\documentclass[DIV=12,%
BCOR=10mm,%
headinclude=false,%
footinclude=false,open=any,%
fontsize=11pt,%
twoside,%
paper=210mm:11in]%
{scrbook}
\usepackage[noautomatic]{imakeidx}
\usepackage{microtype}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{alltt}
\usepackage{verbatim}
\usepackage[shortlabels]{enumitem}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage[normalem]{ulem}
\def\hsout{\bgroup \ULdepth=-.55ex \ULset}
% https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/22410/strikethrough-in-section-title
% Unclear if \protect \hsout is needed. Doesn't looks so
\DeclareRobustCommand{\sout}[1]{\texorpdfstring{\hsout{#1}}{#1}}
\usepackage{wrapfig}
% avoid breakage on multiple
and avoid the next [] to be eaten
\newcommand*{\forcelinebreak}{\strut\\*{}}
\newcommand*{\hairline}{%
\bigskip%
\noindent \hrulefill%
\bigskip%
}
% reverse indentation for biblio and play
\newenvironment*{amusebiblio}{
\leftskip=\parindent
\parindent=-\parindent
\smallskip
\indent
}{\smallskip}
\newenvironment*{amuseplay}{
\leftskip=\parindent
\parindent=-\parindent
\smallskip
\indent
}{\smallskip}
\newcommand*{\Slash}{\slash\hspace{0pt}}
% http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/3033/forcing-linebreaks-in-url
\PassOptionsToPackage{hyphens}{url}\usepackage[hyperfootnotes=false,hidelinks,breaklinks=true]{hyperref}
\usepackage{bookmark}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage{english}
\setmainfont{LinLibertine_R.otf}[Script=Latin,%
Ligatures=TeX,%
Path=/usr/share/fonts/opentype/linux-libertine/,%
BoldFont=LinLibertine_RB.otf,%
BoldItalicFont=LinLibertine_RBI.otf,%
ItalicFont=LinLibertine_RI.otf]
\setmonofont{cmuntt.ttf}[Script=Latin,%
Ligatures=TeX,%
Scale=MatchLowercase,%
Path=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/cmu/,%
BoldFont=cmuntb.ttf,%
BoldItalicFont=cmuntx.ttf,%
ItalicFont=cmunit.ttf]
\setsansfont{cmunss.ttf}[Script=Latin,%
Ligatures=TeX,%
Scale=MatchLowercase,%
Path=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/cmu/,%
BoldFont=cmunsx.ttf,%
BoldItalicFont=cmunso.ttf,%
ItalicFont=cmunsi.ttf]
\newfontfamily\englishfont{LinLibertine_R.otf}[Script=Latin,%
Ligatures=TeX,%
Path=/usr/share/fonts/opentype/linux-libertine/,%
BoldFont=LinLibertine_RB.otf,%
BoldItalicFont=LinLibertine_RBI.otf,%
ItalicFont=LinLibertine_RI.otf]
\renewcommand*{\partpagestyle}{empty}
% global style
\pagestyle{plain}
\usepackage{indentfirst}
% remove the numbering
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{-2}
% remove labels from the captions
\renewcommand*{\captionformat}{}
\renewcommand*{\figureformat}{}
\renewcommand*{\tableformat}{}
\KOMAoption{captions}{belowfigure,nooneline}
\addtokomafont{caption}{\centering}
\deffootnote[3em]{0em}{4em}{\textsuperscript{\thefootnotemark}~}
\addtokomafont{disposition}{\rmfamily}
\addtokomafont{descriptionlabel}{\rmfamily}
\frenchspacing
% avoid vertical glue
\raggedbottom
% this will generate overfull boxes, so we need to set a tolerance
% \pretolerance=1000
% pretolerance is what is accepted for a paragraph without
% hyphenation, so it makes sense to be strict here and let the user
% accept tweak the tolerance instead.
