 A different explanation—perhaps the most important one in the common good tradition—stresses the idea of a social relationship. Think of the relationship between parents and their children. This relationship requires not only that the people involved act in certain ways towards one another, but also that they care about one another in certain ways. For instance, parents are required not only to feed and clothe their children, perhaps to avoid getting fined by the Department of Child and Family Services. Parents are also required to care about their children: they must give their children’s interests a certain status in their practical reasoning. Many philosophers argue that our relation to our fellow citizens has similar features. The political bond requires not only that we act in certain ways, but also that we give the interests of our fellow citizens a certain status in our practical reasoning. It would be unacceptable, on this view, for citizens to fulfill certain public roles purely for the sake of private incentives. A Supreme Court justice, for example, must care about the rule of law and the common interests that this practice serves. If she were making consistent rulings just to cash her paycheck every two weeks, she would not be responding in the right way to her fellow citizens, who act for the sake of common interests in doing things such as voting, following the law, and standing ready to defend the constitutional  order.[9]