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Freedom, Indeterminism, and Fallibilism pp 195–243Cite as

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Individual and State

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Abstract

After a brief history of the problem of the state and its political authority, I steer between individualism and collectivism by proposing an account of the state as a set of relations. The state is an institution represented by persons (its officers); but it was not instituted, it evolved. Morality demands a state with the rights and obligations to enforce persons’ obligations to each other, and to impose new obligations on persons to secure freedom. The only legitimate state is a liberal state. Jeremy Waldron’s defence of laws against “hate speech” is rejected. I criticise the views of Bishop Berkeley and of Jason Brennan while arguing that, barring specific agreements, persons have no obligations to obey the state insofar as it is illiberal. Persons have obligations to the state to pay fair taxes and to obey legitimate laws. Acknowledging that persons also have obligations to the state not to commit suicide or to become a permanent slave enables us to dispense with the dubious notion of a person’s obligations to herself. Other issues discussed are abortion, the treatment of animals and humans that are not persons, social welfare, equality, inheritance, and how my theory contrasts with moral theories of a consequentialist type.

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  1. Independent Scholar, Yeovil, UK

    Danny Frederick

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Frederick, D. (2020). Individual and State. In: Freedom, Indeterminism, and Fallibilism . Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48637-2_6

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