Authority E-Book

Fabian Wendt

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Political Profiles Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 243

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

From citizens paying taxes to employees following their bosses' orders and kids obeying their parents, we take it for granted that a whole range of authorities have the power to impose duties on others. However, although authority is often accepted in practice, it looks philosophically problematic if we conceive persons as free and equals. 

In this short and accessible book, Fabian Wendt examines the basis of authority, discussing five prominent theories that try to explain how claims to authority can be vindicated. Focusing in particular on the issue of how states can rightfully claim authority, he rigorously analyses the theories’ arguments and evaluates their strengths and weaknesses. He also debates anarchism as an alternative that should be taken seriously if no theory ultimately succeeds in explaining state authority. 

This clear and engaging book will be essential reading for anyone grappling with the most fundamental questions of authority and obligation in political theory and political philosophy.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Series Title

Title page

Copyright page

Acknowledgments

1

: Varieties of Authority

Theoretical and practical authorities

De facto authorities and legitimate authorities

Political authority

The right to rule

Three clarificatory notes

Theories of political authority

Summary

2

: Consent and Authority

Explicit consent

Do states have our explicit consent?

Tacit consent

Do states have our tacit consent?

Hypothetical consent

Normative consent

Making states voluntary?

Summary

3

: The Service Conception of Authority

How to exercise authority

How authority-based reasons work

The justification of authority

Objections against the normal justification thesis

Summary

4

: Community and Authority

Moral bonds in families

Political communities as analogous to families

Objections and refinements

Summary

5

: Natural Duties and Authority

The natural duty of justice

Two objections

From natural duties of justice to political authority

Democracy and authority

Samaritanism and authority

Summary

6

: Fair Cooperation and Authority

The principle of fairness

Does it help with political obligations?

Fairness obligations without voluntary acceptance of benefits?

From fairness obligations to political authority

Summary

7

: States without Authority

Alternative theories

Weak legitimacy

Philosophical anarchism

Political anarchism

Summary

Bibliography

Index

End User License Agreement

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Series Title

Key Concepts in Political Theory

Charles Jones and Richard Vernon,

Patriotism

Roger Griffin,

Fascism

Peter J. Steinberger,

Political Judgment

Fabian Wendt,

Authority

Copyright page

Copyright © Fabian Wendt 2018

The right of Fabian Wendt to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2018 by Polity Press

Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1697-1

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1698-8 (pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wendt, Fabian, author.

Title: Authority / Fabian Wendt.

Description: Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2018] | Series: Key concepts in political theory | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017056826 (print) | LCCN 2018004823 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509517015 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509516971 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509516995 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Authority--Social aspects. | Authority--Philosophy.

Classification: LCC HM1251 (ebook) | LCC HM1251 .W46 2018 (print) | DDC 303.3/6--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017056826

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Acknowledgments

Many people helped in the process of writing this book and I am deeply grateful for their support. John Horton, Laura Valentini, and an anonymous colleague read the manuscript for Polity Press and provided generous reports with helpful and detailed comments. Peter Dietsch was kind enough to organize a manuscript workshop at the Centre de recherche en éthique in Montreal in November 2017. At the workshop, I benefited from insightful commentaries by Arash Abizadeh, Étienne Brown, Peter Dietsch, Richard Healey, Angie Pepper, and Daniel Weinstock. Moreover, Vuko Andric, Emanuela Ceva, and Anita Wendt read (parts of) the manuscript and provided valuable feedback, and George Owers from Polity Press was a great and enthusiastic guide all along.

1Varieties of Authority

Most people have mixed feelings about authority. On the one hand, submission to authorities seems to conflict with our freedom and autonomy, and we regard it as an important youthful instinct to challenge authorities and to sometimes rebel against them. On the other hand, we have great respect for many authorities and we see the usefulness of complying with authorities. An explanation for these mixed feelings is that there are different types of authority, and that only some authorities are legitimate. In this first chapter, I explain what different types of authority there are, and I set the stage for later chapters (which will mostly focus on political authority).