\tolerance=200
% Additional tolerance for bad paragraphs only
\setlength{\emergencystretch}{30pt}
% (try to) forbid widows/orphans
\clubpenalty=10000
\widowpenalty=10000
% given that we said footinclude=false, this should be safe
\setlength{\footskip}{2\baselineskip}
\title{Philosophical Anarchism and Political Obligation}
\date{2014}
\author{Magda Egoumenides}
\subtitle{}
% https://groups.google.com/d/topic/comp.text.tex/6fYmcVMbSbQ/discussion
\hypersetup{%
pdfencoding=auto,
pdftitle={Philosophical Anarchism and Political Obligation},%
pdfauthor={Magda Egoumenides},%
pdfsubject={},%
pdfkeywords={political philosophy; individualist anarchism}%
}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\strut\vskip 2em
\begin{center}
{\usekomafont{title}{\huge Philosophical Anarchism and Political Obligation\par}}%
\vskip 1em
\vskip 2em
{\usekomafont{author}{Magda Egoumenides\par}}%
\vskip 1.5em
\vfill
{\usekomafont{date}{2014\par}}%
\end{center}
\end{titlepage}
\cleardoublepage
\tableofcontents
% start a new right-handed page
\cleardoublepage
In this study I define and defend critical philosophical anarchism, showing it to be superior to alternative approaches to the problem of the justification of political institutions. In particular, I lay out and examine the critical philosophical anarchist approach to the problem of political obligation, contrasting this approach with traditional treatments of the problem. The anarchist stance within the contemporary debate on political obligation has been dismissed too easily. I advance a clearer statement of the critical philosophical anarchist position than those currently available and demonstrate the continued value of adopting an anarchist perspective on the problem of political authority.
This study has nine chapters. In the Introduction, I set out my argument and the anarchist position I want to defend. The first chapter presents the problem of political obligation, the main aspects of this central problem and the main argument for the solution that I develop in the following chapters. Chapter 2 provides an analysis and restatement of anarchist arguments against consent and contract theories of political obligation. Chapter 3 offers considerations against a natural duty theory of political obligation. Chapter 4 addresses a reciprocity-based theory of political obligation, to wit, the principle of fairness as formulated by Hart and Rawls. The fifth chapter presents John Horton’s distinctive theory in an effort to demonstrate its value in the debate. Chapter 6 illustrates in general the distinctive contribution of critical philosophical anarchism to the problem of political authority, completing the argument set out in the Introduction and Chapter 1 and developed in the preceding critical chapters on the different defenses of political obligation. In Chapter 7 I connect the perspective of critical philosophical anarchism on the main tasks and aims of political anarchism with a more comprehensive anarchist political theory and approach to society. In the conclusion I tie together my argument for critical philosophical anarchism as developed over the course of the study.
\chapter{\textbf{ACKNOWLEDGMENTS}}
This study is the result of a series of arguments about and discussions on the issue of political authority. I am indebted to those who inspired my thinking and helped me formulate the ideas presented. They are too many to mention.
I would like to thank the series editors of Contemporary Anarchist Studies, especially Dr Alex Prichard and Assistant Professor Nathan Jun, and the team in Bloomsbury, especially Ally Jane Grossan and Kaitlin Fontana, for giving me the wonderful opportunity to write this book and having it published, as well as Rajakumari Ganessin for her help in the process. I would like to express my gratitude to my friends and ex- PhD supervisors Professor Véronique Munoz-Dardé and Professor Jonathan Wolff for their continual advice, encouragement, and devotion. Furthermore, I would like to thank Professor Christopher Schabel for his support.
I am grateful to my parents for their endless love and support.
I would like to thank Professor Vassos Karageorghis, my mentor, for his constant support and influence on me; and Dr Meropi Tsimili, who has been a mother, a teacher, and a real friend to me.
Special thanks to my dear cousins Penelope and Matthew Papapetrou, George and Michael Christodoulides, as well as my dear friends Raj Sehgal, James Wilson, Saladin Meckled-Garcia, Ian Hulse, Isabella Muzio, Sara Santa-Clara, Tawny Gray, Sharon Shatil, Alex Voorhoeve, Andreas Onoufriou, Rena Choplarou, Giorgos Stogias, Lena Ioannou, Maria Michael Constantina Zanou, Maria Polychronopoulou, Maria Rammata, Miltos Karkazis, Manos Farmakis, Marius Nabal, Melina Argyriou, Katerina Mansfield, Nancy Thomaidou Agamemnon Zakos, and Paris Papagiorgis for providing the intellectual, moral, and emotional background that enabled this work and for their continued belief in me.
