Associative Obligations and Political Obligations

Abstract In Law’s Empire Ronald Dworkin offers an account of political obligations as associative obligations. Associative obligations are special obligations such as those that one has to one’s family and friends. Philosophers who, following Dworkin, have defended the associative account of political obligations have emphasized that we acquire such special obligations without voluntary action on our part, and so the associative account, unlike, for example, consent theory, can hope to catch all citizens in its net. But much of the discussion and defense of the associative account depends on employing concepts such as “relationships,” “roles,” and “membership,” without sufficient attempt to explain and differentiate between them. Some of these concepts have a place in the cases of family and friendship while others don’t, and so it is important for any analogy between political obligations and obligations to friends and family to be clear about which concepts are being employed. Further, it is often assumed that associative obligations in contexts such as friendship and the family are not acquired via voluntary actions, whereas a more careful examination of those obligations renders this assumption less tenable. Thus, the plausibility of the associative account of political obligations is weakened as a result of undefended assumptions about the contexts drawn upon as analogy.