ABSTRACT
In the first chapter, we set up the ancient problem of political obligation as framed by a clear tension and a strong possibility of conflict between two claims – the claim of the state to allegiance, authority and obedience, and the claim of the citizen to autonomy, to moral self-governance. There is no problem of political obligation, no question of citizens recognizing any duties to the state, if there is no legitimate state. And a ‘state’ that does not command allegiance, assert its authority or demand obedience is not a state. Likewise, there is no problem of citizens’ obligations or duties if citizens make no claim to autonomous judgement concerning how they shall behave. But if the state claims a right to govern and the citizen claims a right of autonomous agency, a very real problem is raised, since the state might require the citizen to act in a way that conflicts with his judgement of what is best for him to do. We saw in Chapter 3 that this conflict threatens the thought that a state can have authority over the citizen, but it does not generate a paradox. It does not make it logically impossible or impossibly difficult to justify the authority of the state since the authority will be limited to some specified domain and it is open to argument whether or not an autonomous agent may reasonably endorse the claims of a state to authority within some delimited domain. Nonetheless, the state still requires to be justified, and this task of justification is best conceived as an effort by the state to make a plausible case to independently minded citizens in support of its authority.
