Report - The UK government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed PDF

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The UK government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed...

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ID NUMBER: 9982283

“The UK government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed” true or false? There is an adversarial relationship between citizens and governments. The government is a group of people who have the authority on the governed in a given territory, in others words, the right to impose law on its citizens.1 Power can be defined as a set of rules and laws applied to everyone living in a given territory. A man gives consent to something or someone when he gives his consent through acts such as authorisations of the actions of others.2 Governed can be defined as the citizens, in a nutshell, the people who are governed by the State. As a consequence, we wonder does the UK governments derive its just powers from the consent of the governed? Firstly, I am going to discuss the political obligation through time and the theory of the consent, in which, I shall explain the different types of consent. Secondly, I will talk about why is it not possible for governments to absolutely conciliate consent and political obligation.

The concept of political obligation is an old concept and can be defined as the duty to obey to laws, the rules of a territory. If we go back through the fifth century before Christ, we can find a first approach of this concept with Socrates in Athens. He was accused of disrespecting morals of the youth and then he had not respected the political obligation so Socrates had a trial and one of his arguments from that precede the Social Contract. The social Contract was developed during the 17th century. This latter is a theory grounded on the idea of a ‘contract’ between two groups of people, for instance between citizens and government. It

1 Robert Paul Wolff, In defense of Anarchism, 1970, part I: The concept of authority, p1. 2 A. John Simmons, Tacit consent and Political Obligation, Philosophy and public affairs, Vol. 5 No. 3, p.275 1

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is also the idea to limit the liberty of men in turn for laws that guarantees the perpetuation of the society. This theory introduced the concept of political equality. There are many views of this contract through different philosophers such as Hobbes3, Locke4 and Hume. According to Hobbes the social contract is the idea of everyone is equal, and then that everyone is able to govern. This concept terminates the ‘State of Nature’ in Hobbes’s view. The Social contract should ensure the security of each individual. The government has to limit the liberty of each individual, however, there exists a right of resistance in the case of abuse. In my opinion, Hobbes’s view is legitimate because everyone can govern, the power cannot be taken by someone who wants to govern, because someone who really want to govern is someone who likes power and this is bad, in my opinion. In the Locke’s view the Social contract should guarantee the natural rights. Hume almost totally agreed with Hobbes’s view. Hume says in his essay ‘Of the original contract’5 that everyone is born under the obligation to obey the laws. In that sense he says that obedience has become familiar. Thus I think that political obligation is fundamentally illegitimate. Therefore the question is: Is there really consent of the governed? In order to answer to this question, we have to understand the theory of consent and the different types of consent. Firstly, I would like to explain express consent. Express consent is when someone gives his consent in an explicit way to someone or something. Express consent is a consent through an act. As an example, a contract with a signature clearly proves consent. Secondly, we have implied consent with two types within this category: tacit consent and hypothetical consent. Tacit consent is ‘given by remaining silent and inactive’ according to John Simmons6. But it is not an absence of expression, for instance, if all my family decided to go to Morocco between two dates and few days before my mom tells us: ,Ri c h a r da n dLe f k o wi t z ,Da v i d," Pol i t i c a lOb l i g a t i o n " ,Th eS t a nf o r dEnc y c l o p e di ao fPh i l os o p h y , 3 Dagger Ch a p t e ra bo u tt hes o c i a lc on t r a c t( 1 . 3 ) 4 Dagger ,Ri c h a r da n dLe f k o wi t z ,Da v i d ," Po l i t i c a lOb l i g a t i o n " ,Th eS t a n f o r dEn c y c l o pe d i aofPh i l o s op h y Ch a p t e ra bo u tt hes o c i a lc on t r a c t( 1 . 3 ) 5 Hume, David, “Of the social contract” 1748 6 Simmons, A. John, Tacit consent and political obligation- Philosophy and public affairs Vol 5 No 3, p.279

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‘there is a change with the dates, any objections?’ and then is followed by a silence, this would mean that everyone gives his consent through the tacit consent. Finally, I am going to talk about hypothetical consent. Hypothetical consent is when the government assume your consent because is in your benefit. In other words, when you do not have really think about something but when you think about it, you are agreed. Now I am going to explain why is it impossible to conciliate political obligation and consent of the governed. We will go through the consent in democracies, notably trough voting and then how people give -or not- their consent.

