Let me share a brief word on obligation. In a free society, are we free to decide we
have no obligation toward that society?
For example, if you were living in the US on December 8, 1941, had the
means to travel out of the country and escape any call for the draft which
would result in finding yourself in the armed forces, would you have had an
obligation to stay in the country and have done your part to fight the
enemy? More to the point being made
here, did you have a right to leave? How
about in peace time; are there obligations in normal times? Do you have an obligation to obey laws and
pay taxes – to be simply civil and good-natured toward your fellow
citizens? Or do you have the right to
choose values and courses of action in which you are not these things,
singularly or collectively? I ask
because central to the natural rights construct is this notion of liberty in
which you do have such rights, with maybe the exception to disobey the law –
including not paying taxes. What is the
extent, under the natural rights approach, of a citizen’s obligations, of his
or her rights? What are the distinctions
between rights and obligations? And if
one determines that there are obligations beyond obeying the law, should those
obligations be bolstered, promoted, or otherwise supported by public policy;
that is, backed up by laws or regulations issued by the government?
I honestly don’t know the answer to these questions. I suppose answers would vary according to the
defender of natural rights one chooses to listen to. Even under the natural rights construct, one
believes that one has an obligation not to hurt others or interfere with others
sharing in the rights one enjoys. But
how intrusive is that obligation in the normal course of one’s life? Is it minimal, limited to any direct action
that obstructs others having their rights – such as in the case of
kidnapping? Or interfering with someone
exercising his/her right of free speech?
Or cheating a partner in a business deal? And if that is the case, who defines these
limits? What constitutes cheating, for
example? So many questions pop up when
the natural rights view is taken seriously?
With a federalist approach, the emphasis changes. There are questions with this approach, but
of a different kind. There is no question
as to whether obligations exist or not.
They do and they are extensive and potentially subject to legal backing. The main question becomes how do you justify obligations
as in asking: who are you to tell me I
owe society so and so? Charles Taylor[1] provides
some thoughts on this type of questions.
I will keep this to the basic notion that obligation stems
from what the individual derives from being a member of a free society. First, if one does not live in a free
society, then one is hard-pressed to see any obligations to the society, at
least to the government of that society.
But, second, if one does live in a free society, then certain
considerations should be taken into account.
Freedom is not a natural state of being.
If it were, human history would not have had to elapse such a long time
before liberal nations would have evolved.
And “evolution” is probably not the proper term given the amount of
turmoil associated with the institutionalization of those structures and
processes that establish and maintain our freedoms. As the saying goes, freedom isn’t free. We, who are born to such an arrangement, are
“blessed” as a result of our forebears who sacrificed so much to establish our
free society. We, on the other hand,
have an obligation under such a reality.
That is, we are obligated not only to preserve the freedom inducing
institutions, but also to further refine them according to the principles that
define our freedoms. Under the
federalist model, that takes the following form: the establishment and maintenance of our
freedoms were among the key reasons for creating and sustaining our union. We benefit from that arrangement and we owe
our part in maintaining it for the future generations. We, in other words, have the freedom to do
what we should do; that is, to have a federalist view of liberty. And we not only have a right to express that
obligation, but also a duty to do so. How’s
that for a freedom message on Bastille Day?[2]
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