Consent

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From the course by The University of Edinburgh

Introduction to Philosophy

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The University of Edinburgh

Introduction to Philosophy

2963 ratings

This course will introduce you to some of the main areas of research in contemporary philosophy. Each module a different philosopher will talk you through some of the most important questions and issues in their area of expertise. We’ll begin by trying to understand what philosophy is – what are its characteristic aims and methods, and how does it differ from other subjects? Then we’ll spend the rest of the course gaining an introductory overview of several different areas of philosophy. Topics you’ll learn about will include: Epistemology, where we’ll consider what our knowledge of the world and ourselves consists in, and how we come to have it; Philosophy of science, where we’ll investigate foundational conceptual issues in scientific research and practice; Philosophy of Mind, where we’ll ask questions about what it means for something to have a mind, and how minds should be understood and explained; Political Philosophy, where we'll investigate whether we have an obligation to obey the law; Moral Philosophy, where we’ll attempt to understand the nature of our moral judgements and reactions – whether they aim at some objective moral truth, or are mere personal or cultural preferences, and; Metaphysics, where we’ll think through some fundamental conceptual questions about free will and the nature of reality. The development of this MOOC has been led by the University of Edinburgh's Eidyn research centre. To accompany 'Introduction to Philosophy', we are pleased to announce a tie-in book from Routledge entitled 'Philosophy for Everyone'. This course companion to the 'Introduction to Philosophy' course was written by the Edinburgh Philosophy team expressly with the needs of MOOC students in mind. 'Philosophy for Everyone' contains clear and user-friendly chapters, chapter summaries, glossary, study questions, suggestions for further reading and guides to online resources. Please click "Start Here" and navigate to the "Optional Reading" page for more information.

From the lesson

Do We Have an Obligation to Obey the Law?

(Dr. Guy Fletcher) The laws of a state govern what we can and cannot do within that state. But do we have an obligation to obey those laws? In this module, we'll discuss this question, together with some of the main positions that philosophers have developed in response to it. We'll start off by examining what obeying the law means exactly. Then we'll look at three factors that might form the basis of an obligation to follow the law. Finally, we'll discuss what the consequences might be if the problem can't be solved.

What if the Problem Can't Be Solved?1:51

Meet the Instructors

Dr. Dave Ward
Lecturer in Philosophy
University of Edinburgh
Professor Duncan Pritchard
Professor of Philosophy
University of Edinburgh
Professor Michela Massimi
Full Professor
Philosophy
Dr. Suilin Lavelle
Lecturer in Philosophy
University of Edinburgh
Dr. Matthew Chrisman
Reader in Philosophy
Philosophy
Dr. Allan Hazlett
Dr. Alasdair Richmond
Dr.
Philosophy
Guy Fletcher
Lecturer
Philosophy
Elinor Mason
Senior Lecturer
Philosophy

Lets consider a second possible ground of political obligation, namely in consent.

Were looking for a ground for the obligation to obey the law.

And a natural suggestion, one closely associated with Thomas Hobbes and

John Locke, is that it's the consent of the government

that generates an obligation to obey the law.

Let's call this the consent theory of political obligation.

That theory states that we have an obligation to obey the state

because we've consented to the state and to having such obligations to it.

One thing that's so attractive about the idea of consent as the ground of political

obligation is that we're accustomed to think of consent as being very powerful,

and capable of generating extensive obligations.

If you consent to picking me up from the airport, you incur an obligation to do so.

When you consent to taking part in medical research, you incur various,

often onerous, obligations.

Such as the obligation to refrain from eating and drinking for certain periods.

Finally, if you join a religious order and consent to having certain obligations as

part of that, then you acquire those obligations.

There might be limits to the power of consent to generate obligations, but

even if there are limits, consent can generate obligations in many cases.

So consent seems like the right kind of thing to be a ground for

political obligation.

So, why might one doubt the consent theory?

Here are three problems that it seems to face.

First problem, insufficient people have given consent.

Plausibly, only those who join a state through immigration as adults have

actively consented to being bound by a state's laws.

Most people have never even considered the issue, so

they can't plausibly be said to have given consent to the state.

The obligation to obey the law looks to only apply to a limited range of people

if we go with the consent account examined so far.

Second problem, it seems to be a restriction on consent that it

only generates obligation if one is able to withhold consent.

Where there's no possibility of withholding consent,

there is no effective consent.

Applied to the problem of policital obligation, we might worry that there's no

way in which citizens can withhold consent from the state.

And so, no possibility of consenting to it.

After all, what would it be to refuse consent to the state?

