I’m moving out of my house this week, so I won’t have as much time to post. But I wanted to post some clarifying definitions in light of some reader comments.

Here are two (though not the only two) fundamental questions in political philosophy:

1. Is it possible for governments to have legitimacy, and if so, under what conditions do they have legitimacy?

2. Is it possible for governments to have authority, and if so, under what conditions do they have authority?

Now, to understand these questions, you need to know what the words “legitimacy” and “authority” mean. Philosophers have more or less settled on definitions. Here they are:

Legitimacy: A government is legitimate over certain people, in some area, over some set of rules just in case it is permissible for it to coerce people into comply with those rules or punish them for non-compliance, and it is permissible for the government to hold a monopoly (or something close to it) on the use of coercion.

Authority: A government has authority when it has the power to create moral obligations (or additional grounds for obligations) in people when it creates rules. I.e., a government has authority over someone when the government’s telling that person to X creates an obligation in that person to X.

Some commentary on legitimacy: I put in the “something close to it” because most theories of legitimacy hold that even when there is a legitimate government, sometimes private citizens may use coercion. (E.g., I may defend myself from a mugger.)

Some commentary on authority: The part about creating obligations is important. To say a state has authority to issue some rule means that at least part of the reason you should comply with the rule is because the state says so. When you ask if there is a duty to obey the law, you are asking whether a state has authority. Note that you can have multiple grounds for obligations. For example, I have a moral duty not to kill Matt Zwolinski. One reason I have this duty is just that it’s a basic moral duty–it would exist even if the state didn’t tell me not to kill Matt. However, if my government is authoritative, then I also have this duty because the state forbade me from killing others, and I have a duty to obey the state on this matter.

Note that these definitions are ideologically neutral. They do not presuppose that either anarchism or statism is true, nor do they presuppose any particular theories of legitimacy or authority. So, an anarchist should accept my definitions of legitimacy and authority, but then deny that states have legitimacy or authority. A statist accepts these definitions and thinks that some states can have legitimacy and authority. One could believe that states can have legitimacy but not authority (certain “philosophical anarchists” think this), or one could believe that a state could have authority but not legitimacy (e.g., a kind of pacifist might believe this).

Finally, note that the various theories of legitimacy and authority–such as actual consent theory, hypothetical consent theory, good Samaritan theories, etc–all accept these definitions. They agree that authority and legitimacy are what I described them to be, but disagree about what it takes to get legitimacy and authority so described. The actual consent theorist thinks legitimacy requires real consent, while the hypothetical consent theorist thinks it it does not. And so on.