Dealing with Unjust Representatives]

Abstract

Are citizens responsible for the unjust legislation and public policy that their representatives pass? What type of responsibility could this be? We defend here that, while substantive executive and legislative representation creates moral backward-looking responsibility on the citizenry, formal representation creates moral forward-looking responsibility. We also argue that it is more important to focus on the adscription of the moral forward-looking responsibility associated to formal representation, and that such responsibility should be understood as a citizens’ subset of political duties to resist and modify the injustices that their representatives bring about. Such duties have three main features: they are individualized on each citizen according to her social role, they are open and they are defeasible by certain moral and prudential considerations.