Authority and reasons for action: Two problems

Abstract

Authority is one of the most central and disputed concepts in political theory. The purpose of this article is to address the two main problems, conceptual and normative, posed by the notion of authority. First, conceptual issues concern the definition of authority and how it should be distinguished from other phenomena, such as power, coercion or persuasion, with which it is often confused. Second, authors like Arendt talk about the crisis of authority and point out that it has fallen into disrepute. The exercise of authority raises a moral problem: how can an agent have the obligation to submit to the will and judgment of another person about what to do? Is such authority incompatible with the rationality and autonomy of the person who is guided by it? This is the objection of the philosophical anarchist and any attempt to justify authority has to respond to this challenge. In order to answer the first problem, I first examine H. L. Hart’s analysis of authority’s commands in terms of reasons for action. I then examine the service conception of authority elaborated by Joseph Raz. His explanation is surely the most sophisticated and influential contemporary conception of authority, since it addresses the two problems posed and responds expressly to the anarchist’s objection.