Lockdown Parties

LOCKDOWN PARTIES: ARE WE OBLIGED TO OBEY THE STATE?

It has come back to everyones attention again. He faces the backlash and formal reprimand for misleading parliament. The Ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged that on 20th May 2020, when the UK was under national lockdown, a group of individuals assembled in the garden of 10 Downing Street. The admission comes in the wake of public indignation over a leaked email inviting workers to "bring your own booze" and socialise during a period when they were not permitted to see their friends or relatives outside their residence. Johnson, though, maintains that the occurrence “could be said technically to fall within the guidance”.

An examination into what occurred that day was conducted, but the report by Sue Gray, a senior civil servant, did hastily resolve the issue of whether Downing Street officials operated under one set of rules and the rest of us under a different set of laws and guidelines. The UK saw numerous legislative changes in the two years of the pandemic, making it difficult to recall what was permitted when. If the prime minister or his inner circle violated the law, it begs the issue of whether we should have adhered to the lock-down regulations or abstain in civil disobedience. He has presented a passionate defence. Do you belive him? It reminded me of the days when he was PM.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

The aim of this article is to introduce a range of philosophical questions and arguments in regards to whether we are obliged to obey the state or ignore in civil disobedience. It aspires to be a digest treatment of political obligation and offers a developed view of its own. The approach adopted is analytical rather than historical, and concerns arguments relevant within contemporary social order.

Are we obliged to obey the states laws? What gives us the political obligation? Obligation to obey the state falls into two main categories. Either, it is in our prudential self-interest, to obey the law. The problem with this is as soon as it is in someone’s self interest to break the state’s rules they will, in which case the question is under what circumstances one might make a judgement of disobedience. Alternatively, we are morally obliged to obey the state, where laws then become internalised,[1] becoming more firmly binding and usually unconditional, in which case the question is how far this obligation extends before another overrides it.

There are two sides to the question of political obligation, on one side it justifies and explains the necessity for obedience to the state, its laws, and on the other hand, it explains when it is just for people to perceive the state as acting immorally or unjustly and assert their right to protest. Civil disobedience or protest can consist of verbal persuasion and material destruction. We can see in history and modern politics where disobedience is in action. Leaders like Ghandi and his civil rights movement in India helped to gain Indian independence from the British in 1947.[2] The lifelong work, of Martin Luther King JR in America, involved using civil disobedience to help the black civil rights movement in 1960s.

Most people do not think political obligation is a theoretical concept at all, we obey government out of habit or fear, it is socialised into peoples thinking as we grow up[3]. The duty of obligation to the state’s laws has become an expected norm and there exists a ‘reservoir of public support’[4] within a state, which has been built-up over time, which favours the system, if this is the case we do not need any theory of obligation. Thus, people obey the state because it is traditional and familiar; this line of thought is normally associated with Conservatives.

The Anarchist challenge contends there is an onus of proof on the state and its representatives, how can political obligation be blindly accepted? It needs to be shown, to exist. Wolff, a philosophical anarchist makes a challenge and asks the question of why we should give obedience to the state:

“That men accede to claims of supreme authority is plain. That men ought to accede to claims of supreme authority is not so obvious. Our first question must therefore be, Under what conditions and for what reasons does one man have supreme authority over another?” [5]

When evaluating political obligation, it is important to differentiate between political power and authority. Political power lacks in legitimacy and seen through the illustration of a despot such as Alexander Lukashenko who maintained an authoritative position through sheer force in Belarus, similar to the philosophy of a playground bully, we have no obligation to obey this power. Alternatively, Political authority means there is a legitimate entitlement to rule. Legitimate political authority provides a moral obligation to obey the law of the state. Then what awards legitimacy?

The ‘Divine Right’ theory [6] asserted that monarchs are bestowed authority by god to rule, this theory derived the authority of monarchs in Europe from the supposed original granting of political authority from god to Adam. In this theory, the sovereign rules in a fatherly way, assuming he will do nought to harm the subjects, his children. However, this theory is logically inconsistent; due to the fact that monarchs are ancestry of rulers that had obtained the throne by force, secondly, it is unconceivable in a secular world that authority to rule is a fact of God, today such a claim would struggle in providing evidence.

