Political Obligations

Extract

Political Obligations. By George Klosko. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. 276p. $74.00.

Do citizens have even a prima facie moral obligation to obey the law of a reasonably just state? Most contemporary political theorists think not. George Klosko disagrees with these philosophical anarchists, and in this book he explains why. In the first, longer section, he builds upon his earlier work, The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation (1992, new ed. 2004), to produce a new, multistranded argument for the existence of a moral obligation to obey the law. In the last four chapters, Klosko examines, empirically, what constitutional courts in three liberal states, and a selection of ordinary people in the United States, have to say about the nature and foundations of political obligations.