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A Moral Equivalent of Consent of the Governed
Author(s) -
Reiman Jeffrey
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
ratio juris
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.344
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1467-9337
pISSN - 0952-1917
DOI - 10.1111/raju.12018
Subject(s) - prima facie , legitimacy , obligation , moral obligation , state (computer science) , law , politics , political science , moral responsibility , law and economics , sociology , algorithm , computer science
Though genuine (voluntary, deliberate) consent of the governed does not occur in modern states, political legitimacy still requires something that does what consent does. Dereification of the state (recognizing that citizens continually create their state), combined with a defensible notion of moral responsibility, entails citizens' moral responsibility for their state. This implies that we may treat citizens morally as if they consented to their state, yielding a moral equivalent of consent of the governed , and a conception of political legitimacy applicable to modern states thought legitimate. It implies that legitimate states have a moral right to rule, and their citizens have a prima facie moral obligation to obey the law.