Questions: Consent as a Source of Political Legitimacy

Question 1

Locke argued that residing in a country constitutes tacit consent to its authority. Hume's objection is best characterized as:

• A. Tacit consent is inherently invalid — only explicit, written consent can be morally binding
• B. For consent to be binding, the alternative to consenting must be genuinely available, and for most people emigration is not a real option
• C. Residence is not voluntary because people are born into their home countries without choosing them
• D. Governments derive authority from tradition and custom, so the consent framework is misguided from the start

Answer: (B)

Hume's central objection is not that tacit consent is always invalid, but that Locke's specific version is hollow: the 'choice' to stay rather than emigrate is not a genuine choice for most people. Language, family, economic ties, and the practical impossibility of emigration mean that staying is not freely chosen over departure. Consent is morally binding only when freely given, which requires that refusing consent (leaving) is a realistic option. Option C names a related but distinct 'birth without choice' problem. Option A is too strong — tacit consent can be valid when the alternative is genuinely available.

Question 2

Rawls's original position is an example of hypothetical consent theory. Critics argue it faces a decisive objection. Which best states that objection?

• A. Hypothetical consent is too demanding — no rational agent behind the veil of ignorance would agree to any principles at all
• B. Hypothetical consent is not real consent: what a counterfactual idealized agent would agree to does not bind actual people who were never asked
• C. The original position is incoherent because people cannot actually forget their social positions
• D. Rawls's principles are wrong because idealized agents would choose utility maximization rather than the difference principle

Answer: (B)

The decisive objection to hypothetical consent as a legitimacy-grounding device is that it is not consent at all. What justifies obligations is actual voluntary agreement. If I would agree to something under idealized conditions, that does not mean I did agree or that I am bound. As critics put it: 'If I would consent to your taking my car were I fully rational and well-informed, that does not permit you to take it without asking.' Options C and D raise internal critiques of Rawls's specific construction rather than the deeper objection to hypothetical consent as a foundation for legitimacy.

Question 3

On Locke's tacit consent doctrine, a person who was born in a country, lived there their entire life, and never emigrated has thereby consented to that country's government.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

This accurately states Locke's position — and the statement is true as a description of his view, even though it is the claim Hume found problematic. Locke held that using a country's roads and protections and remaining within its territory counts as tacit consent to its authority. Understanding that Locke genuinely holds this is necessary to appreciate the force of Hume's objection: that such 'consent,' given the absence of a realistic exit option, is morally indistinguishable from coerced acquiescence.

Question 4

Hypothetical consent — what rational people would agree to under idealized conditions — provides the same moral grounding for political authority as actual consent.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

This is the key fallacy in some social contract theorizing. Actual consent is a real act: a person voluntarily agrees, and that act gives the other party authority over them for the scope agreed. Hypothetical consent is a counterfactual: a different, idealized agent under different conditions might agree. The two are morally distinct because the person actually living under authority never performed the binding act. 'Would consent' is not 'did consent,' and legitimacy requires the latter.

Question 5

Why does Hume's objection to Locke's tacit consent argument show not merely that it is a weaker form of consent, but that it is not genuine consent at all in the political case?

Model answer: Consent is morally binding only when freely given — the consenting party must have a genuine alternative. Locke's argument requires that residents 'choose' to stay rather than emigrate. But for most people, emigration means abandoning language, family, livelihood, and community at prohibitive or impossible cost. When one alternative is not genuinely available, staying is not a choice between two real options; it is the only path. A 'consent' given when refusal is practically impossible is not consent — it is acquiescence under compulsion. Hume's analogy captures this precisely: the poor laborer forced by necessity to remain is no more bound by tacit consent than a sailor who cannot leave a ship at sea.

The argument turns on a necessary condition for valid consent: the availability of a genuine alternative. Without it, 'consent' collapses into necessity, not voluntary agreement, and loses its moral force as a legitimating mechanism.