One can't just send a letter to the government refusing consent to being

governed.

So if we have no ability to refuse or

to withdraw consent, then arguably we can't consent to the state.

We can't be said to have consented to the state,

given that we have no effective alternative.

Third problem, suppose that citizens can withhold or revoke consent.

Then the consent theory of political obligation faces a different problem.

If consent is the ground of political obligation,

and we can revoke or withhold consent, then it seems very easy to escape or avoid

the obligation to obey the law by simply refusing consent, or by withdrawing it.

It seems like it would be a hollow victory if we solved the problem of political

obligation only be establishing obligation that one can so easily shrug off.

Okay, so how might a consent theorist reply to these problems?

So, how might someone who thought that consent was the ground of political

obligation reply to these apparent problems for the view?

Their first reply is that one way of responding to the problem of insufficient

people having given consent is to distinguish between two kinds of consent,

expressed consent and tacit consent.

The difference between them lies in how that consent is communicated.

Expressed consent is given open and

directly by explicitly saying that one consents to something.

By contrast, tacit consent is given by doing something else,

within a context where it's understood that that constitutes giving consent.

For example, if you're told that going into the classroom

is to consent to being filmed within the classroom,

then if you go into the classroom, you've given consent.

So how will this distinction between tacit consent and

expressed consent help with the problem?

The first problem was that too few people had actually consented.

Well, that's what it looked like, at least.

But if one can tacitly consent to being governed by the states and

acquire the obligation to obey the law,

then perhaps enough people have in fact consented.

It may be true that most of us have not explicitly consented to the state.

We haven't sworn allegiance or anything like that.

But perhaps, in our actions, we give tacit consent to the state.

Which actions are the relevant ones?

Or perhaps it's things like voting in elections, using public services, or

our continued presence within the states.

What about a reply to the second problem?

The second problem for the consent theory was that it may not be possible to

give consent to the state because we can't withhold consent.

This might also be alleviated by the distinction between expressed and

tacit consent.

If consent is given by performing the actions of, for example,

voting in elections and using public services,

then perhaps one can revoke consent by just simply refraining from those actions.

Now for the third problem,

this was that if it's possible to withdraw consent by simply reporting a lack

of consent, then it would be too easy to escape the obligation to obey the law.

One could simply revoke consent and escape obligation to obey the state.

And this might also be alleviated by the distinction between expressed and

tacit consent.

If consent is given by voting in elections,

over remaining within a territory, then it isn't easy to revoke your consent.

Few, if any,

would easily to be able to escape the obligation will obey the states.

The distinction between expressed and tacit consent seems like it might provide

a way for the consent theory to avoid the problems that we've considered.

However, to fully assess the suggestion,

we need to know how tacit consent might be given to states.

What might constitute tacit consent to the state?

So far we've considered, participation in elections, using public services or

remaining within the states, but each of these faces problems.

The problem with using participation in elections as a way of giving tacit

consent to the state is that, at least in most democracies, turnout is pretty low.

So, everyone who doesn't vote in the election would no longer have

tacitly consented to the state.

And in those states that have very high turnouts,

they're typically compulsory democracies.

And so, in virtue of the fact that people can't withhold consent,

then plausibly they're not really giving tacit consent.

So, if we adopted this tacit consent version of the consent theory, and

we thought that the relevant kind of tacit consent came from participating in

elections, we'd face the problem of a theory delivering an obligation only for

a very small proportion of its citizens.

If tacit consent isn't given by voting, what about citizens' use of public

services as the mean by which they tacitly consent to the state?

Here we face the problem that whilst most of us make use of public services,

we face little real choices to whether we do so.

One can't easily avoid making use of the roads for example.

It's thus hard to treat the use of state provided public services as an act of

giving consent to the state,

given that such actions can't be avoided in most cases.

What about remaining within the states?

Is that action a form of tacit consent to being governed by the states?

Well, here we get a similar problem as in the case of public services.

Many people have no effective alternative to remaining within their state.

That might be due to financial restrictions,

because they lack the money to leave, or other strong ties to their current state.

And even if someone can leave their current state, they have little or

no alternative to being within some state.

Thus the action of remaining within one state doesn't look

like a plausible contender for a form of tacit consent to being governed.

In this section, we've examined the consent theory of political obligation.

This is the claim that it's the consent to being governed

that generates the obligation to obey the law.

We found a number of problems with the view, problems that didn't seem to be

avoided by distinguishing between expressed and tacit concerns.

Let's move on now to consider a third and final candidate ground for

political obligation, namely in fairness.

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