The Content-Independence of Political Obligations: A Response to Klosko

George Klosko rejects the standard assumption that political obligations, at least insofar as they are conceived as moral requirements to obey the law, must be content-independent. He thereby neglects the familiar distinction between obedience to and mere compliance with legal norms. The present art...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPolitical theory Vol. 42; no. 2; pp. 218 - 222
Main Author Walton, Kevin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.04.2014
Subjects
Anarchism
Critical Exchange
Moral principles
Morality
Obedience
Philosophy of law
Political obligation
Political philosophy
Pure reason
Skepticism
autonomy
obedience
content-independence
political obligation
philosophical anarchism
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Summary:George Klosko rejects the standard assumption that political obligations, at least insofar as they are conceived as moral requirements to obey the law, must be content-independent. He thereby neglects the familiar distinction between obedience to and mere compliance with legal norms. The present article insists on this distinction by identifying a plausible alternative to the understanding of content-independence that Klosko correctly, even if not for the most obvious reason, dismisses and mistakenly, though not unreasonably, attributes to several philosophers with whose work it is actually incompatible. Given Klosko's failure to examine this further option, which is consistent with nearly all, including skeptical, theories of political obligation, his case against the necessity of content-independence must be deemed unsuccessful.
ISSN:0090-5917
1552-7476
DOI:10.1177/0090591713514981