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Structures of Mutual Obligation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2002

ROBERT E. GOODIN
ROBERT E. GOODIN
Affiliation:
Professor of Social & Political Theory and Philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.
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Abstract

‘Mutual obligation’ is a deft political slogan. Morally, it evokes deep-seated intuitions about ‘fair reciprocity’ and the ‘duty of fair play’. It seems an easy slide from those intuitions to ‘mutual obligation’ policies demanding work-for-the-dole. That slide is illegitimate, however. There are many different ways to structure mutual obligation. Workfare policies, such as the Howard government's ‘Mutual Obligation Initiative’ in Australia, pick out only one among many alternative regimes that would answer equally well to our root intuitions about ‘fair reciprocity’. Other ways of structuring mutual obligations within social welfare policy are both more standard and more desirable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , October 2002 , pp. 579 - 596
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This paper has benefited from discussions at the University of Melbourne's Public Policy Program, Centre for Applied Philosophy and the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics & Social Research; and a workshop of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia at the University of Sydney. I am grateful to those audiences and organisers – Brian Howe, Jeremy Moss, Peter Dawkins, Bettina Cass, Deborah Brennan and Moira Gatens – and to Diane Gibson and Peter Saunders.