The Dilemma of Authority

The problem of parsing out the nature of political authority is an important and abiding one. Standard views try to square such authority, and the moral obligations that arise from it, with the demands of freedom and rationality or they express skepticism about such authority altogether. Allyn Fives boldly rejects both these notions, and in this meticulous and clearly written analysis, argues that authority can be legitimate but conflict with reasons grounded in rationality and freedom, giving rise to true moral dilemmas. This is a powerfully defended and perspicuously defended thesis, and one could not ask for a more thorough and careful examination of these issues.
- John Phillip Christman, Professor of Philosophy, Political Science, and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Pennsylvania State University

This book analyses the so-called moral problem of authority, which is the challenge of reconciling legitimate authority (the right to rule) with the demands of freedom and rationality. It offers a critique of authority sceptics, both anarchist and non-anarchist, who insist that authority can never have legitimacy. It also points to problems with many conventional defences of authority, including those of deliberative democracy, which assume that insofar as authority is legitimate it simply satisfies the demands of freedom or rationality. In this book, through a close engagement with the work of Joseph Raz in particular, it is argued that authority can have legitimacy, but when it does it generates a moral dilemma, where the obligation to obey comes at some cost to freedom and reason.