Chapter ǴǺ: Rights, Contract, and Utility in Policy Espousal ȄǿȀthe same grounds of concern for ourselves and our fellows, to be over-
thrown.)
On grounds involving one’s own and other persons’ happiness as served
through social cooperation, then, one can make a case for people’s(Ȁ)ac-
cording everyday courtesies to one another, and(ȁ)practicing consider-
ateness and reciprocity in yet another way, through respecting political
obligation toward a reasonably decent government.
Much of the following ties in with possible answers to what Brand
Blanshard calls the fundamental question of political theory: “Why should
I obey the law? An adequate answer to that question would carry with it
the answer to such questions as, Why should there be a government at all?
What are the grounds of its rights against me and my rights against it and
how in principle are those rights to be limited?” (BlanshardȀȈȅȀ, chap.Ȁȃ,
“Reason and Politics,” quotation from p.ȂȆȅ).
According to the first theory that Blanshard reviews, political rights
and duties are based on nothing. Ļis anarchist view is “doctrinaire ideal-
ism of a pathetically irresponsible sort” (ȀȈȅȀ, p.ȂȆȇ). Second is the doc-
trine that might makes right; it sets ethics aside. Ļe third appeals to divine
authority, the fourth, the doctrine of Hobbes and Rousseau, to a social
contract.
Contractarianism begs the question, Blanshard explains. If, before en-
tering into the social contract, I do not have an obligation to keep con-
tracts, then the social contract to keep future contracts is not binding, nor
are future contracts supposedly made under it. But if I do have an obliga-
tion in the first place to keep contracts or to honor certain other duties,
then the theory is superfluous.
Fifth is the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence: the self-
evident truths that men have certain unalienable rights, that governments
are instituted to secure these rights, and that if a government becomes
destructive of them, the people have the right to alter or abolish it. Ļis
doctrine, says Blanshard, comes close to the correct one. He does not deny
the existence of natural rights resting on no government and no conven-
tion and identifiable by reason, but he doubts that the doctrine of self-
evidence states their true ground. Natural rights can break down: cases
are conceivable in which the community can legitimately exercise coer-
cion. All sorts of rights would be desirable—here I am embroidering on
Blanshard a bit—if recognizing them did not cost too much in various
ways. Now, considering costs means going beyond what is supposedly self-
evident.