Theoretical and practical authorities

Some people are authorities because they are experts on something. For example, Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker have written a book called A History of Opera, and so arguably they are authorities when it comes to opera. On opera-related questions, their judgment should count. When we would like to know something about opera, it is probably a good idea to consult them (or their book). Let us call such authorities theoretical authorities, because they know more than others in a certain field. Practical authorities are different. A police officer’s authority is not based on any special knowledge or expertise. A police officer can tell you what to do because she has the right to tell you what to do, not because she has expertise. Parents are another example of practical authorities. They have the right to tell their kids what to do, but their authority is not based on any special knowledge or expertise.

So what do theoretical and practical authorities have in common? One might be tempted to say that both provide other people with reasons, the difference being that they provide different kinds of reasons (Raz 1985: 211). Theoretical authorities are in a position to provide reasons for belief, while practical authorities are in a position to provide reasons for action. But this is not so. When Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker say something about Verdi operas, others have good reason to believe that they are right. But theoretical authorities often provide reasons for action as well. Take physicians, as a paradigmatic example. Of course your dentist knows more about teeth than you do, and so if you would like to better understand the physiology of teeth, it is certainly a good idea to ask your dentist. In that sense your dentist is a theoretical authority. But, of course, you usually do not go to a dentist to gain knowledge, but to let him control the health of your teeth. During that process, you do what the dentist says. When the dentist tells you to open your mouth wide, then you have good reason to do so, because you want him to have a look and see whether you have caries or periodontitis. When your dentist gives you advice on how to use dental floss, then you have good reason to follow his advice, because you care about your teeth. Thus your dentist is in a position to provide reasons for action and for belief. This holds for most theoretical authorities. If you are unsure what recording of Verdi’s Falstaff you should purchase, you probably should follow the advice of Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker. Experts on opera are in a position to provide reasons for action, too. Conversely, practical authorities provide not only reasons for action, but also reasons for belief; when they tell you what to do, then you have reason to believe that you ought to do it.

Moreover, providing others with reasons for belief or action is not sufficient for being an authority. We all provide reasons for belief and for action all the time. When I bring a surfboard to the beach, others have reason to believe that I will go surfing. And when I start surfing and drown, others have reason to save me (which is a reason for action). This does not make me an authority.

So what is the mark of authority? What do theoretical and practical authorities have in common? Authorities provide reasons for belief and action because they have a certain superior standing. Theoretical authorities have a superior standing because they are experts on something, because they know more in a certain field. Due to this superior standing, what they do or think is “authoritative,” not on a par with what others do or think. In the case of practical authorities, the superior standing is constituted not by special knowledge, but by having certain rights. The police officer, for example, has the right to make us stop and show her our driver’s license. This constitutes her “superior position,” since normal people do not have the right to make other people show them their driving license. The notion of “superior standing” is deliberately vague, but I think it is important to an understanding of authority. Not all forms of superior standing constitute authority, though. Being rich or powerful is not a source of authority, for example. The reason is that these forms of “superiority” do not constitute superior “standing.” The superiority of having more power or money than others gives one more opportunities, but no standing.

I mentioned state officials and parents as examples of practical (i.e. rights-based) authorities. In the case of parents, one may ask whether they are not better understood as theoretical authorities. Compared to their children, parents certainly have greater expertise in most areas. Yet this is arguably not the only reason why they have authority over their children and it is not what marks their specific parental authority. After all, all adults have more knowledge and practical skills than children, and yet it is only the kids’ parents that have parental authority over them. Like police officers, parents have authority because they have certain rights over a certain class of subjects, namely their children. (Of course, they also have certain duties toward their children, but these duties do not constitute their authority.) In fact, the authority of the state and the authority of parents have sometimes been thought to be similar or even identical. Robert Filmer, a major English political theorist in the seventeenth century, argued that the authority of absolute monarchs is based on the parental authority Adam had over his children (1680). John Locke put great efforts into showing that Filmer’s theory does not work because there are important differences between the authority of the state and the authority of parents (1689). In the present context, the important point simply is that both the authority of the state and the authority of parents are constituted by a special set of rights. This set of rights marks their superior position, not some superior knowledge. For that reason, they both represent forms of practical authority, not theoretical authority.