Contract theorist Hobbes had a secular theory of obligation, which stood opposed to the divine right,[7] and it replaces the unconditional obligation of that Divine Right theory. As far as Hobbes was concerned, the state of nature was a state of war. This is due to the nature of the human being; they come into conflict with one another.[8] In order to achieve a relatively comfortable existence, it is rational for individuals to create a state with the authority to govern over them:

‘Only our consent can bind us to obedience’ [9]

However, Hobbes maintains that the only viable form of legitimate political authority that can achieve these ends is one ruled by an absolute sovereign who has undivided power. Hobbes conception of undivided political power, was one body, which perform the job of the legislator, parliament and the judiciary, he believed a separation of power would create tension between these powers resulting in civil war. For Hobbes, the sovereign would not harm his subjects, because it is not in his self-interest to do so. When everyone moved out of the state of nature when entrusting their natural rights to the sovereign, the sovereign remain in the state of nature as far as other states were concerned. There are two reasons why citizens have an obligation to obey the state one is moral one is prudential. The moral reason being:

‘…that men perform their covenants made’ [10]

Hobbes social contract theory is formed on promising;[11] a self-assumed internalising moral promise to obey the government, a promise abides the subject to the consequences of disobedience. Hobbes’s prudential reason claiming disobedience can result in a state of nature leading to a state of war. Hobbes intended to create ‘unconditional perpetual moral obligation’,[12] this means future generations are also under a political obligation to the same sovereign. The theory of political obligation also defines when it is legitimate to disobey or even rebel. Hobbes argued that the obligation to the sovereign only lasts as long as the sovereign can protect his subjects.

It is arguable that Hobbes’s theory implies a near absolute state. Why would anyone give so much power to one body? There is a fear of attack within the state of nature, but from people of relatively equal strength, in contrast, an attack from the state has immense power. The second problem with Hobbes theory is that there is a conceptual difficulty in internal coherence. If self protection is the reason for obedience to a sovereign, then those implementing the rules can refuse to implement or execute a command if they decide implementing the sovereign command endanger their lives, and for this reason Hobbes alienation theory can be seen to collapse into an agency theory, which is espoused by John Locke.

Locke challenges Hobbes theory, he argued man could not give away more power over himself, than he has. Locke believes in merely entrusting rights to the state. Locke’s account of the origin of political obligation is also a social contract, but it involves the establishment of two contracts as opposed to one. Formation of the first contract is for a greater security of life, liberty and property[13] that men have in a state of nature, men consent to form a political community. Then a community is established and a contract formed between this politic community and the government.[14] Locke stresses the idea of the consent of its citizens, in his writing he defines anyone with possessions or enjoyment of any part of the dominions of any government’[15]gives tacit consent [16] to the government and must abide by its laws.

In Locke’s social contract theory the sovereign is also subject to the same morality and has an obligation to adhere to that moral law, in saying this, the sovereign is a trustee or a deputy of the people. Political obligation would seem to pivot on the sovereign acting justly. The agency social contract and the consent that creates it emphasises the voluntary nature of obligation. Political obligation is something we assume for our selves, this is the underlining ethos of what Locke is saying. If consent is voluntarily given, then the sovereign can be dissolved if it acts unjustly.[17]

Firstly, tacit consent raises a problem because it entails the imposing obligation on those who have not expressly consented, this may contradict the underlying theory of Locke’s voluntary self-assumed obligation. It raises the argument if have not expressly consented how can we tell if some one tacitly consents. Secondly, who decides when the government has betrayed the trust? Who decides at what point we rebel from the government, Hobbes was concerned with this because he thought it meant social breakdown, chaos, and civil war. The third problem with Locke is the contract is obviously not historical, it would seem to be a hypothetical device to show the rationality of political authority, and therefore hypothetical consent is not real consent: “A hypothetical contract is not simply a pale form of an actual contract; it is no contract at all” [18]

A fourth problem for the agency contract theory is a paradox of sovereignty, Hobbes argued we are left with uncertainty to the social contract because people seem to have ultimate control over their rulers, the very reason of the social contract is to maintain the people by creating the state. David Hume challenges the ideas of political tacit consent and therefore challenges its authority; he notes that people obey the state because they are born into it.

