Justice and political authority in left-libertarianism

Bibliographic Data

ID7354331
AuthorsFabian Wendt (0000-0002-5557-4971, Universität Hamburg, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume14
Issue3
Pages316-339
Publication date2014-06-30
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitics Philosophy & Economics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1470-594X • E-ISSN: 1741-3060
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1470594x14539698
OpenAlexW2114506222
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited56

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