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8 Res Publica 1 (2002)

handle is hein.journals/respub8 and id is 1 raw text is: DUDLEY KNOWLES GRATITUDE AND GOOD GOVERNMENT ABSTRACT. I attempt to show that it is not philosophically incompetent to ground political obligation in feelings of gratitude. But the argument needs to be stated carefully. Gratitude must be distinguished from reciprocity. It applies only to good government which provides benefits to citizens for which they ought to feel grateful. It applies only to citizens who accept that their feelings of gratitude are properly demonstrated by an acceptance on their part of the duties of citizenship. It does not apply to citizens whose benefits are purchased at the expense of the unjust treatment of fellow citizens. KEY WORDS: duties of citizenship, gratitude, political obligation, reciprocity I My intention in this paper is modest. It is to revive and partly endorse an argument to the effect that citizens have duties to the state which derive from their acceptance of benefits - the argument from gratitude. My main task will be to rebut challenges to the effect that the argument is incon- sistent or inchoate, that it cannot be formulated in a fashion suitable to convince an honest enquirer. A secondary task will be to examine the scope of the argument, considering what range of citizens can be expected to accept it. The greater the number of citizens that can be judged to accept its premises and endorse its conclusions, the better and more useful the argument will be from the point of view of the state. II The first thing we should recognize is the initial plausibility of the argu- ment, and this is best seen by describing a particular case. Citizen James Smith reviews his life and judges that the state has made a significant contribution to his well-being. The tale will be familiar. A safe delivery at the Queen Mother's Hospital, regular doses of the cod-liver oil and the orange juice, a sound education which prepared Smith for useful and rewarding work ...: the benefits keep falling from the tree. Smith finds that he feels grateful for these benefits and endorses his tendency to obey and LA Res Publica 8: 1-20, 2002. O © 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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