terpersonal sense and applying it to groups and institutions, partly because when you have a group of people dispensing benefits, not all of them will agree on who should get the benefits or how much they should receive: it is a consensus decision, and therefore there is no gratitude owed to the group as a whole (Simmons 187). Condition one is not fulfilled because the government does not go to any special effort or make any sacrifice to grant a benefit to a particular individual: benefits are handed out to the masses and one individual more or less will not make a difference to them. Condition two is also not fulfilled because there are many times when governments provide benefits for their citizens unintentionally and involuntarily, or for self-interest e.g. in a quest for votes, or for international recognition. With these arguments, Simmons denies the plausibility of the notion of gratitude as a grounds for political obligation
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