Besides parents and the state and its officials, there are other authorities that have certain rights that put them in a superior position over others, i.e. other practical authorities. Bosses are such authorities. Maybe some bosses are also theoretical authorities, but again this is not what marks their authority. What marks their authority is their right to give orders, to fire employees, etc. The same holds for religious authorities like the Pope or the Dalai Lama. Religious authorities are often conceived as theoretical authorities as well, but what makes them a religious authority (at least as I would like to understand the term here) is not their knowledge, but their rights vis-à-vis the relative religious community. They may put believers under certain obligations, excommunicate people, etc. Teachers are another example. Teachers should really be theoretical authorities, at least in relation to their students. If they are not, they will not be good teachers. But their theoretical authority is not what makes them teachers. The authority of teachers is constituted by the rights they have over their students. For example, they have the right to grade them, give them homework, etc.

De facto authorities and legitimate authorities

As we all know, there are charlatans among authorities. This is especially so in the case of theoretical authorities. Some merely pretend to have the expertise that makes them authorities. In that sense, they are not really authorities. Now of course it happens sometimes that people are unaware that these are charlatans and still treat them as authorities. In a different sense, then, they are authorities. They are treated as authorities, even though they do not have the superior standing that people believe them to have. Accordingly, we should distinguish between mere de facto authorities and legitimate authorities. De facto authorities are treated as authorities; people believe that they have a superior standing. Legitimate authorities, on the other hand, really have that superior standing. Successful charlatans are de facto authorities, but not legitimate authorities. Conversely, unfortunately some legitimate authorities may fail to be de facto authorities. Sometimes people do not get the respect and acknowledgment they deserve as authorities in their field. Think of philosophers or scientists who explore radically new and much better theories, but are not taken seriously by their colleagues. Even worse, they may be treated as heretics at their time. When we are lucky, authorities are both de facto and legitimate authorities. Authorities that are only de facto authorities are problematic because people take them to provide reasons for action or belief that they are not in a position to provide. Mere legitimate authorities are unfortunate because they provide reasons for action or belief, but people fail to appreciate it. In this book, my main focus will be on legitimate authority. When I say “authority,” I will usually mean “legitimate authority” (unless the context suggests otherwise).

The distinction between de facto and legitimate authorities applies not only to theoretical authorities, but also to practical authorities. Here we might not speak of “charlatans,” but still there could be persons who are treated as practical authorities without actually having the rights that are needed to really have that practical authority. Think of the tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” The Emperor is treated is if he wore his beautiful new clothes, but in fact he is naked. Some think that this is similar with the authority of states. They are treated as if they had practical authority, but they do not have it.

It is sometimes said that an authority has to be a de facto authority before it can adequately be called a legitimate or illegitimate authority. Talk of being a legitimate or illegitimate authority presupposes that one is a (de facto) authority. And there is certainly some truth to this. Yet there are counterexamples. There can be excellent scientists who are dismissed by the scientific community; they could be described as legitimate authorities in their field who are not de facto authorities. The same holds for practical authorities. A government in exile no longer has de facto authority, but could still be considered to have legitimate authority.

Political authority

The rest of the book will mainly be devoted to the authority of the state, although I will talk about other types of authority as well. The state’s authority can also be called political authority. It is a specific type of practical authority, besides parental authority, the authority of bosses, the authority of teachers, and the authority of religious leaders. As a type of practical authority, it is constituted by a special set of rights.

Note that governments and states are not the same thing. Governments are one institution within the institutional structure of the state. It might be possible to have an illegitimate government within a legitimate state, for example when it came to power by usurpation. I will mostly deal with the legitimate authority of states, not governments.

