Pragmatism and Associative Political Obligations

Abstract

Proponents of an associative account of political obligation maintain that individuals bear certain moral duties simply in virtue of their membership in a particular political community. I defend this thesis by interpreting it as a metaethical claim that expresses or implicitly relies on a pragmatist account of the nature of normativity, justification, and knowledge. Such a defense has a number of virtues. First, it offers a compelling rationale for the strategy commonly employed to defend the associative thesis. Second, a pragmatist reading provides the resources necessary to rebut a number of objections advanced against the associative thesis, such as the criticism that associative theorists cannot distinguish actually having political obligations from merely believing or feeling that one has political obligations. Third, a pragmatist metaethics entails a particular model of practical reasoning, namely constructive interpretation, that helpfully illuminates our actual practice of attributing or contesting political obligations.