Should We Regard Political Obligation as Natural Duty?

Should We Regard Political Obligation as Natural Duty?

Introduction

The concept of Political obligation is that there is a moral obligation to abide by the government at a minimum, in some situations, and it is the rule although, apart from this compulsion, there would not be any moral obligation to carry out this. Societies have been considering the political obligations as moral obligations, instead of just legal obligation or matter of convenience. If anyone does not obey the political obligations, he should be guilty. In addition to it, he should feel that he has done something unethical.

Political obligation makes some conducts mandatory, still when it is not part of this obligation, it would be mandatory. For instance, murder is unlawful; however, even in case it would be legal, or we did not identify any obligation to abide by the law, most likely we would still identify a moral obligation not to commit murder. On the other hand, we do not recognize it morally unjust to park our car in no-parking zone unless we acknowledge a moral obligation to abide by the rules exactly since it is the law. There is the claim that there is a moral obligation that we have to abide by the law since it is the rule, aside from its subject.

The concept that there is such a mandate goes back a long way. In Crito of Plato, Socrates is put forward as the acknowledgement of a mandate not to go away from Athens, Even if, he has to be dead due to injustice, he describes that the country of someone is either to be pleaded with, otherwise, to be abided by. On the other hand, the letter of Paul to the Romans is the most influential old source. He told everyone to ne subject unto the higher authorities. For there is not any power except God: the authorities that should be ordained of God. Whoever resisted the power resisted the order of God. Some recent philosophers of politics have materialized and democratised this principle. According to those philosophers, everyone should not only legally but morally abide by a decision that the majority of individuals vote for although the arguments for it did not persuade us and we voted against it. The traditionalist argument is by living in a state and participating in the legal processes of that sate, we have implicitly accepted to abide by the final decision, at a minimum, if the legal process is based on democracy. John Locke is probably the most effective source of this concept of unconditional approval. According to him, every man, that has any ownership or enjoyment, of any portion of authorities of any governing body, do thereby provide his unconditional approval. In addition to it, that person is as far forward obligated to compliance to the laws of the governing body.

Significance of Conscience

Some philosophers put forward an argument that an individual who gives his vote in election, in that way, implicitly commits him/herself to ...