Hypothetical Consent and Political Legitimacy Essay -- What is Politics

ABSTRACT A commonly holded admonition of the mixer contract approach to justifying governmental authority targets the notion of supposed(p) go for. Hypothetical contracts, it is argued, are not binding therefore hypothetical accord cannot justify semipolitical authority. I argue that although hypothetical consent whitethorn not be capable of creating political obligation, it has the power to legitimate political arrangements. Hypothetical Consent and JustificationA commonly accepted blame of the social contract approach to justifying political authority targets the idea of hypothetical consent. Since only actual agreements are binding, the argument goes, citizens are not jump to obey their governments on the ground that, under circumstances different from the ones in which they now find themselves, they would have agreed to submit to its authority. (1) The purpose of this cover is to rescue hypothetical consent from this remonstrance. I begin by distinguishing political legitimacy from political obligation. (2) I argue that while hypothetical consent may not serve as an adequate ground for political obligation, it is capable of grounding political legitimacy.I understand a hypothesis of political legitimacy to give an bank bill of the justice of political arrangements. (3) I understand a theory of political obligation to give an account of why and under what conditions, citizens are morally required to obey the rules constituting those arrangements. The social contract tradition offers us hypothetical consent theories of both political obligation and political legitimacy, frequently neglecting to distinguish the two ideas. Likewise, the common objection to hypothetical consent theories that hypothetical contracts do not bind ... ...vice of mold.(14) For an argument that no contractual agreement on the two principles of justice occurs in the original position and that therefore the two principles are not justified by a contract, see Jean Hamp ton, Contracts and Choices Does Rawls Have a Social Contract Theory? The Journal of Philosophy 77, 6 (June 1980) 315-38.(15) As Jeremy Waldron maintains, When we move from asking what people actually accept to asking what they would accept under certain conditions, we shift our emphasis away from the will and management on the reasons that people might have for exercising their will in one way rather than another. Waldron, p. 55.(16) This objection is due to Bruce Landesman.(17) For a backchat of this distinction and the relation between the reasonable and the rational, see Rawls, PL, pp. 48-54.(18) See Freeman, pp. 123-31.