Abstract
The fair-play theory of punishment claims that the state is justified in imposing additional burdens on law-breakers, to remove the unfair advantage the latter have enjoyed by disobeying the law. From this perspective, punishment reestablishes a fair distribution of benefits and burdens among all citizens. In this paper, I object to this view by focusing on the case of civil disobedience. I argue that the mere illegality of this conduct is insufficient to establish the agent’s unfair advantage over his lawabiding fellows, hence the imposition of additional burdens upon him through legal punishment. I articulate a broader account of citizens’ fair-play duties, able to capture disobedience as well as obedience to the law. While claiming that some law-breakers may not be treated as free-riders, I also gesture at the fact that some law-obeying citizens may not be ‘playing fair’: in some cases, a failure to engage in civil disobedience represents a failure to do one’s own part within the cooperative scheme of society.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arneson, R. J. (1982). The Principle of Fairness and Free-Rider Problems. Ethics, 92(4), 616–633.
Barker, R. (1992). Civil Disobedience as Persuasion: Dworkin and Greenham Common. Political Studies, 40(2), 290–298.
Brownlee, K. (2012). Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brownlee, K. (2018). Two Tales of Civil Disobedience: A Reply to David Lefkowitz. Res Publica, 24(3), 291–296. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-018-9401-x
Cullity, G. (1995). Moral Free Riding. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24(1), 3–34.
Dagger, R. (1997). Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dagger, R. (2008). Punishment as Fair Play. Res Publica, 14(4), 259–275.
Dagger, R. (2018). Playing Fair: Political Obligation and the Problems of Punishment. New York: Oxford University Press.
Delmas, C. (2014a). Political Resistance: A Matter of Fairness. Law and Philosophy, 33(4), 465–488.
Delmas, C. (2014b). Samaritanism and Civil Disobedience. Res Publica, 20(3), 295–313.
Duff, A. (2001). Punishment, Communication, and Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Duff, A. (2008). The Incompleteness of ‘Punishment as Fair Play’: a Response to Dagger. Res Publica, 14(4), 277–281.
Duus-Otterström, G. (2017). Fairness-Based Retributivism Reconsidered. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 11(3), 481–498.
Dworkin, R. (1977). Taking Rights Seriously (2013 ed.). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Dworkin, R. M. (1985). A Matter of Principle. Oxford: Clarendon.
Edmundson, W. A. (1998). Three Anarchical Fallacies: An Essay on Political Authority. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Edmundson, W. (2006). The Virtue of Law-Abidance. Philosopher's Imprint, 6, 1–21.
Feinberg, J. (1994). Freedom and Fulfillment : Philosophical Essays. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.
Fromm, E. (1981). On Disobedience and Other Essays. New York: Seabury Press.
Gans, C. (1992). Philosophical Anarchism and Political Disobedience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gardner, J. (2007). Offences and Defences: Selected Essays in the Philosophy of Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goodin, R. E. (2005). Toward an International Rule of Law: Distinguishing International Law-Breakers from Would-Be Law-Makers. The Journal of Ethics, 9(1/2), 225–246.
Hart, H. L. A. (1955). Are There Any Natural Rights? The philosophical review, 64(2), 175–191.
Horton, J. (2010). Political Obligation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hoskins, Z. (2011). Fair Play, Political Obligation, and Punishment. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 5(1), 53–71.
Klosko, G. (2004). The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield
Klosko, G. (2005). Political Obligations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lefkowitz, D. (2007). On a Moral Right to Civil Disobedience. Ethics, 117(2), 202–233.
Markovits, D. (2005). Democratic Disobedience. Yale Law Journal, 114, 1897–1952.
Moraro, P. (2018). On (not) Accepting the Punishment for Civil Disobedience. Philosophical Quarterly, 68(272), 503–520.
Morris, H. (1968). Persons and Punishment. The Monist, 52(4), 475–501.
Parekh, B. (1993). A Misconceived Discourse on Political Obligation. Political Studies, 41(2), 236–251.
Pettit, P. (1999). Republican Freedom and Contestatory Democratization. In I. Shapiro & C. Hacker-Cordón (Eds.), Democracy’s Values (pp. 163–190). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pettit, P. (2012). On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pettit, P. (2014). Criminalisation in Republican Theory. In A. Duff, Farmer, L., Marshall, S., Renzo, M., & Tadros, V. (Ed.), Criminalization: The Political Morality of the Criminal Law (pp. 132–150). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Porta, D., & Diani, M. (2009). Social Movements: An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley.
Rawls, J. (1964). Legal Obligation and the Duty of Fair Play. In S. Hook (Ed.), Law and Philosophy. New York: New York University Press.
Rawls, J. (1999). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Raz, J. (1986). The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Renzo, M. (2011). State Legitimacy and Self-Defence. Law and Philosophy, 30(5), 575–601.
Sabl, A. (2001). Looking Forward to Justice: Rawlsian Civil Disobedience and its Non-Rawlsian Lessons. Journal of Political Philosophy, 9(3), 307–330.
Simmons, A. J. (2001). Justification and Legitimacy: Essays on Rights and Obligations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, W. (2013). Civil Disobedience and Deliberative Democracy. Oxon: Taylor & Francis.
Stichter, M. K. (2010). Rescuing Fair-Play as a Justification for Punishment. Res Publica, 16(1), 73–81.
Tosi, J. (2017). Playing Fair and Following the Rules. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 14(2), 134–141.
Wellman, C., & Simmons, J. (2005). Is There a Duty to Obey the Law? New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wellman, C. H. (2001). Toward a Liberal Theory of Political Obligation. Ethics, 111(4), 735–759.
Zhu, J. (2015). Fairness, Political Obligation, and the Justificatory Gap. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 12(3), 290–312.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Moraro, P. Punishment, Fair Play and the Burdens of Citizenship. Law and Philos 38, 289–311 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-019-09346-6
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-019-09346-6