The People's Duty
Collective Agency and the Morality of Public Policy

Nili develops a novel conception of 'the people', both as an agent with its own moral integrity, and as an owner of public property.

Shmuel Nili (Author)

9781108480925, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 June 2019

262 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.7 cm, 0.53 kg

'Nili's pathbreaking book gives us an original way to think about the liberal state and its obligations, both to itself and to others. This provocative book will help the reader see liberalism and the state in new and important ways.' Jeff Spinner-Halev, Kenan Eminent Professor of Political Ethics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Can we talk about 'the people' as an agent with its own morally important integrity? How should we understand ownership of public property by 'the people'? Nili develops philosophical answers to both of these questions, arguing that we should see the core project of a liberal legal system - realizing equal rights - as an identity-grounding project of the sovereign people, and thus as essential to the people's integrity. He also suggests that there are proprietary claims that are intertwined in the sovereign people's moral power to create property rights through the legal system. The practical value of these ideas is illustrated through a variety of real-world policy problems, ranging from the domestic and international dimensions of corruption and abuse of power, through transitional justice issues, to the ethnic and religious divides that threaten liberal democracy. This book will appeal to political theorists as well as readers in public policy, area studies, law, and across the social sciences.

Introduction
1. The people's integrity
2. The people's property
3. The people's integrity, the people's property, and the abuse of political power
4. Their property, our integrity: the democratic response to the problem of odious debt
5. Policy priorities for a divided people: Israel as a case study
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB], Public opinion & polls [JPVK], Political science & theory [JPA], Social issues & processes [JFF], Social & political philosophy [HPS]