ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Right Relationship ◽  
The Right ◽  
As If

During the 1370s Wyclif wrote to defend a monarchy which made extensive use of bishops and other clergy in the royal administration and yet was faced with aristocratic factions encouraged by bishops like Wykeham and Courtenay who espoused papal supremacy, if not out of conviction, at least as a very convenient weapon to support their independence against royal absolutism. At first sight Wyclifs attempts to define the right relationship between royal and episcopal, temporal and spiritual, power seem as confused as the contemporary political situation. His works contain such a wide range of theories from orthodox two swords dualism to a radical rejection of ecclesiastical authority well beyond that of Marsilius and Ockham that it seems as if his only interest was in collecting every anti-hierocratic idea available for use against the papacy. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that a much more coherent view of episcopal power can be detected beneath his tirades if it is appreciated that his continual demand for a great reform, a reformatio regni et ecclesiae, is inseparably linked to his understanding of the history of the Christian Church, and that in this way Wyclif anticipates Montesquieu in requiring a time factor as a necessary ingredient in constitutional arrangements.

Unwanted Compatriots: Alienation, Migration, and Political Autonomy

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-501
Author(s):  
Michael Blake
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Apparent Contradiction ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Hypothetical Consent

AbstractIn Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration, Anna Stilz argues that legitimate political authority requires the actual—rather than hypothetical—consent of the governed. I argue, however, that her analysis of that consent is inconsistent, in the weight it ascribes to the felt desire to refrain from doing politics with some particular group of people. In the context of secession and self-determination, the lack of actual consent to shared political institutions is weighty enough to render such institutions presumptively illegitimate. In the context of migration, however, a lack of actual consent to the presence of newcomers is ascribed nearly no weight, and instead is taken as evidence of irrationality or immoral preferences. I argue that this apparent contradiction must be clarified before Stilz's overall account of self-governance can be accepted.

scholarly journals Political Consent, Promissory Fidelity and Rights Transfers in Grotius

Grotiana ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-145
Author(s):  
Laetitia Ramelet
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Political Obligations ◽  
Salient Characteristic ◽  
Solid Foundation ◽  
The Right

Grotius (1583–1645) is now widely acknowledged as an important figure in early modern contractual and consensual theories of political authority and legitimacy. However, as his thoughts on these debates are disseminated throughout his works rather than systematically ordained, it remains difficult to assess what, if anything, constitutes his distinctive mark. In the present paper, I will argue that his works contain a combination of two conceptual elements that have come to constitute a salient characteristic of early modern contract and consent theories: first, a strong obligation to keep one’s promises, and second, an account of perfect promises as transferrals of rights. In the political sphere, this means that citizens who have promised their obedience to the authorities are obligated to keep faith, which provides a solid foundation for political obligations. In addition, their promise implies that authorities receive the right to rule over them, which accounts for the legitimacy of these authorities’ power.

Settling Up

Worldview ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 35-36
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Cottle
Keyword(s):  
West Indies ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right ◽  
Council House ◽  
As If ◽  
Settling Up

Beatrice Waters lives in the corner flat on the top floor of a council house in the Islington district of London. She spent four years of her life making the arrangements to rent a flat in this particular block of council houses. Four long years of speaking with this or that authority and arguing with her husband over whether they had made the right decision. At fifty, Henry Waters doubted he could survive still another move. He couldn't even remember all the places in which he had lived, as if immigrating from the West Indies to England wasn't significant enough. “Don't you think,” he would ask Beatrice, “there comes a time that people just settle down, no matter how good or bad a deal they've made for themselves? How long do you keep changing homes just to prove you're really getting somewhere in the world?’

Bread, dignity and social justice

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 478-490 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Arab Spring

Although they produced vastly more turmoil, the uprisings in the Arab world shared many characteristics with other early 21st-century popular protests on both the left and the right, from Spain’s Indignados and Occupy Wall Street to the anti-elite votes for Brexit and Trump. The conviction that political elites and the states they rule, which were once responsible for welfare and development, now ignore and demean the interests and concerns of ordinary citizens takes many forms, but is virtually universal. The Arab world was only one site of this discontent, but the story of the Arab Spring insurrections provides a cautionary illustration of the perils in abdication of political authority and accountability and provokes questions about how we understand historical moments when passions outstrip interests.

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