“Were you to ask…the nation…whether they had ever consented to the authority of their rulers, or promis’ to obey them,…they wou’d certainly reply, that the affair depended not on their consent, but that they were born to such obedience” [19]

This is further articulated by Hume through the analogy of how residency, enjoyment and security of a within a geographical confined can be enough to bind us to a political obligation:

“We may as well assert, that a man by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; through he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean, and perish the moment he leaves her,” [20]

It seems only fair that if you reap benefits from the state, you should set certain burdens in return, because of sacrifices made by fellow citizens. There is a ‘duty of fairness involved’,[21] referred to as the common sense argument of political obligation. Plato emphasises that gratitude should be enough as a binding force for political obligation:

“Come now, what charge do you bring against us and the state, that you are trying to destroy us?. Did we not give you life in the first place?… Are you not grateful to those of us Laws which were instituted for this end…? Then since you have been born and brought up and educated, can you deny…that you were our child and servant, both you and your ancestors?” [22]

However, this too includes problems, unwanted benefits would seem to be unworthy of any burdens imposed by the state. Secondly, the question arises to whom or to what do we owe our gratitude, today we make up the state ourselves, it is no longer a single entity. As tax payers we already contribute for the benefits we are enjoying, thus should we therefore be grateful to the state or to ourselves? Lastly, the more unequal society is, economically or socially, the more people feel alienated from it, the more unrealistic it becomes for a member of the underclass to accept an obligation for the benefits he gains through the state.[23]

Plamenatz offered a modern version of the consent theory, which is similar to Locke's social contract theory, although it is not concerned with the origin of government, but uses a convention of universal voting in liberal democracies. This provides an argument for an ongoing consenting process which allows us to pass continuous judgments on the justice of governments. In voting we consent to obey whoever is elected, as to say we consent to the rules of the democratic game. A vote constitutes to promise to obey the next government which ever it may be,[24] but there are problems.

When consenting through voting, we are consenting to a number of unforeseen acts that the government is going to do over the next few years, many which never appear in the manifesto. It can measure up to signing a blank cheque, which is signed at the time of the voting at the election, and the government fills in the details after it has been elected.[25] If we take consent to be the basis of political obligation, then not everyone can be shown to have the same obligation, since we don’t all consent in the same way or to the same degree. However, it is understood that there must be universal obligation for the state to be effective. This means either anarchists have a case and the state cannot be seen as legitimate, or our voluntary consent that obligates us, needs to be expressed in another way.

Utilitarianism endorses that laws ought to legislate with the view of increasing the happiness of the greatest number of people. Utilitarianism seems to permit enormous injustices and not be compatible with individual rights,[26] for example, an innocent party could be persecuted for a crime they did not commit, to satisfy the happiness of the general populace, through the reassurance that someone has been punished and illustrations of this are the ‘Birmingham Six’ and the ‘Guilford Four’.

The “Just Government”, argument contends a just state is one where we would have consented to it in an ideally, impersonal and neutral situation. We have an obligation to pursue justice and a legitimate government deserves our obligation, the theory avoids the problem of non-consenters through a hypothetical just government, this being one, we would consent to.[27] However, this theory is riddled with problems, we find ourselves back to a hypothetical consent problem, of non-existence consent, and a question of how much justice is required before we have political obligation to it.

CONCLUSION

There is no fully coherent, logical argument presented as to why we have political obligation to the state. Many people make express consent to the government, through oaths and voting and thus, expressing their recognition of legitimacy to the system. Many people are willing to accept the obligations in return of the benefits bestowed by government. Many people are also willing to argue that the state, which they are obliged to obey is a just one. However, no state can be content, while some claim to have no obligations, nevertheless the excuse of no duty of obligation does not extinguish the protection of others from harm, moral obligations still exist to one another. Anarchists contend we have a moral obligation to one another and do not require a state to coerce its judgements upon us. The fact that there are obvious and logical theoretical problems regarding legitimacy of the state’s directives provides comprehensible ammunition for the anarchist to disobey the state through civil disobedience. Take heed Mr Johnson.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Goodwin, Barbara, Using Political ideas, 4th ed., 1997, Chinchester: John Wiley & Sons, p. 350

[2] Ibid., p.365

[3] Dawson, R.E. and Prewitt, K., Political Socialization: an analytic study, 1969, Boston: Little, Brown & Co