For a start, we should get a clear picture of the rights that states and their officials claim to have. The right of police officers to make citizens stop and show them their driver’s license is only a derivative right (i.e. a right that is derived from more basic rights). On a more abstract level, states claim to have the right to make laws, first of all. Laws apply to a certain territory and to a certain group of subjects. Some laws apply to everyone who happens to be in the territory, including tourists, exchange students, and asylum seekers. The criminal law is a prominent example. Other laws only apply to the citizens of the state, no matter if they live in the state’s territory or not. For example, states often allow their citizens to vote, even if they live in another country. What is important to bear in mind, though, is that states claim to have authority over all citizens and over all people in their territory. Political authority has a “holistic” nature, in that sense (Christiano 2004: 267–8). A state that merely has the right to enact laws with regard to some citizens, but not with regard to others, or with regard to some people in its territory, but not with regard to others, would not have political authority as we conceive it.

Second, states claim to have the right to coercively enforce these laws. This is what the police officer from our example does, and so her right is derived from this more abstract right to coercively enforce laws. Of course the right to coercively enforce laws can also be seen at work in the praxis of punishment, for example. It should be noted, though, that not all laws are coercive in this way. Laws regulating marriage, for example, or laws regulating parliamentary elections, are not coercive in the same way that the criminal law is. They simply enable people to get married or to vote. It is true that even these laws have a connection to state coercion, since being married opens the possibility of filing new types of lawsuits against one’s spouse, and these lawsuits can result in judgments that are coercively enforced. This fact is emphasized by Hans Kelsen (1934), who treats a connection to coercion as the essence of the law. On the other hand, this connection to coercion does not seem to be the point of laws that regulate marriage or parliamentary elections, as H. L. A. Hart (1961) points out against Kelsen. Be that as it may; in any case, states claim the right to coercively enforce laws, even if coercion is not the point of all laws.

Third, states not only enact and coercively enforce laws, they also claim that no other institution may enact and enforce laws in the state’s territory without the state’s permission. States, in other words, claim a monopoly on the use of force. The state may put a murderer in jail, but you may not lock a murderer in your cellar. Max Weber saw this as the essence of the state (1921), and many have followed him on this point. To claim a monopoly on the use of force means to claim an exclusive right to enact and enforce laws. It should be noted, though, that of course states usually allow individual self-defense, and so sometimes citizens may indeed use force. But this does not contradict the state’s claim to a monopoly on the use of force. The claim to a monopoly on the use of force is just the claim that no one may use force without the state’s permission. The example of self-defense shows that states regularly give such permission for specific occasions or situations. On the other hand, a state that permitted everyone to use force whenever one sees fit would stop being a state. States claim a monopoly on the use of force and uphold it to a considerable degree.

To summarize, then, states claim and uphold the exclusive and holistic right to enact and enforce laws for their territory and their citizens. This complex right can be called the right to rule.

The right to rule

But talk of rights is ambiguous. We should further specify what kind of right the right to rule is. It is helpful to follow Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld’s distinction between different kinds of rights (1913). There are claim-rights, liberty-rights, powers, and immunities.

Claim-rights correlate with duties. When a person has a claim-right to something, then others have a duty to respect it. For example, I have a claim-right that others do not fondle my nose (without my permission), and this claim-right implies that others have a duty not to fondle my nose (without my permission). In that sense, claim-rights correlate with other people’s duties.

Liberty-rights – Hohfeld calls them “privileges” – are very different from claim-rights. When I have a liberty-right to do something, then this means that I do not have duties that would stand in the way of doing it. When I have the liberty-right to grow tomatoes in my garden, this means that I do not have any duties not to grow tomatoes in my garden. Nothing is said about other people’s duties here.

Of course, often claim-rights and liberty-rights go hand in hand. In addition to my liberty-right to grow tomatoes in my garden, I might also have the claim-right that others do not interfere with my growing tomatoes in my garden. But there can be liberty-rights that are not accompanied by claim-rights. For example, I have the liberty-right to park my car at a particular public parking spot, while you also have a liberty-right to park your car at that very same public parking spot. None of us has a duty to grant precedence to the other, and accordingly none of us has a claim-right that the other one does not use the spot.

Powers are second-order rights. They mean the ability to alter one’s own or other people’s rights and duties. For example, I have the power to sell my home-grown tomatoes and thereby confer my rights in my tomatoes on the buyer. I give the buyer new claim-rights, liberty-rights, powers, etc. with regard to the tomatoes. Promising is another example where a power is at work. If I promise to take care of your tomatoes, I thereby incur a duty to take care of your tomatoes and I give you a claim-right that I take care of your tomatoes.