\chapter{\textbf{Introduction}}
According to Anarchism, relations of domination are immoral. The coercion and exploitation of one individual by another is unjustified, as is the control of the individual by a collective, such as the state. The values of freedom and equality are paramount. A strand of anarchism expresses these positions within the philosophical debate on political obligation, and this has a distinct impact on our approach to political institutions.
Anarchism is “\emph{scepticism towards authority}.”\footnote{Paul McLaughlin, \emph{Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism} (Farnham: Ashgate, 2007), esp. Chapter 2, 29–36.} Its unifying position is that not all forms of authority are justified and we should be skeptical about any acceptance of them prior to their satisfactory justification. One form of authority that anarchists consider unjustified is the political authority of the state.\footnote{Although “ ‘anti-statism’ does not define anarchism,” because anarchists challenge authoritative relations other than, within, and alongside the state (McLaughlin, \emph{Anarchism and Authority}, 97), the anarchist challenge involves opposition to the authority of \emph{the state}, which focuses on the state’s special characteristics as “a specific form of government,” namely its being a “\emph{sovereign},” “\emph{compulsory},” “\emph{monopolistic},” and “\emph{distinct} body” (see David Miller, \emph{Anarchism} [London: Dent, 1984], 5). But anarchism’s opposition to the state reflects its more general opposition to political authority and the institutionalized coercion that characterizes it (for these, see Miller, \emph{Anarchism}, 5, and my characterization of the “political” below), although not necessarily to a looser sense of political society as a form of social organization. So, in its core, anarchism objects to the authority of all political phenomena, institutions, and practices that involve institutionalized coercion. In the rest of this study I will use the term “state” interchangeably with “political institutions” (or “political constraints”) and “institutionalized coercion” (or “institutionalized domination”) to designate the object of the anarchist opposition to political authority. For political authority and the state, see also McLaughlin, \emph{Anarchism and Authority}, 74–80. For discussion of the state in relation to its “specific organs” (such as the police, bureaucracy, the law, and the army) and especially of the five factors of governmental action in modern states (giant-sized central administration, coordination of big business, technological dominance, eroded bureaucracy, and war), see April Carter, \emph{The Political Theory of Anarchism} (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971), Chapter 2; the section “Anarchist approaches to concrete dilemmas” of Chapter 7 and Conclusion of this book. See also a relevant discussion of “enforcement” by Uri Gordon, \emph{Anarchy Alive: Anti-Authoritarian Politics from Practice to Theory} (London: Pluto Press, 2008), 67–69: the features of enforcement that make it an objectionable form of coercion are also features of the institutionalized coercion of the state. On these lines, capitalism is a central form of domination that anarchists object to.} Opposition to the state’s \emph{right to rule}, although a non-definitive anarchist concern, is common to all forms of anarchism and its proponents, despite the variety and division among them. The rejection of the state’s right to rule relates to the stronger anarchist challenge to its \emph{right to exist}. This challenge is the upshot of political anarchism, which maintains that the state must be \emph{resisted} as an \emph{evil} and a new social form must emerge that succeeds the state and constitutes an improvement on societies organized around the state. Thus, in order to pave the way for a complete evaluation of anarchism, including the project of political anarchism, it is helpful to examine first the principled rejection of political authority that philosophical anarchism proposes and to detail the positive views, if any, that it expresses. My strategy throughout this study will be to examine this challenge as formulated within the debate on political obligation.
In this introduction, I briefly describe four basic forms of anarchism by way of a preface in order to clarify the theoretical perspective of critical philosophical anarchism that I defend, placing it in the context of the current debate on anarchism. Then I discuss the main parts of my argument and a number of underlying ideas that help us assess the general contribution of philosophical anarchism to the problem of political authority.
