Virtue, Obligation and Politics

This paper presents a conceptual analysis of the terms “virtue,†“obligation,†and “politics,†a project suggested by similar analyses currently underway in the field of ethics. The essence of the study is the contrast between politics understood in terms of virtue (as by Plato, Aristotle, and, in a way, Rousseau) and politics understood in terms of obligation (as by Hobbes, Locke, John Rawls and, in a way, Rousseau). The paper argues that obligation and virtue form the center of two separate languages or paradigms for the formulation and discussion of basic political questions, and discusses the theoretical grounds for the neglect of the language of virtue by the greater part of modern political thought. This discussion, while pointing to the possible weaknesses of the language of virtue, also serves to indicate (directly and by contrast) the limitations of the language of obligation as a way of understanding politics.