Abstract

Argues that Aristotle raises the question of political obligation in terms quite familiar to modern political theory, especially that his political theory contains the claim that the authority of the state stands in need of justification and that he actually faces up to an anarchist challenge of sorts to come up with a justification for the restriction of the liberty of subjects. Before going into the ways in which Aristotle answers the political question in terms of the well-being of those subject to political authority, some communitarian fallacies regarding the nature of political obligation are cleared out of the way of Aristotelian politics.