 A central challenge for theorists in the common good tradition is to explain why a genuine commitment to the common good matters. Why should it matter whether citizens actually care about the common good? Some philosophers in the tradition cite a practical problem. Even in a well-designed arrangement, circumstances are likely to arise where social institutions do not provide people with an adequate private incentive to act in a publicly oriented way. For example, political morality may require public officials to stand up for the rule of law, even in situations where this will damage their careers. Or political morality may require citizens to protest against an unjust law, even if this means a private risk of being jailed or blacklisted. Political morality may even require citizens to run the risk of losing their lives in order to defend the constitutional order against a foreign threat (see Walzer 1970; Rousseau 1762b [1997: 63–4]). In each of these cases, no matter how well designed institutions are, citizens may not have an adequate private incentive to do what political morality requires, so a genuine concern for the common good may be essential.