In this book, Christopher Heath Wellman offers original theories of political legitimacy and our obligation to obey the law, and then, building upon these accounts, defends a number of distinctive positions concerning the rights and responsibilities individual citizens, separatist groups, and political states have regarding one another.

• Acknowledgements


• Introduction


• Chapter One: Associative Allegiances and Political Obligations


• Chapter Two: Relational Facts in Liberal Theory: Is There Magic in the Pronoun "My"?


• Chapter Three: Toward a Liberal Theory of Political Obligation


• Chapter Four: Political Obligation and the Particularity Requirement


• Chapter Five: A Defense of Secession and Political Self-Determination


• Chapter Six: The Truth in the Nationalist Principle


• Chapter Seven: Group Autonomy and State Sovereignty


• Chapter Eight: Responsibility: Personal, Corporate, Collective


• Chapter Nine: Immigration and Freedom of Association


• Chapter Ten: The Rights Forfeiture Theory of Punishment


• Chapter Eleven: Rights and State Punishment


• Index

Christopher Heath Wellman is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. He works in ethics, specializing in political and legal philosophy. His previous books include A Theory of Secession (2005); (with John Simmons) Is There a Duty to Obey the Law? (2005); (with Andrew Altman) A Liberal Theory of International Justice (OUP, 2009); and (with Phillip Cole) Debating the Ethics of Immigration: Is There a Right to Exclude? (OUP, 2011).