Philosophical Anarchism and Political Obligation by Egoumenides Magda;

Author:Egoumenides, Magda;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

In this ordinary sense coordination does not involve subjectivism (and the related exploitative motivations) as it preoccupies game theory, e.g., in the analysis of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and which is applied in traditional approaches to the problem of providing public goods (and, in general, to game-theoretical analyses of coordination; “Introduction,” 6–11). Still, it involves the basic features that relate the principle of fairness with the problem of public goods, a problem that is in the focus of this chapter. And the problem of public goods is a kind of coordination problem. For more precision, the problem of public goods is one that can arise as a problem of securing social coordination in its ordinary sense, but also one that usually arises in relation to the free-rider problem of game theory (“Introduction,” 8). In this chapter I focus on the latter.

7 For an analysis of this connection and the relevant problems generated, see Richard J. Arneson, “The Principle of Fairness and Free-Rider Problems,” Ethics 92 (1982): 618–623, and Alan John Simmons, Justification and Legitimacy: Essays on Rights and Obligations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 29–36.

8 Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, 116.

9 Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, 105.

10 On this, see Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, 106; Arneson, “The Principle of Fairness,” 621–622; George Klosko, “Presumptive Benefit, Fairness and Political Obligation,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 16 (1987): 244–245.

11 By “open” benefits I follow Simmons in meaning those usually referred to as public goods. They thus demonstrate all the characteristics of public goods described here, especially their non-excludability, on the basis of which it becomes impossible or very inconvenient to avoid them (Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, 130). From now on I will use this term interchangeably with the term “public goods.”

12 For the explanation of public goods that I follow here, see Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 266–270; Arneson, “The Principle of Fairness,” 618–619; Taylor, Community, Anarchy and Liberty, 40–55, 60–65, and 117–120; Klosko, “Presumptive Benefit,” 242–243; Harriott, “Games, Anarchy, and the Nonnecessity of the State,” 120.

13 Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, 107–108.

14 Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, 116–117; Horton, Political Obligation, 96.

15 For the importance of such a basis, see Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations; Simmons, “Justification and Legitimacy”; my previous chapters.

16 Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), 90–95.

17 Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, 119; Klosko, “Presumptive Benefit,” 246.

18 This benefit appears in Nozick’s “public address system” example (Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, 93). I will discuss this example in the following section.

19 This point is allowed by a suggestion of Nozick himself (Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, 94), and it has been stressed by Simmons (Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, 119).

20 For example, Arneson, “The Principle of Fairness,” 617 and 621–623; Wolff, “Political Obligation, Fairness and Independence,” 94–96; Dagger, “Membership.”

21 Simmons, Justification and Legitimacy, 29–36.

22 Rawls, “Legal Obligation,” 9–10.

23 Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, 106.

24 Smith, “Is There a Prima Facie Obligation?,” 956–957.

25 Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, 106–107.

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