As the background to his view that the liberal democratic theory of political obligation implies, under appropriate circumstances, not a right but a duty to resist one's government, Ake provides a judicious account not only of liberal democratic theory but also of utilitarian and legal positivist theory. None the less, his three synopses reveal the almost inevitable hazards of such accounts. The issue is not merely a historical one, for in each case the synoptic account determines the direction which his argument takes.
Whether or not men have free choice is a question which arises within two distinct moral contexts. At issue in the one is their ability to decide among genuine alternatives; in the other their ability to do what they think they ought to do although their desire to perform their duty is weaker than their desire to do otherwise. The former has to do with moral decision; (he latter with moral effort. Although the two are distinct they are not unrelated. For in any moral decision a fully conscious, or rather self-conscious agent, will always take into account the likelihood of his effort succeeding in action and this will have an important bearing on the decision he makes.
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