Justice and political authority in left-libertarianism

Dados Bibliográficos

ID7354331
AutoresFabian Wendt (0000-0002-5557-4971, Universität Hamburg, autor correspondente)
Ano2014
Volume14
Fascículo3
Páginas316-339
Data de publicação2014-06-30
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPolitics Philosophy & Economics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1470-594X • E-ISSN: 1741-3060
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1470594x14539698
OpenAlexW2114506222
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas56

From a left-libertarian perspective, it seems almost impossible for states to acquire political authority. For that reason, left-libertarians like Peter Vallentyne understandably hope that states without political authority could nonetheless implement left-libertarian justice. Vallentyne has argued that one can indeed assess a state’s justness without assessing its political authority. Against Vallentyne, I try to show that states without political authority have to be judged unjust even if they successfully promote justice. The reason is that institutions can be unjust independently from what they achieve or do: they can be ‘intrinsically unjust’. Institutions, I argue, are intrinsically unjust when they have legal liberties and powers without having the corresponding moral liberties and powers. States without political authority are intrinsically unjust in that sense. Hence the issues of a state’s justness and a state’s political authority cannot be dealt with separately. This is a problem not only for left-libertarians but for ‘philosophical anarchism’ more generally

Civil liberties · Economic Justice · Law and economics · Libertarianism · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Free Will and Agency · Law · Political Philosophy and Ethics · War, Ethics, and Justification