CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
| Author | Turturea, George Romeo |
|---|---|
| Title | Can Interdependent Reasoning Help Provide a Solution to the Problem of Political Obligation? |
| Summary | My purpose is to provide an answer to the question whether interdependent reasons for action can help provide a solution to the problem of political obligation. I propose an investigation which unfolds in two parts. In the first part, I examine the relationships that hold between personal autonomy, political authority and rationality, focusing on a reading of these relationships according to which, even though autonomous individuals may not a have reason to comply with the directives of political authority as long as they consider the matter from the standpoint of individual rationality, they may nevertheless have a reason to comply with such directives if they consider the matter from the standpoint of collective rationality. I explore the strengths and limitations of a model that tries to provide the normative foundations of political obligation by employing the principle of collective rationality, and conclude that, while the principle of collective rationality plainly dictates a greater level of compliance with the law than the principle of individual rationality taken in conjunction with an individual’s moral values would dictate, the same considerations which are invoked to establish the need to appeal to a principle that would give one a reason to obey the law over and above what substantive moral principles working within the framework of individual rationality give one reason to do might render implausible any attempt to account for political obligation by reference to such substantive moral principles. To deal with this difficulty, I introduce a particular conventionalist account, hoping to take a step in the direction of rehabilitating the idea that the reasons for obeying the law can be accounted for by appeal to substantive moral considerations. In the second part, I scrutinize the main arguments used within the conventionalist framework that I focus on in order to back up the claim that political obligation, if it exists, can only be accounted for in terms of interdependent reasons for action. I look at the idea that a promising strategy in dealing with the problem of political obligation is to show that the treatment of ordinary coordination problems can be extended to other game theoretic situations, such as the prisoner’s dilemma. I find that the conventionalist account is able to answer the objection that any conventionalist account of authority and political obligation is misguided because the conventionalist analysis cannot properly be applied to situations of significant conflict of interests. I also argue that, in order to defend the conventionalist view according to which political obligation is to be justified by reference to a pattern of mutual expectations, one should make crucial use of the idea of cooperative dispositions. To this end, I show that conventionalists are right in claiming that assumptions about cooperative dispositions are not ad hoc, and, hence, that conventionalism can make sense of the idea that patterns of mutual expectations are not immune to moral criticism. |
| Supervisor | Kis, János |
| Department | Philosophy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/fphtug01.pdf |
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