Abstract

My aim in this paper is to develop a new model of the obligation to do your part in contributing to the provision of what are frequently described as ‘public goods’. I will situate my account in a broadly Kantian account of the state as a public rightful condition, which enjoys powers that no private person could enjoy, in the service of its distinctively public mandate. The exercise of those powers imposes special duties on the state, which require it to provide distinctively public goods. As an artificial person, the state can only act through natural persons; doing your part enables the state to achieve its distinctively public purposes.