On the Pluralist Critique of Authority

Bibliographic Data

ID9686352
AuthorsAllyn Fives (0000-0002-7435-2397, Ollscoil na Gaillimhe – University of Galway, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume64
Issue1
Pages159-176
Publication date2025-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDialogue (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0012-2173 • E-ISSN: 1759-0949
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0012217323000355
OpenAlexW4387958588
LanguageEN
References cited23

The moral problem of authority can be expressed as follows: how can authority, and the deference it entails, be compatible with freedom and rationality? The pluralist approach separates political obligation from authority. For pluralists, authority is both unjustifiable and unnecessary, and so legitimate political obligation, including the duty to obey the law, does not entail deference. I argue that it is possible to retain the pluralist commitment to plural grounds of legitimacy, while rebutting the pluralist objections to authority. As a result, whenever authority does have legitimacy, the moral question of authority will demand an answer

Deference · Duty · Epistemology · Law and economics · Legal research · Legitimacy · Obligation · Pluralism (philosophy) · Political authority · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Primary authority · Rationality · Sociology · Free Will and Agency · Law · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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