ABSTRACT
Most of the contemporary liberal democratic theorists who have written on political obligation (in various senses of this term) deny that consent is the basis of such an obligation. Within this literature three approaches are most prominent. They are, very broadly speaking, in the spirit of Locke, Kant and Hume respectively. Some, most prominently Tussman, claim, in the spirit of Locke, that actual personal consent is the basis of political obligation. The writers who deny this divide into two camps. There are those, most prominently Rawls, who, in the spirit of Kant, see as most important in justified political obedience a natural duty to obey just states, and claim this duty can be analysed in terms of hypothetical, rational, consent. There are others, e.g. Steinberg, who, in the spirit of Hume, see as most important in justified political obedience a natural duty to obey states in so far as they have utility.
