Content Independence and Political Obligation: Scope Limitations of Content-Independent Moral Reasons
| Author | George Klosko |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720932132 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720932132
Political Studies
2023, Vol. 71(1) 30 –46
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720932132
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Content Independence and
Political Obligation: Scope
Limitations of Content-
Independent Moral Reasons
George Klosko
Abstract
Although understanding political obligations as content-independent is standard in the literature,
this view cannot be defended. Central to this position is a single content-independent reason to
obey virtually all laws because they are laws, as opposed to because of their particular contents.
However, intuitively plausible and familiar this view may be, adequate foundational reasons are
not to be had. My particular focus is “scope limitations” of content-independent moral reasons.
Content-independent moral reasons commonly evoked can be seen to be unable to justify
adequate ranges of laws. I demonstrate this problem in regard to what I view as the two strongest
contemporary theories of political obligation, based on fair play and natural duties of justice.
Accordingly, to preserve the content independence of political obligations, we must do so in a
different way. The modified view I suggest combines different scope-limited content-independent
reasons to justify an adequate range of laws.
Keywords
political obligation, content independence, philosophical anarchism
Accepted: 13 May 2020
As traditionally understood, political obligations are moral requirements to obey the law
because it is the law. These requirements are independent of content. Although scholars
debate the precise nature of content-independent (CI) reasons, their basic thrust is easily
understood. The law may require that citizens pay progressive income tax or flat tax. If
citizens have requirements to obey, these requirements have moral force because they are
the law, rather than because of the specific contents of different laws. Moral requirements
to obey the law remain constant across different laws.
Understanding political obligations in this way is standard in the literature. For
instance, according to Leslie Green: “Political obligation is the doctrine that everyone has
Department of Politics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
Corresponding author:
George Klosko, Department of Politics, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400787, Charlottesville, VA 22904,
USA.
Email: gk@virginia.edu
932132PSX0010.1177/0032321720932132Political StudiesKlosko
research-article2022
Article
Klosko 31
a moral reason to obey all the laws of his or her own state and that this reason binds inde-
pendently of the content of the law” (Green, 1999: 309). Green views this feature as a
“necessary one in any argument purporting to establish the existence of a political obliga-
tion.” It could not be abandoned “without abandoning part of any satisfactory analysis of
political authority” (Green, 1988: 226, 239).
Many other theorists with similar views could be named (e.g. Raz, 1986: 35–37;
Schauer, 2015: 52; Shapiro, 2002: 389), including critics of political obligations. For
example, according to Robert Paul Wolff, in the work that pioneered philosophical anar-
chism: “Obedience is not a matter of doing what someone tells you to do. It is a matter of
doing what he tells you to do because he tells you to do it” (Wolff, 1970: 9; his emphasis).
Wolff (1970: 9) argues that this conception of obedience is incompatible with individual
autonomy, and so the philosophical anarchist “will deny that he has a duty to obey the
laws of the state simply because they are the laws” (his emphasis; see also Simmons,
2001: 106–107; Smith, 1973: 952).
In this article, I criticize this traditional view of CI political obligations. Central to
what I regard as the traditional view is a single, expansive CI reason to obey virtually all
laws because they are laws. This view is bound up with what Green calls the “self-image
of the state” (Green, 1988: chap. 3). He claims that the state sees itself as a “duty imposer.”
By passing a law or other edict, it changes people’s normative status, giving them reasons
to obey the edict in question. CI political obligations are the reasons why people are
required to obey. Although the state is not able to pass any law it pleases, central to the
traditional view is that it has extremely wide latitude. Basically, it is able to pass any law
that has rational basis and is not objectionable on moral or constitutional grounds. As long
as these minimal requirements are satisfied, people subject to its jurisdiction are required
to obey laws that are passed because they are laws. In opposition to this view, I advance
two main claims, one critical and one constructive. First, I argue that this conception of
CI political obligations cannot be justified. However, intuitively plausible and familiar it
may be, adequate foundational reasons for it are not to be had. More than 40 years of criti-
cal scholarship has called into question all plausible bases of political obligations.1 But in
this article, I wish to avoid familiar debates about different principles of political obliga-
tion. I therefore sidestep these as much as possible to focus on my central concern, what
I call “scope-limitations” of moral reasons. Accordingly, my main critical contention is
that, because of scope limitations, CI moral reasons commonly evoked to justify political
obligations are not able to uphold adequate ranges of laws. Exactly what I mean by this
claim is discussed below. I support it in regard to what I view as the two strongest con-
temporary theories of political obligation, based on fair play and natural duties of justice.
However, because of reasons of space and my desire not to rehearse familiar debates
about political obligation, only the former is discussed in detail. Natural duties are only
touched upon. There are two exceptions to the inability of traditional theories, theories of
obligation based on consent and democracy which are not impeded by scope limitations.
But these are weak theories, subject to immediate and fatal objections, and so supported
by few contemporary scholars. Accordingly, my second claim, if we wish to preserve
the content independence of political obligations, we must do so in a different way.
The modified view I suggest combines different scope-limited CI reasons to justify an
adequate range of laws.
Before proceeding, I should say something briefly about how the argument of this
article fits into the current literature on political obligation. As I have noted, in the litera-
ture, scholars generally attempt to ground all relevant political obligations in a single
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