[4] Easton cited in Goodwin, Barbara, Using Political ideas, 4th ed., 1997, Chinchester: John Wiley & Sons, p. 360

[5] Wolff, R., P., In Defence of Anarchism, 1970, New York: Harper & Row cited in Rosen, Michael, & Wolff, Jonathan, Political Thought, 1999, Oxford: OUP, p, 77

[6] ‘Divine Right’ theory was espoused in Patriarcha and other political works of sir Robert Filmer by Laslett, Peter, 1949, Oxford: Basil Blackwell 

[7] Goodwin, Barbara, Using Political ideas, 4th ed., 1997, Chinchester: John Wiley & Sons, p. 350

[8] Gaskin J.,C.,A.,  Leviathan, ed., With Introduction, 1996, Oxford: OUP, p. 86-7 (First published 1651) cited in Rosen, Michael, & Wolff, Jonathan, Political Thought, 1999, Oxford: OUP, p. 56

[9] Ibid, p. 52

[10] Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, 1651, Part I, Chapter 15, ed. Oakeshott, M., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946 cited in Lessnoff, Michael, Social Contract Theory, ed. 1990, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, p. 50

[11] Gaskin J.,C.,A.,  Leviathan, ed., With Introduction, 1996, Oxford: OUP, p. 86-7 (First published 1651), p. 89 cited in Rosen, Michael, & Wolff, Jonathan, Political Thought, 1999, Oxford: OUP, p. 57

[12] Goodwin, Barbara, Using Political ideas, 4th ed., 1997, Chinchester: John Wiley & Sons, p.351

[13] Horton, John, Political Obligation, ed, 1992, London: Macmillan Press, p. 22

[14] Two Treatises of Civil Government, ed., W.S. Carpenter (J.M. Dent, London, 1924 (1962 repr.)), 164-6, First published 1690 cited in Rosen, Michael, & Wolff, Jonathan, Political Thought, 1999, Oxford: OUP, p. 59

[15] Two Treatises of Civil Government, ed., W.S. Carpenter (J.M. Dent, London, 1924 (1962 repr.)), 164-6, 177-9. First published 1690 cited in Rosen, Michael, & Wolff, Jonathan, Political Thought, 1999, Oxford: OUP, p. 60

[16] Ibid., p.60

[17] Goodwin, Barbara, Using Political ideas, 4th ed., 1997, Chinchester: John Wiley & Sons, p.351

[18] Dorkin, Ronald, “The Original Contract” cited in Daniels, N., Reading Rawls [Basic Books, 1974] cited in Lecture Handout, Political obligation.

[19] Hume, David, A Treatise on Human Nature, Book III, part ii, sec vii

[20] Hume, David, from, Of the Original Contract, in Essays Moral, Political and Literary, ed., Eugene, F., Miller, Indianapolis: Liberty press, 1985 cited in Rosen, Michael, & Wolff, Jonathan, Political Thought, 1999, Oxford: OUP, p. 67

[21] Hart, H.L.A., ‘Are there any natural rights?’, Philosophical Review, 64 (1955), repr. in Political Philosophy, ed. Anoyhony Quinton, 1976, Oxford: OUP cited in Ibid., p.71-72

[22]Plato, Crito, in The Last Days of Socrates, trans., Hugh, Tredennick, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1954, p.89-96 cited in Rosen, Michael, & Wolff, Jonathan, Political Thought, 1999, Oxford: OUP, p, 78

[23] A Marxist viewpoint evoked by Wagland, Richard, in Lecture on Political obligation and Goodwin, Barbara, Using Political ideas, 4th ed., 1997, Chinchester: John Wiley & Sons, p. 359

[24] Plamenatz, J., P., Consent, Freedom and Political Obligation, 2nd ed., 1968, Oxford: OUP, p.154 cited in Goodwin, Barbara, Using Political ideas, 4th ed., 1997, Chinchester: John Wiley & Sons, p. 353

[25] Ibid., p.353

[26] Pitkin, H., ‘Obligation and Consent’p.49-50, cited in Ibid., p.358

[27] Rawls, A theory of justice, p. 351, cited in Goodwin, Barbara, Using Political ideas, 4th ed., 1997, Chinchester: John Wiley & Sons, p. 357