\section{\textbf{The variety of anarchisms: Defining critical philosophical anarchism within the current debate on anarchism}}
I begin with the discussion of \emph{different forms of anarchism}. There are many lines of anarchism, which divide the tradition in different ways. One division is that between gradualist and revolutionary anarchism, which refers to the path toward change that anarchists advocate. Another division is between pacifist and terrorist anarchism, drawn according to the revolutionary methods that anarchists adopt (whether they use peaceful means, like social reconstruction, or violence, like some forms of propaganda by deed, respectively). These divisions refer mostly to political anarchism, however, and the main logic of any such division remains the same: it concerns primarily the revolutionary methods and the form of economic organization that each school proposes.\footnote{For these, see George Woodcock, \emph{Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements} (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975), 19; McLaughlin, \emph{Anarchism and Authority}, 2.} Generally, there is a huge debate around the forms of anarchism and some conclude in favor of an “anarchism without adjectives.” My focus is on the position that each form of anarchism adopts with regard to the two fundamental problems concerning the state: its right to exist and its right to rule. For the purposes of my argument, I want to distinguish between political anarchism and philosophical anarchism. While the second one refers to a very specific debate in philosophy, which I examine here, the first one refers to practically everything else. The first one can be further divided into individualist and communal (or social) anarchism and the second one into positive (a priori) and negative (a posteriori) anarchism. As a result, we have four main forms of anarchism. These categorizations serve mostly as clarifications of the main tendencies involved in the anarchist approach to the fundamental issue of political authority. The taxonomy is not exhaustive and the overlaps are important. Political anarchists can be philosophical and vice versa and, in the end, outside the specific debate over political obligation, the distinguishing characteristic of political anarchism is that it is also practical. The discussion below consists of a brief description of each form of anarchism in order to arrive at a basic account of the anarchist position that I discuss throughout this study.
\emph{Political Anarchism} is primarily devoted to the task of demolishing the state. It sees this task as an immediate implication of the rejection of political authority. But this form of anarchism also views the state as a very bad form of social organization, a reason for opposition in addition to its belief that the state’s existence and authority remain unjustified. Correspondingly, this critique of the state is premised on a vision of social life without political institutions. \emph{Philosophical Anarchism}, on the other hand, concentrates on the critique of political authority and does not necessarily require the abolition of the state. This latter characteristic is reflected in the fact that negative philosophical anarchism is compatible with “a wide range of alternative political outlooks,”\footnote{John Horton, \emph{Political Obligation} (London: Macmillan, 1992, revised 2\textsuperscript{nd} edition in 2010), 132.} as will become clear below. Many anarchists are both philosophical and political, but a philosophical anarchist may remain nonpolitical.
\emph{Political Individualist Anarchism} is marked by its emphasis on a central aspect of anarchism: the commitment to individual autonomy, or freedom,\footnote{In the sense that each individual has a capacity and right to be “self-legislating” (Robert Paul Wolff, \emph{In Defense of Anarchism} [London and New York: Harper and Row, 1970], 14), to make and act on his\Slash{}her own decisions—as long as these do “not violate the similar rights of others” (Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}, 115) and “avoid causing dramatic social harm” (Alan John Simmons, \emph{On the Edge of Anarchy} [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993], 267). At a basic level, freedom can be conceived as the ability to make choices on various issues of one’s life under circumstances of the lack of coercion of any kind, adequate knowledge, and unimpaired capacity for rational deliberation. Anarchists construe freedom in striking opposition to domination and coercion. In individualist anarchism, absence of coercion is seen primarily as the lack of interference in a private sphere of individual life. For a unique individualist anarchist view of freedom and its replacement with what is meant by “ownness,” see Max Stirner, \emph{The Ego and Its Own}, ed. David Leopold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 145–146 and 154. See also Crispin Sartwell, \emph{Against the State: An Introduction to Anarchist Political Theory} (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008), esp. Chapter 5, for a certain sort of individualist anarchism. More generally, anarchism is committed to the ideal of self-determination understood best as self-development under conditions of proper social relationships, where subordination of some to others is replaced with mutual respect, equal active participation, and common flourishing. Here the absence of subordination and coercion becomes a matter of the denial of domination that engages with aspects more comprehensive than the negative demands of individualist anarchism.} as a primary value. It promotes the idea that each individual has an “inviolable sphere of action” with absolute sovereignty.\footnote{Miller, \emph{Anarchism}, 30.} It views social relationships as interactions among independent beings, able to lead their lives abstracted from their social environment and its impacts.\footnote{“Self-made” and “self-sufficient”; see Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}, 116–117.} This leads individualist anarchists to indicate the importance of voluntariness in any relation to, and interaction with, others and to attack political obligation on the grounds that states are not based on voluntary relations. They thus see them as coercive, exploitative, and evil.
