ABSTRACT
The question with which our discussion commences is this. We imagine a government and its officers on the one hand, and a citizen or group of citizens on the other. The government's officers are upholding some legal ordinance, and the citizen or group of citizens are considering whether they ought or ought not to obey. We suppose, furthermore, that, at any rate for a time, the question of obedience or disobedience is being discussed in as rational a manner as is possible. The question then is: how could such a matter be rationally discussed between two such parties? Clearly it could not be rationally discussed if there were no prospect whatever of the issue's being brought to an agreed conclusion. Disputation that cannot lead anywhere is not rational disputation at all, but rather a sort of unorganized amusement or disguised fight like competitive boasting that comes to an end merely because one of the parties can think of nothing more to say rather than because a conclusion has been reached. When there is an argument between a citizen and his government about whether the citizen should obey or not, by reference to what sort of consideration could one party hope rationally to convince the other that obedience or disobedience is the proper decision? We know, of course, that such arguments are seldom carried out on a purely rational plane, that, indeed, they are not intended to remain on the purely argumentative level at all. The questioning citizen will either obey or disobey, and the governmental party will terminate the discussion with an attempt at enforcement. But when these things have been done it will be possible to look back on them and consider whether they were done rightly or wrongly and why they were right if they were right or why they were wrong if they were wrong. Both parties to the discussion, we are supposing, wish to act in a way that they can justify, and hence our question is about the nature of justification in politics. We want to know how it is possible, when the parties concerned are a government on the one side and a citizen on the other, for the one to justify its conduct to the other, whether it be the enforcement of obedience or an act or policy of disobedience.
