The problem of political authority. The Problem of Political Authority 2022-10-09
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Political authority refers to the legitimate power that governments or other political entities have to make and enforce laws, policies, and decisions that affect a population. The problem of political authority is the question of where this legitimate power comes from and how it is justified. There have been many different theories and approaches to this question throughout history, and it remains a central issue in political philosophy and political science.
One approach to the problem of political authority is the social contract theory, which proposes that government is based on a hypothetical agreement between individuals to give up some of their natural rights in exchange for the protection and benefits of living in a society. According to this view, political authority is justified because it is based on the consent of the governed, who have agreed to be bound by the laws and decisions of the government.
Another approach is the divine right of kings, which holds that political authority is divinely ordained and that rulers have a divine right to rule. This theory was influential in the Middle Ages and is still held by some religious groups today. However, it has been largely rejected by modern democracies, which tend to view political authority as coming from the people rather than from a higher power.
A third approach is the utilitarian view, which asserts that the purpose of political authority is to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. According to this view, political authority is justified because it helps to promote the overall well-being of society.
There are also more radical approaches to the problem of political authority, such as anarchism, which rejects the idea of government altogether and advocates for the abolition of all forms of political authority.
Ultimately, the problem of political authority is a complex and multifaceted issue that has been debated by philosophers and political theorists for centuries. It is important to consider the various approaches and theories when thinking about the role and purpose of government and the nature of legitimate political power.
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Thus, when Huemer comes up against the best counter-arguments to anarcho-capitalism, he often resorts to dismissing them using the 'demandingness objection'. Why, then, is establishing the reason-giving powers of the state not the very same problem as establishing the reason-giving powers of ordinary people? Ultimately, no theory of authority succeeds, and thus no government has the kind of authority often ascribed to governments. For that reason, you would be obligated to pay for your meal, notwithstanding your protestations to the contrary. It is the ideal tool for winning over the mind of a thoughtful or well-informed skeptic of individual liberty. Winch faded into relative obscurity compared to his contemporaries due to a mistaken belief that there are no systematic connections between the different aspects of his work. The theory holds that, at least in some countries, there is a contractual relationship between the government and its citizens.
Huemer The Problem of Political Authority childhealthpolicy.vumc.org
In a competitive marketplace, agencies that find peaceful methods of resolving disputes will outperform those that fight unnecessary battles. This, along with other concerns such as the amount of poverty and inequality both of opportunity and income in such a society, would lead a utilitarian to favour a social democracy such as those in Scandinavia which have relatively successfully fused together the best of socialism and capitalism, as opposed to an anarcho-capitalist society. Explicit theories, such as the Lockean vision, are given an analysis that, while brief, is still enough to show their shortcomings, especially in the inter-generational question. If the state rejects the social contract, then individuals cannot be taken to be obligated under that contract either. The most salient and important trend that stands out in any study of the intellectual history of the past 2000 years must surely be the gradual accretion of knowledge and the corresponding move from worse ideas to better ideas.
Lastly, some citizens might give implicit consent through participation in the political system. Similarly, in his actual discussion of consequentialism, Huemer claims that although consequentialists could make the argument that some forms of government lead to the best overall consequences, and that general obedience to the law is therefore required to ensure that the government does not fall, it is not the case that any individual citizen is required to obey the law, because they will each not have any influence on whether the government does fall. While that's a reflex both of the priorities of libertarian scholarship and the speculation inherent to the exploratory purpose of Part II, Huemer's interdisciplinary approach is very instructive, both in its strengths and its weaknesses, by showing a mostly cohesive framework that can be improved. Modern states commonly deploy coercion in a wide array of circumstances in which the resort to force would clearly be wrong for any private agent. The chapter finishes with a discussion of utopianism and realism, setting for Part II the aim of establishing a realist market anarchist framework. This book examines theories of political authority, from the social contract theory, to theories of democratic authorization, to fairness- and consequence-based theories.