\emph{Political Communal (or Social)}\footnote{Throughout this study, I will use the terms “communal anarchism” and “social anarchism” interchangeably.} \emph{Anarchism} has roots in socialism, but it nonetheless differs from other socialist ideologies, especially in their devotion to politically centralized forms of organization and control (if not always as ends, at least as means toward an ideal society).\footnote{See, for example, the split between Marx and Bakunin: James Joll, \emph{The Anarchists} (London: Methuen, 1964), Chapter 4; McLaughlin, \emph{Anarchism and Authority}, 158.} Communal anarchism stresses “the social character of human life”: the value of community, mutuality, free cooperation, and, in the general case, social arrangements of a reciprocal character.\footnote{For these notions, see Miller, \emph{Anarchism}, chapters 4 and 12; Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}, 119–120.} Its proponents have devoted themselves to developing visions of society that involve a series of cooperative enterprises in every aspect of social life (economic, cultural, educational, etc.)\footnote{For example, Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin, \emph{The Conquest of Bread and Other Writings}, ed. Shatz Marshall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 [reprint of 1913 revised edition]); Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin, \emph{Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow} (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974); Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin, \emph{Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution} (Boston: Extending Horizons Books, 1955); Murray Bookchin, \emph{Toward an Ecological Society} (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1980); Murray Bookchin, “Libertarian Municipalism,” in \emph{The Murray Bookchin Reader}, ed. Janet Biehl (London and Washington: Cassell, 1997), 172–196.} and that are offered as alternatives to views of society that include the state as an essential element. These visions are accompanied by the (anarchist) rejection of coercive schemes and are based on reasonably optimistic views of human nature\footnote{For an approach to the notion of human nature, its use in the anarchist tradition, and its role in the anarchist theory, see Peter Marshall, “Human Nature and Anarchism,” in \emph{For Anarchism: History, Theory, and Practice}, ed. David Goodway (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), 127–149. His proposal of abandoning the idea of human nature as a “fixed essence” (Marshall, “Human Nature and Anarchism,” 138) and of viewing the human species in an evolutionary way, taking into account the continual interaction of many aspects in it and their capacity for “self-regulation” within open possibilities (Marshall, “Human Nature and Anarchism,” 139–144), expresses a view of human nature that is compatible with the position of this study. On similar lines, but even more compatible with our position and more radical, is the view of the self as a “kernel of nothingness” serving as a canvas for constant recreation, developed in the theory of the idiosyncratic classical anarchist Max Stirner and adopted and expanded by poststructuralist thinkers such as Michel Foucault and the anarchist Saul Newman; see Stirner \emph{The Ego and Its Own}; Michel Foucault, \emph{Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison}, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Penguin, 1991); Michel Foucault, “The Ethics of the Concern of the Self as a Practice of Freedom,” in idem, \emph{The Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984}, Volume 1\emph{: Ethics. Subjectivity and Truth}, ed. Paul Rabinow, trans. Robert Harley (London: Penguin, 2002); Saul Newman, \emph{The Politics of Postanarchism} (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011). I will discuss this view later in the study.} and accounts of morality.
Moving to \emph{Philosophical Anarchism}, I begin with some terminological points in order to arrive at the view I want to defend. Horton distinguishes between \emph{positive} and \emph{negative} philosophical anarchism.\footnote{Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}, 124.} Positive anarchism is the stronger, since it provides an explanation for the moral impossibility of the state and thus of political obligation. Negative anarchism is weaker, for it relies merely on “justification by default”: the failure of all attempts to provide supportive accounts of political obligation is taken to be reason enough for denying the existence of such an obligation, even though no “positive” analysis of why such attempts are bound to fail is provided.\footnote{Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}, 124.} These terms correspond to a certain extent to Simmons’s notions of “\emph{a priori}” and “\emph{a posteriori}” anarchism. A priori anarchism states that the impossibility of legitimacy is inherent in the nature of the state, that some essential feature of the state makes it impossible for it to be legitimate. For Robert Paul Wolff, for example, state authority is necessarily incompatible with individual autonomy. In general, a priori philosophical anarchists are motivated by prior commitments—e.g., to voluntarism, to egalitarianism, or to communalism—that, on their view, the state contradicts fundamentally.\footnote{Wolff, \emph{In Defense of Anarchism}; Alan John Simmons, “Philosophical Anarchism,” in \emph{For and Against the State: New Philosophical Readings}, ed. John T. Sanders and Jan Naveson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), 20–21. For more on R. P. Wolff’s conceptual argument against the state, see Rex Martin, “Anarchism and Scepticism,” in \emph{Anarchism}, ed. James Roland Pennock and John William Chapman (New York: New York University Press, 1978), 116–117, 121, 126–127.} In contrast, the claim of a posteriori anarchism that “all existing states are illegitimate” is based mainly on empirical observations of actual states, rather than on an argument that there is some inconsistency, or incoherence, in the \emph{possibility} of a legitimate state, although this form of anarchism is pessimistic about this possibility.\footnote{Simmons, “Philosophical Anarchism,” 21. For this and other distinctions applying to philosophical anarchism, see “Philosophical Anarchism,” 19–39. See also Chapter 1.} This is a central reason why a posteriori anarchism does not necessarily lead to political anarchism, why its project is presented as mainly one of theoretical criticism and of enlightenment, and why it leaves room, in many cases, for obedience to particular laws and for the justification of particular obligations on the part of different individuals.
