Membership, Political Obligation, and Practical Judgment

Bibliographic Data

ID6351065
AuthorsThomas Fossen (0000-0002-5688-8366, Institute for Philosophy, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume53
Issue2
Pages239-266
Publication date2025-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/00905917251330417
OpenAlexW4409682594
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited39

This article develops a critique of the associativist claim that membership of a polity grounds political obligations. It does so by examining the role that membership plays in the conceptions of practical judgment that associative theories of political obligation presuppose. I distinguish two strands of associativist theorizing (“adjudicative” and “interpretive”) and challenge an assumption they both share: treating membership as a matter of social fact, given to practical judgment. Neither approach accounts adequately for interpersonal and temporal differences of perspective. I propose instead that judgment partakes in the constitution, breakdown, and transformation of political relationships. The fact of membership is part of the problem, not the solution to the problem of political obligation. Political membership, from a practical point of view, remains an inherently open question. This calls for a pragmatist mode of theorizing political obligation. I read Shelby’s work on the ethics of membership in today’s deeply unequal and racialized United States as an exemplar of a more engaged mode of judging and theorizing political obligations

Epistemology · Law and economics · Obligation · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Law · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophy

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