ABSTRACT

If the anarchist is right, readers might as well stop here. The anarchist denies that citizens have any duties in virtue of their citizenship. There are no political obligations. Anarchism comes in different varieties and, in fact, this denial of duties to the state represents the common core of anarchist views. I shall demonstrate that the main arguments in support of the anarchist rejection of the state, and with it any regime of citizens’ duties, are either mistaken or inconclusive. The latter, weak, conclusion is all that we need to give point to the project of examining arguments that might solve the Philosophical Problem as that was explained in Chapter 4. We need to examine the major anarchist doctrines in turn, but we shall have to do so briskly – so the anarchist may justly complain.1 Following recent practice I distinguish political and philosophical anarchism, and deal with political anarchism first.