In this study I focus on the negative side of philosophical anarchism, intending to evaluate its contribution to the debate on political authority. For this, I adopt an alternative terminology, using it to structure the debate. I focus on what I call “\emph{critical philosophical anarchism},”\footnote{Gans coins this term for the anarchist position that he explains as “the denial of the duty to obey the law which is based on a rejection of its grounds” (Chaim Gans, \emph{Philosophical Anarchism and Political Disobedience} [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992], 2). But the sense in which I use it in this study is different from his—more comprehensive, technical, and specific. I give my own definition in the next paragraph.} defining it through a combination of the features of the definitions just explained (those of Horton and Simmons above) that I find the most characteristic of the anarchist position that is to be assessed. From negative philosophical anarchism I keep the characteristic that it is a theoretical view, grounded in criticisms of the failures of accounts of political obligation. Yet I do not deny that this view’s criticisms are determined by a prior analysis of what is involved in an adequate justification. From a posteriori philosophical anarchism, I take this: Simmons argues that a posteriori anarchism is not based merely on justification by default, but that it is rooted “either in an ideal of legitimacy (which existing states can be shown not to exemplify) or in some account of what an acceptably complete positive attempt [to justify political obligation] would look like.”\footnote{Simmons, “Philosophical Anarchism,” 36, n. 9.} This feature works as a normative horizon for evaluating theoretical defenses of political obligation: a prior standard in reference to which a posteriori anarchism derives its negative conclusions about political obligation and political institutions. These conclusions stem from the failures of the defenses of political obligation and from what these failures reflect about reality.
Given the above two features, I define “critical philosophical anarchism” as the view that examines the best candidates for moral theories of political obligation and derives \emph{from their failure}, as a constructive conclusion of its own, the result that there is no general political obligation and that in this respect political institutions remain unjustified. Operative in this approach is a prior standard of theoretical criticism merged with \emph{some idea of what an ideal legitimate society should be like}. The main input of this standard is to stress what political societies must \emph{not} be like in order to be considered legitimate. Critical philosophical anarchism considers all existing states to be illegitimate insofar as they fail to meet this ideal, especially the demand for non-domination. In this it is in line with political anarchism. In the end, the position of critical philosophical anarchism is a mix of philosophical and political anarchism.
My aim is to examine this anarchist position closely as it figures within the debate on political obligation, in order to demonstrate that it offers something valuable to the perspective we have toward political institutions and our relation to them, and to determine this contribution. I stress both its critical perspective and its ideal of legitimacy, because I see them as defining features of this position, incorporating the elements that are of essential value in the arguments of philosophical anarchism against political obligation.
