The Concept of Political Obligation and its Conceptual Relativity in Plato, Hobbes and Rawls

Dissertation, Kent State University (1983)
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Abstract

The two purposes of this dissertation are to make a conceptual analysis of the concept of political obligation, and to examine some of the implications of the results drawn from this conceptual analysis. The strategy we follow is to utilize three of Wittgenstein's leading concepts, language-games, family resemblances, and forms of life to study different uses of political obligation. ;First, we examine the three paradigmatic political philosophies of Plato, Hobbes, and Rawls. Our assumption is that rules governing their use of political obligation will be found by viewing their major works as three distinct language games. In the course of this project we examine whether they distinguish the concept of obligation from that of duty, and how the concept of our major concern is connected to other concepts: freedom, justice and human nature. These two tasks are quite helpful for our explication of the concept of political obligation. To provide a more comprehensive account of our concept, we find that we must take into account also the fact that human activity is purposive and these concepts are used in projects of political justification. ;Second, from these different accounts of the groups of political obligation, we find different meanings for this term. Furthermore, if we examine this concept from the perspective of the later Wittgenstein's philosophy, we may conclude that the concept of political obligation is a family resemblance concept. ;Finally, we ask, if the artificial language-games of politics in imaginary political life are actualized in our forms of political life, what is the implication of the meaning variance derived from the family resemblance concept for our approach to the study of man and society? From our examination of the relevance of meaning variance to political science, we proceed to ask whether there are brute data or facts, and whether facts can be neatly separated from values. This dissertation addresses ultimately these questions. . . . UMI

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