Dorota Mokrosinska

Privacy and social interaction

This article joins in and extends the contemporary debate on the right to privacy. We bring together two strands of the contemporary discourse on privacy. While we endorse the prevailing claim that norms of informational privacy protect the autonomy of individual subjects, we supplement it with an argument demonstrating that privacy is an integral element of the dynamics of all social relationships. This latter claim is developed in terms of the social role theory and substantiated by an analysis of the role of privacy in intimate relationships, in professional relationships and in social interactions between strangers in public. We conclude by arguing that it is not always reasonable to assume a conflict between individual privacy on the one hand and society on the other. Legislators and participants in public debate also have to take into account the consequences of limiting privacy on social interaction and the integration of the society.

What is political about political obligation? A neglected lesson from consent theory

Much of the debate concerning political obligation deals with the question of which, if any, moral principles could make obedience to the directives of the government a matter of obligation. What makes political obligation political has not received attention in the literature on the topic. In this article I argue that the lack of systematic reflection on what makes political obligation political is responsible for the failure of a number of influential theories of political obligation. I demonstrate this failure using the consent theory of political obligation as my major example. I conclude my analysis by formulating some positive conditions that a successful principle of political obligation should satisfy.

Communal Ties and Political Obligations

The associative argument for political obligation has taken an important place in the debate on political obligation. Proponents of this view argue that an obligation to obey the government arises out of ties of affiliation among individuals who share the same citizenship. According to them, relationships between compatriots constitute basic reasons for action in the same way in which relationships between family members or friends do. As critics point out, this account of the normative force of relationships has counterintuitive implications: if relationships between people sharing the same citizenship make up basic reasons for action, then relationships between people sharing other attributes, for example, relationships between racists or sexists form basic reasons for action too. In this essay, I pursue a modified version of the associative approach that is not vulnerable to this objection.

Well-Being and Justice

The idea that states provide important benefits is, for many, a strong argument in support of the requirement to obey the state. The approaches examined in the previous chapters left this idea underexposed. Their focus was not on the qualities of states and the goals they serve, but rather on the acts of individuals, voluntary or otherwise, that put them under obligation to the state. The theories discussed in this chapter foreground the idea that states serve important human goals. They present states as a means of providing important moral goods, that is, realising relationships of justice between individuals and securing basic conditions of human well-being (such as happiness, welfare or preference satisfaction). Given that justice and human well-being are values that we have independent natural duties to pursue, obedience to the state is presented here as a way of performing our natural duties. Due to its embedding in natural duties, this argument for political obligation is referred to as the ‘natural duty’ argument for political obligation.

The Problem of Political Obligation

Political obligation, in its primary sense, refers to a moral requirement to obey the directives of the state (the government, law). 1 How, if at all, can we acquire such an obligation? What are its limits? The debate concerning political obligation has had a prominent place in political philosophy. This should not be surprising if we reflect on what is at stake in how the problem of political obligation is answered.

Consent and Gratitude

It seems natural to think that our obligations to obey our governments, if they exist, have their source in our relationship to our governments. Such is the oldest version of the argument for political obligation presented by Socrates who, in justifying his obedience to Athenian laws, stated his personal agreement to obey them and his gratitude for the benefits they conferred on him.1 The theories discussed in this chapter elaborate on the idea that political obligation arises by virtue of morally significant interactions taking place between particular individuals and the government. The theory of consent has it that political obligation is derived from acts of personal, deliberate consent to the government. The theory of gratitude asserts that political obligation is derived from the personal enjoyment of the benefits conferred by it. According to these theories, consent and gratitude transform the moral relationship between the parties involved in the following way: in acquiring an obligation to obey the directives of the government by virtue of consent and gratitude, individuals confer on the government a right to demand their obedience and to interfere with their conduct if their obedience is not forthcoming. The relationship of command and obedience established in this way is then taken to mark the emergence of a relationship of political authority and, hence, the emergence of political society.

The Obligations of Civil Justice and Unjust States

In the preceding chapters, I have offered a critical analysis of contemporary theories of political obligation, formulated the conditions that a theory of political obligation should satisfy and, finally, developed a novel account of political obligation. In this chapter, I will bring political philosophy together with sociology and social psychology to substantiate the results of my inquiry. By reference to empirical research, I will reconstruct the beliefs and attitudes that governed the way real people in an actual state in recent history related to their government. I will argue that the civil justice account of political obligation I develop in this book provides the best normative explanation of the dynamics of obedience and disobedience to the government recorded by sociologists in this case study.