These parameters are envisaged as compatible with certain valuable features of social anarchism. In fact, this compatibility is not limited to social, or communal, anarchism. It is, to my mind, necessary in any anarchist vision that displays two features of communal anarchism, namely, on the one hand, its recognition of the social dimension of human beings and, on the other, its idea of free social relationships and decentralized, cooperative forms of social order along with attention to matters of economic equality and distribution. Such perspectives are found in contemporary writings of anarchist conviction, such as Murray Bookchin’s “Libertarian Municipalism,” Alan Carter’s “Towards a Green Political Theory,”\footnote{In \emph{The Politics of Nature}, ed. Andrew Dobson and Paul Lucardie (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 39–62.} Samuel Clark’s \emph{Living Without Domination: The Possibility of an Anarchist Utopia},\footnote{Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.} Benjamin Franks’s \emph{Rebel Alliances: The Means and Ends of Contemporary British Anarchisms},\footnote{Edinburgh: AK Press, 2006.} Uri Gordon’s \emph{Anarchy Alive}, and Peter Marshall’s “Human Nature and Anarchism.” The essentially social character of human life is reflected both in anarchist proposals for free social relationships and in the claims regarding the defects of relations of domination. These claims have important implications for defenses of the state in light of its coercive character and its underlying corruption.\footnote{For issues that highlight the independence of “state actors,” see Alan Carter, “Outline of an Anarchist Theory of History,” in \emph{For Anarchism. History, Theory, and Practice}, ed. David Goodway (London and New York: Routledge, 1989); Carter, “Towards a Green Political Theory,” esp. 51, n. 12; Alan Carter, “The Nation-State and Underdevelopment,” \emph{Third World Quarterly} 16 (1995): 595–618.} Communal anarchism contains a positive project, namely the establishment of human cooperative relations free of both domination and exploitation. But its relation to coercion appears unclear and problematic, because it seems to re-introduce coercive structures, tactics, and attitudes in its visions of social reconstruction.\footnote{Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}, 122–123.} The most demanding project of anarchist theory would consist of a combination of the communal anarchist ideal with the attack on coercion reflected in the exacting perspective and standard of legitimacy that critical philosophical anarchism defines. This study will therefore attempt to prepare the way for this combination. In particular, I will aim at understanding what the implied perspective of philosophical anarchism is and at indicating how it might be applied to the positive horizon of political social anarchism.\footnote{For a development of these points, see Chapters 6 and 7.}
The anarchist enters the debate on political obligation with a concern about freedom, which is immediately related to its attack on domination and dominative authority. He concentrates on the importance for individuals to be self-governed, to be able to have a say on and determine the main aspects of their own lives. But how can this be compatible with external constraints? The respect for self-government and the rejection of constraints are characteristic anarchist tenets, each of which might take, and at times has taken, priority over the other within the anarchist tradition. Still, an anarchist can insist on the priority of freedom and criticize political institutions without any prior rejection of constraints in general. The anarchist is sensitive to the fact that most \emph{political} constraints create problems for self-determination. It is with this realization that the critical philosophical anarchist criticizes the way traditional defenses of political institutions work. What he wants to point out is that, if these defenses start with a different perspective on political institutions, one that involves centrally the task of requiring and showing a positive relation between institutions and self-determination, they will address more successfully the difficulties that they face in their efforts to justify political reality. The debate, and with it our relation to the state, can then develop in a different light, which will provide more fruitful ways of assessing political institutions. These are the significant features of the position of critical philosophical anarchism, features that it is the task of this study to explain and defend.
Before moving on to present the argument and the underlying ideas of this work, I would like to refer briefly to certain categories of anarchist thought that continue to form the debate within the anarchist arena today and to which critical philosophical anarchism might be related in some significant way. This will help situate this latter form of anarchism within the current debate on anarchism, preparing the way for the more general current anarchist concerns that will be discussed in Chapter 7 and in the conclusion of the book.