In order to show why is it unrealizable to conciliate political obligation and consent of the governed, I have to go through the consent of modern democracies and voting. Democracies by definition are based on the consent of the governed; unfortunately all democracies do not always have a consent from the citizens. It is extremely rare that people authorize someone -in our case governments- to govern them.7 I strongly believe that from the fact that autonomy is one of the most important principles for human being.8 Thus, people would like to have free will and freedom and they do not like be governed.9 In my opinion, it is almost impossible that the consent of the governed can justify all the actions of the government. 10 And that, because even if the consent of the citizens is more requested -obviously sometimes and not usually- compared to others systems, the numbers of consenters will be never enough to justify their actions. Now let’s talk about this idea of voting. Are citizens giving their opinions when they are voting? In my opinion they are not. The first problem that I want to highlight is 7 Simmons, A. John, Consent, free choice and democratic government, 1984, part III : consent and voting, p.796. 8 We can draw a parallel with Hume (1748). As I said before, Hume has said everyone is born under the obligation to obey to laws. 9 Wolff, Robert Paul, In defense of Anarchism, 1970, part III: The conflict between authority and autonomy. 10 Simmons, A. John, Consent, free choice and democratic government, 1984, part III : consent and voting, p.798-799.

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the level of abstention in every democratic system. In fact, many citizens do not want to vote. There are different reasons to explain abstention, firstly many people do not care about government, and they think their votes are not really important. Secondly, some people do not want to give their consent because they do not like completely any programs. For these people who do not agree with any programs or politicians, they can use the blank vote instead of not voting. The using of blank vote is, in my sense, better than not voting because you express your disagreement. The final type of voters is the people who go to vote. But, unfortunately, I believe they do not give their consent even if they vote they cannot give their consent to all the ideas of a program. In fact, they vote for the politician who seems the best for them, but it is impossible to be agreeing with all his ideas. In that sense, I believe that democracies are properly illegitimate. I was talking about the express consent, now let’s take interest in tacit consent and government. I have defined tacit consent before 11 and I am going to explain his relation with the government. Locke talks about an unexpressed consent with an enjoyment of the benefits.12 That means that people can have an enjoyment to obey the law. Locke also talks about the fact that since you live in a country, you give your consent because you accept to obey to laws. In a way, it is clearly impossible enjoyed be governed. In fact, I am pretty sure that the freedom and the free will of everyone are really important in each life. However, since childhood we are programmed to respect some rules and the majority of citizens not realizing they obey to laws and tacitly consent to them. Nobody really knows what freedom is, and I think governments take an advantage from the situation.

11 See Simmons, A. John, Tacit consent and political obligation - Philosophy and public affairs Vol 5 No 3, p. 279 12Simmons, A. John, Tacit consent and political obligation - Philosophy and public affairs Vol 5 No 3, p.287

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To conclude, I would like to say that the UK government does not derive its power from the consent of the governed. In fact, as I argued in this essay political obligation and consent are conflicting. Governments under democracies do not really ask to citizens their consent.

Word count: 1499. Bibliography: 

Da g g e r , Ri c h a r da nd Le f k o wi t z , Da v i d, " Po l i t i c a l Ob l i g a t i o n" , Th e St an f o r d En c y c l o p e di ao fPh i l os op h y( F a l l20 1 4 Ed i t i o n ) ,Ed wa r d N.Za l t a( e d . ) ,URL = .

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Hume, David, “Of the social contract”, 1748

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Simmons, A. John, Consent, free choice and democratic government, 1984, Georgia Law Review Association ; University of Georgia.School of Law p.791-819

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A. John Simmons, Tacit consent and political obligation, Philosophy and public affairs Vol 5 No 3, 1976 p. 274-291

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Wolff, Robert Paul, In defense of Anarchism, 1970, Chapter I: The conflict between authority and autonomy

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