Immunities protect one’s rights from being altered by someone else. Thus when I have an immunity with regard to my tomatoes, then this means that you lack the power to alter the rights I have with regard to my tomatoes. You cannot sell them for me, for example.

So what kind of right is the state’s right to rule? It is a bundle of rights. Some ingredients of the bundle are rather uncontroversial, others are more controversial. What is uncontroversial is that a state with political authority has a liberty-right to enact and coercively enforce laws (in its territory and for its citizens). Yet traditionally, the core of the right to rule and hence of political authority was seen in the state’s claim-right to be obeyed. Whether this right is really essential to the right to rule has become controversial, and so I will not presuppose that the right to rule includes this claim-right. I thus work with a moderate conception of the right to rule.

Yet what cannot be left out – and arguably forms the core of the right to rule – is the state’s power to impose duties on citizens and on people in its territory (see Copp 1999: 18–21; Perry 2005: 273, 286; Applbaum 2010: 221–2; Enoch 2014: 300, 306; Schmelzle 2015: 60–5). This power seems essential to what states do: Enacting laws simply means putting citizens under a duty to respect these laws. (In Chapter 7, I will briefly discuss conceptions of legitimacy that attempt to do without the power to impose duties.) One may wonder whether it is conceivable that a state has the power to impose duties, but not a claim-right to be obeyed. It is: When a state imposes duties on citizens, these duties need not be owed to the state. They can be owed to other citizens.

Besides the liberty-right to enact and enforce laws and the power to thereby impose duties, there may well be other rights, like a claim-right against interference by other states and an immunity against the state’s rights being expunged or changed by other states. But the core of the right to rule is the power to impose duties.

Three clarificatory notes

Before moving on, let me add three clarificatory notes. First of all, it is important to distinguish powers in the proper sense from what can be called “side-effect powers” (see Raz 1975: 98–104; Estlund 2008: 118–19, 142–4; Edmundson 2010: 181–3; 2011: 345; Enoch 2011: 4–6; 2014: 299; Essert 2015). For example, when I am drowning and cry for help, I can thereby put a passerby under a duty to help me. This is not a power in the proper sense, but a mere side-effect power. But it is not so easy to say what the difference between proper powers and side-effect powers really is.

David Estlund remarks that side-effect cases are cases where “a requirement or prohibition is the result of certain acts of mine but where they are no part of the point of the act” (2008: 143). It is not part of the point of my going swimming to put you under a duty to rescue me. But, on the other hand, maybe it could be the point of my going swimming (it may really be my intention to put you under a duty to rescue me). Even if it were the point of my going swimming, this would arguably not constitute a power in the sense we are after here.

So there must be something else that is distinctive about proper powers. Maybe it is one’s ability to create new reasons for action “by mere say-so.” In the drowning example, my drowning and crying merely triggers reasons that had been there independently of my action. Your moral duty to help others in emergency situations (when possible without unreasonable costs) is triggered by my drowning. In other words, in a side-effect case I do something that causally changes the world such that a reason that applies to you independently of my action becomes relevant. With proper powers, this is different. Here my action – usually my uttering of words – brings a new reason into existence, by mere say-so. If I promise to take care of your tomatoes, I thereby create a new reason for action, namely a moral reason for me to take care of your tomatoes. Now one might be tempted to think that this is not so different from side-effect cases. Why not say that by promising I merely trigger a reason that was there all along, namely the reason to keep my promises?

Here is the third and most promising candidate for distinguishing proper powers from side-effect powers: Only proper powers create “content-independent” reasons for action. The mere fact that I promised something gives a reason for action (namely to do the thing that is to be done if I am to keep the promise), no matter what the content of the promise was. Of course, there are things that I cannot promise; a promise to kill someone is not valid. But a valid promise creates a reason to do the thing that was promised, simply because it was promised, and in that sense it creates a reason for action independently of the content of the promise. Going swimming and drowning does not create content-independent reasons for action in that sense.