Jacob Phillips - Obedience is Freedom

1 Cover

2 Title Page Obedience is Freedom Jacob Phillips polity

3 Copyright Copyright © Jacob Phillips 2022 The right of Jacob Phillips to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2022 by Polity Press Polity Press 65 Bridge Street Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK Polity Press 101 Station Landing Suite 300 Medford, MA 02155, USA All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4935-1 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Control Number: 2021949835 The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate. Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition. For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

4 Introduction

5 1 Allegiance Notes

6 2 Loyalty Notes

7 3 Deference Notes

8 4 Honour Notes

9 5 Obligation Notes

10 6 Respect Notes

11 7 Responsibility Notes

12 8 Discipline Notes

13 9 Duty Notes

14 10 Authority Notes

15 Index

16 End User License Agreement

1 Cover

2 Table of Contents

3 Title Page

4 Copyright

5 Introduction

6 Begin Reading

7 Index

8 End User License Agreement

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Jacob Phillips

polity

Copyright © Jacob Phillips 2022

The right of Jacob Phillips to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2022 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

101 Station Landing

Suite 300

Medford, MA 02155, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4935-1

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021949835

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

Readers picking up a book entitled Obedience is Freedom , with chapters entitled ‘Allegiance’, ‘Loyalty’ or ‘Obligation’ and so on, may be expecting an academic treatise. Perhaps they will expect this introduction to start by listing some examples of how obedience is today considered irredeemably toxic. Then, a discussion of freedom, suggesting today’s preference for interpreting this as individual self-fulfilment often leaves people frustrated, isolated and at times even enslaved. The ground would then be prepared to state the thesis of this book: a rediscovery of obedience (and subcategories like allegiance, loyalty and obligation) promises a more enduring and genuine freedom than that offered by today’s self-fulfilment paradigm. Indeed, many great thinkers have long since argued that an avoidance of restraint serves only to intensify the degree to which we are restrained, and that genuine and enduring freedom is to be found through obediently entering into the ways personal choice is ever limited by the networks of responsibility in which we live.

Having outlined the basic position in the Introduction, such readers might expect the chapters to outline, in prosaic terms, exactly how the themes under discussion contribute to that more authentic freedom lacking in today’s world. These would then begin with comments on the etymology of the chapter heading. These terms often combine elements of restraint or obedience with expressions of spontaneity or freedom. The word obligation, for example, derives from the past-participle stem of the verb obligare , meaning ‘to bind’, and yet also from the noun obligatio , which is connected with expressing gratitude; hence the old English phrase ‘much obliged’. From findings such as these, some discussion of ancient texts would be expected, particularly those of Greek and Roman philosophy. Then a critical discussion with more contemporary voices could follow, working towards the overarching conclusion that obedience is not only connected with freedom in ways we seem to have forgotten, but that these two are so mutually dependent they are indistinct: hence, obedience is freedom.