Agreement, Political Authority and Procrastination

Political philosophy is not my area either, but I wanted to add a post here to keep up the momentum of this blog and since I’ve been thinking about political philosophy in relation to my teaching obligations, here are some undeveloped thoughts which I could be easily persuaded to abandon.

Despite all their differences, there appears to be a surface similarity between Hobbes’ and Socrates’ views on the nature of political obligation: both seem to hold that one’s obligation to obey the law stems from an agreement one has freely made (or would hypothetically make). For Hobbes, you contract with your fellow (future) countrymen to transfer your rights to a powerful sovereign and thereby incur an obligation to obey the law. For Socrates – according to one of the various arguments hinted at in the Crito – you agree to obey the laws of the state by choosing to live in it. Socrates could’ve moved away from Athens but didn’t and thereby incurred an obligation to obey its laws. Unlike Hobbes’ view, Socrates’ isn’t exactly a general theory about political obligation; Hobbes’ theory is mean to apply across the board whereas Socrates’ argument applies only in cases where the agent freely chose to remain in (or emigrate to) the state in question in full knowledge of the fact that doing so would put him under political obligation.

But though both views seem to ground political obligation in an agreement, the mechanism by which the agreement gives rise to obligations is very different in each case. For Hobbes, our agreement sets up a powerful sovereign who in turn makes it self-interestedly rational for each of us to obey the law. (On this reading it sounds rather odd to speak of an obligation to obey the law; the sovereign’s subjects may have decisive reason to obey the law but it sounds odd to my ears to call it an "obligation".) For Socrates, the agreement gives rise to obligation more directly; he doesn’t spell this out, but presumably the agreement works like any other sort of promise: if I promise you that I’ll do X, I have thereby incurred an obligation to do so.

Assuming the interpretations of Hobbes and Socrates I’ve just sketched are (close to) correct, I’ve come to think that neither view succeeds in grounding the obligation to obey the law (or the corresponding rights of rulers to command) in anything plausibly thought of as an agreement.

Socrates’ argument actually presupposes the notions of political authority and obligation thus does not succeed in accounting for them. Socrates imagines that the Laws of Athens tell him to either leave the city or to obey their commands. But for his choice here to be morally transformative in the way he thinks it is (i.e. if it is to yield obligations towards the Laws), the Laws must already possess political authority. If I stop you on the street and tell you to leave the city or pay me $50, I haven’t really succeeded in doing anything other than to utter some powerless words (and perhaps to puzzle or annoy you). I certainly haven’t made it the case that your staying in the city constitutes an agreement to pay me $50. What do the Laws of Athens have that I don’t such that Socrates’ choice to remain in Athens does give rise to specific obligations to obey the laws whereas your choice to remain in the city doesn’t give me a claim against you for $50? I’m inclined to say that it is political authority. Socrates’ decision to remain in the city cannot be what confers political authority on the Laws since the decision is only morally transformative in the way he supposes if the Laws already have that authority.

(I’m muddling here but I can’t quite see my way clearly. Even if we assume that the Laws have the authority to require Socrates to choose between exile and obedience, before he actually makes his choice to remain in the City there doesn’t seem to be any sense in which he has an obligation to obey the law. I’ve been speaking as if political authority and the obligation to obey the law are mirror notions but that’s probably not the case.)

Hobbes is easier since it is really rather straightforward that what does the work of generating reasons to obey the law is not our agreement with our fellow countrymen, but rather the sovereign’s power to punish lawbreaking. There is a sense in which the agreement is a necessary condition of our overriding reasons for obedience but Hobbes’ social contract is not morally transformative the way promises, agreements and freely entered contracts are normally thought to be. Read more!