Political Obligation as Fair Play

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Dagger
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Play Theory ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Integral Feature

One aim of this chapter is to fill out the account of the fair-play theory of obligation sketched in previous chapters. In particular, I show how respect for the rule of law is an integral feature of fair-play theory. In most of the chapter, however, the elaboration proceeds by defending the theory against six important objections critics have lodged against it. One objection, raised memorably by Robert Nozick, would have us reject the principle of fair play altogether. The others allow that the principle is valuable and unobjectionable when confined to its proper sphere, but they insist that political obligation exceeds the boundaries of that sphere. In addition to defending the fair-play account against these objections, I also argue against those who believe that fair play is a necessary but insufficient element in a theory of political obligation that must be pluralistic if it is to be successful.

Playing Fair

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Dagger
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Fair Share ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
General Obligation ◽  
Cooperative Enterprise ◽  
The Law

Is there a general obligation to obey the laws of a reasonably just polity? Is there any justification for imposing suffering, in the form of punishment, on those who break the law? Political and legal philosophers have long debated these vexing questions, but the debates typically have taken up each question in isolation. Playing Fair, however, treats the two questions as intertwined and provides affirmative answers to both—answers grounded, in both cases, in the principle of fair play. According to this principle, those who are engaged in a mutually beneficial cooperative practice or enterprise have a duty to the cooperating participants to bear a fair share of the burdens of the practice. Applied to the political order, the principle holds that a reasonably just polity is a cooperative enterprise whose members receive benefits from the rule of law only because other members obey the law even when they find obedience burdensome. The members of a reasonably just polity thus have a political obligation, understood as a defeasible moral duty to obey the law, to one another. Those who break the laws fail to fulfill this obligation, and their failure justifies the law-abiding members, acting through the proper authorities, in punishing the lawbreakers. Rather than two separate problems, then, political obligation and punishment are two aspects of the same fundamental concern for sustaining a polity that its members can reasonably regard as a cooperative enterprise under the rule of law.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Dagger
Keyword(s):  
Political Obligation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Play Theory ◽  
Justification Of Punishment ◽  
Sustained Effort

This book aims to develop a unified theory of political obligation and the justification of punishment that takes its bearings from the principle of fair play. Much has been written on each of these subjects, of course, including numerous essays in recent years that approach one or the other topic in fair-play terms. However, there has been no sustained effort to link the two in a fair-play theory of political obligation and punishment. This book undertakes such an effort. This introduction explains why such a theory is an attractive possibility and how the argument for it unfolds in the succeeding chapters.

Fair Play and Its Rivals

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Dagger
Keyword(s):  
Political Obligation ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Play Theory ◽  
Political Obligations

Proponents of the fair-play theory of political obligation face challenges not only from those who reject or discount the possibility of political obligations, such as philosophical anarchists, but also from the advocates of competing theories of political obligation. This chapter supports the case for fair-play theory by demonstrating its superiority to its three principal rivals among such theories. Those three rival theories are grounded in either consent, association, or natural duty. All three have their attractions, but they are also vulnerable to serious objections. Their attractions, moreover, often derive from an implicit reliance on considerations of fair play.

Citizenship and Socrates in Plato's Crito

2000 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Rosano
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Civic Virtue ◽  
The Self ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

Plato's Crito articulates the problem of political obligation by clarifying the paradoxical relation between Socratic philosophy and citizenship embodied in the relationship between Socrates and Crito. Scholars obscure the dialogue either by taking the arguments Socrates gives to the laws of Athens as his own reasons for obeying the law rather than as agents of Crito's edification or by severing Socrates from the laws while misunderstanding Crito's significance to political obligation. Socrates bolsters Crito's commitment to civic virtue and the rule of law while revealing their parameters and the self-sufficiency of Socratic philosophy by implicitly raising the issue of voluntary injustice. The tension between Socratic philosophy and citizenship shows the need to view Socrates' defense of citizenship in the light of his defense of philosophy.

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.

Justifying Punishment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Dagger
Keyword(s):  
Political Obligation ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Play Theory ◽  
Legal Punishment ◽  
Theories Of Punishment ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
Communicative Theories

Chapter 5 is the first of the three chapters of Playing Fair that make the case for fair play as the basis for a compelling justification of legal punishment. As it was with the discussion of political obligation, so it is necessary to begin this part of the book by clarifying key terms and confronting fundamental challenges to the enterprise of justifying punishment itself. The chapter thus begins with the questions of what is punishment and what are its proper aims. The latter question is usually answered by reference to retributivism and/or deterrence, and I try to place fair-play theory in this context by linking it to communicative theories of punishment while distinguishing it from Jean Hampton’s expressive version of retributivism. The chapter concludes with responses to those who would, for various reasons, abolish punishment altogether.

Democratic theories and the problem of political participation in Nigeria: Strengthening consensus and the rule of law

Human Affairs ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Ujomu ◽  
Felix Olatunji
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
Basic Rights ◽  
Democratic Principles

AbstractThis paper addresses the problem of the strategies and theories of democratic participation in Nigeria that breed institutional marginality and bad governance due to shortfalls in pursuing the values of justice and empowerment as core democratic characteristics. The same democratic principles such as voting, parliament, constitution, judiciary, that are suggestive of gains such as responsible use, and peaceful transfer of power may not have translated fully into sociopolitical empowerment for responsibility and representation in evolving democratic practice in Nigeria due to problems of agency and political ideology. Democratic theorizing and participation in Nigeria has defied orthodox presuppositions seen in the disrespect for basic rights and the disregard for the rule of law in democracy that allow for fair play within and among the elites and political grassroots. Thus this study investigates the Nigerian predicament as a model or case study, raising questions about the reasons for the systematic disempowerment of groups.

Political Obligation, Punishment, and the Polity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Dagger
Keyword(s):  
Political Obligation ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Play Theory ◽  
Legal Punishment ◽  
Practical Guidance ◽  
The One ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter completes the argument for the fair-play theory of political obligation and punishment by taking up two final tasks. The first is to explain how the two aspects of this theory—that is, the one concerned with political obligation and the one that justifies legal punishment—stand in relation to each other. The claim is that this relationship is interlocking and mutually reinforcing. The second task is to fill out and sharpen the conception of the polity as a cooperative meta-practice that is central to the fair-play theory of political obligation and punishment. In doing so, I hope to show how the fair-play account provides practical guidance even in conditions that fall short of the ideal of a polity so conceived.

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