All parties to any agreement must have the option to reject the agreement without sacrificing anything to which they have a right. The author, Michael Huemer, comprehensively surveys the various arguments against his viewpoint, seeking out the strongest counter-arguments and fair-mindedly considering them. The barriers for entrance in such markets would be very small for example, forming a local militia or being recognized locally as a fair judge ; since it would not be feasible to maintain a monopoly, the companies would need to be more responsive to their clients, therefore providing services more adequate to the needs and means of customers. As he points out, Rawls in particular writes in a kind of legalese, that, at least for me, makes a close analysis painstaking. Your voluntary participation in the process, when it was well known how the scheme was supposed to work, implied that you agreed to accept the possible financial burden associated with my lottery scheme. I've read 3 books on anarcho-capitalism Tannehill's, The Market For Freedom, Friedman's, The Machinery of Freedom, and Rothbard's, For A New Liberty and this is by far the absolute best. The second half of the book sketches how 'law and order' might work without government, and why a military might not be necessary, but there's not even the briefest attempt to explain how things like roads and water supplies would be dealt with.
The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey by Michael Huemer
Huemer is a deep and wide reader. In part one, Huemer argues that political authority is an illusion, that is, that governments do not actually have some special authority to coerce their citizens to do whatever they want them to do, and associated with that, citizens do not actually have any obligation to obey the governments ruling over them. . But Sally notifies her security agency that Jon is attempting to steal her cat and asks them to defend the cat. I will not give the main outline of the book as many others have done so.
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In other cases, one commits oneself to accepting certain demands by soliciting or voluntarily accepting benefits to which those demands are known to be attached. This article i shows that the literature does not have the resources to answer, ii develops a pragmatist answer, and then iii closes by suggesting that, properly understood, the problem of political authority calls not for more permutations of, say, consent theory, but concrete, genuinely democratic political systems. An orderly and livable society thus does not require acquiescence in the illusion of political authority. I enjoyed this book. Given your statement, she could not plausibly claim that you agreed to pay for the meal. Perhaps if the book is widely read and discussed, his final prediction might have a chance of being correct also. Such businesses, unlike their government counterparts, would not have a monopoly; instead, they would compete in the market for clients, which could choose services more adequate to their needs.
(PDF) What's the Problem with Political Authority?
How do these cases bear on the social contract doctrine? It helped to professionalize philosophy as an academic discipline in the United States by publishing philosophers such as Lewis White Beck, John Dewey, Gottlob Frege, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Sidney Hook, C. Con más razĂłn sucederĂa si no hubiera Estado. That said, there could be major risks associated with weak or non-existent state. Nonetheless, Huemer has another response, namely that even if the prospect of war between private companies is plausible in an anarcho-capitalist society, the intensity and destructiveness of such wars would be markedly smaller than the intensity and destructiveness of wars conducted by states today. The central moral premise of the traditional social contract theory is commendable: human interaction should be carried out, as far as possible, on a voluntary basis.
The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey
. Some of this is intriguing, some is obvious, some impractical. The government does not force people to use these roads; thus, this is a case of voluntary acceptance of a governmental benefit. He wants all agents be it government, corporate or an actual person to be treated and held to the same standards as if they were the same thing but it should be obvious that soulless entities don't feel guilt and can only have The strongest section in here is on the psychological aspect of obedience and why people follow commands from authority but this isn't a pure political issue since no one thinks you can abolish authority but the issue is the determination of what's legitimate authority. In the case of those governments that deny any obligation to protect individual citizens, the contract theory fails for the additional reason that, if there ever was a social contract, the government has repudiated its central obligation under the contract, thereby releasing its citizens from the obligations they would have had under that contract.
The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey: The Independent Review: The Independent Institute
By continuing to use our website, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. He argues that if we begin from commonly held and relatively uncontroversial moral claims, we will arrive at his uncommon and controversial conclusion. Unless the government really owns all the land that as we usually say its citizens own, the government would be in the same position as you in that example: it may not demand that individuals stop using their own property, nor may it set the conditions under which individuals may continue to occupy their own land. It really does show how truly wrong the State is. I will draw one name out at random. Again, he appeals to commonly held moral beliefs that do not depend on sophisticated moral theory—for example, popular notions that violence, stealing, and lying are morally wrong.
