Political obligation and the United States supreme court

Abstract

We inquire into reasons given by the United States Supreme Court to explain political obligations, in order to assess different theories of political obligation that are currently advanced. The justices have most often grounded moral requirements to obey the law on protection individuals receive from society. The most likely bases of these "reciprocal obligations" are an idea of reciprocity as itself a binding moral notion and, more specifically, the principle of fairness. Although the evidence is somewhat unclear, on balance, it supports the more specific fairness interpretation.