The first category is \emph{New Anarchism}, as it is rooted in Errico Malatesta’s thought\footnote{See Errico Malatesta, \emph{Anarchy}, trans. Vernon Richards (London: Freedom Press, 1984), and Errico Malatesta, \emph{Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas}, ed. Vernon Richards (London: Freedom Press, 1965).} and appears today in the work of Noam Chomsky.\footnote{Noam Chomsky, \emph{For Reasons of State} (London: Fontana, 1973); Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, \emph{Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media} (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988); Robert F. Barsky, \emph{Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent} (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997); Peter Wilkin, \emph{Noam Chomsky: On Power, Knowledge and Human Nature} (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1997); Noam Chomsky, \emph{The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo} (London: Pluto Press, 1999); James McGilvray, ed., \emph{The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky} (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).} Based on Bakuninian ideas and Kropotkinian orthodoxy, Malatesta’s critique of mainstream anarchism marked the transition from classical to new anarchism. Although greatly influenced by those major anarchist thinkers, Malatesta moved from their preoccupation with big ideas, their intellectual reverence for Marx, and their excessive revolutionary optimism (and the dogmatism related to it) to a more practical outlook that was pragmatically engaged with the realization of a just society.\footnote{McLaughlin, \emph{Anarchism and Authority}, 160–161.} Despite criticisms that this activism encouraged intellectual incoherence and simplicity, new anarchists made theoretical advances and their thought prefigured the New Left and its reorientation toward social analysis and cultural critique. Emma Goldman’s anarcho-feminism is a characteristic example.\footnote{Emma Goldman, \emph{Anarchism and Other Essays} (New York: Dover, 1969).} At present, Noam Chomsky is the most representative contemporary new anarchist. He has not developed a general theory of anarchism and he sees anarchism more as a historically developed trend, sharing Malatesta’s suspicion of the creation of big theoretical systems. Yet he has contributed to anarchism a sharp social and political criticism, with his analysis of the role of propaganda in determining the opinion of people regarding economic issues, international relations, and war affairs. Above all, Chomsky has developed a profound critique of the propaganda of the media as a method of social control in “open” societies, which indicates the influence of power and wealth on the way Western media handle information and specifies the various relevant determining factors.\footnote{Characteristically so: see the “Propaganda Problem,” in Chomsky and Herman, \emph{Manufacturing Consent}.}
Chomsky offers a parallel at the practical level to the thorough criticism that, as argued here, critical philosophical anarchism offers at the theoretical level. The latter can be compatible also with the concerns of genuine forms of individualist anarchism, such as that of Marx Stirner\footnote{Stirner, \emph{The Ego and Its Own}.} and of our contemporary Herbert Read,\footnote{Herbert Read, \emph{The Philosophy of Anarchism} (London: Freedom Press, 1940); Herbert Read, \emph{Anarchy and Order: Essays in Politics} (London: Souvenir Press, 1974).} who refers to the priority of the aesthetic development of the individual, of a creative individuality free of all forms of social oppression. Furthermore, critical philosophical anarchism can be inspired by postmodern anarchism, as it appears in the work of Todd May and Saul Newman, in its focus on social critique and change rather than just political or economic.\footnote{See Todd May, \emph{The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism} (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), and Newman, \emph{The Politics of Postanarchism}, respectively. There is discussion of their ideas later in this book.}
In my opinion, however, critical philosophical anarchism’s compatibility with social anarchism and its concerns with the social and political implications of its criticism of obligation can better be seen in its connection with another category of contemporary anarchist thought: the \emph{neo-classical eco-anarchism} as it appears in the work of Murray Bookchin and of Alan Carter. Critical philosophical anarchists can develop their own micropolitics of power. It is nevertheless important to examine the relation of this kind of anarchism to the most promising contemporary implementations of anarchist visions and practices rooted in the concern with free and equal social relationships found in social anarchism, to carry its principles even further to meet present demands and correct past prejudices. Bookchin’s theory is promising to this end. I will examine a significant part of it in Chapter 7 and relate it to David Pepper’s discussion of anarchist practices. Since this theory also has its shortcomings, however, and because in this study the focus is on the contribution of critical philosophical anarchism, I will evaluate it with reference to this anarchist perspective. I will apply the critical philosophical anarchist test of legitimacy to Bookchin’s account. I will complete my discussion with an examination of certain ideas found in the contemporary work on existing anarchist structures, tactics, and practices advanced by Samuel Clark,\footnote{Clark, \emph{Living Without Domination}.} Benjamin Franks,\footnote{Franks, \emph{Rebel Alliances}.} and Uri Gordon,\footnote{Gordon, \emph{Anarchy Alive}.} which renders a wider picture of contemporary anarchist utopianism.
\section{\textbf{The main parts and underlying ideas of my argument}}
In the rest of this introduction, I present the main parts of my argument and the considerations that underlie my program.
My aim is to provide a theoretical defense of critical philosophical anarchism. My argument is that \emph{the main perspective and ideas of critical philosophical anarchism can be appealing to anybody}, whether they are anarchists or not. I myself am not a self-proclaimed anarchist. Nevertheless, my opinion is that the critical philosophical anarchist position on political obligation is correct and that the virtues of this view make an examination and acknowledgment of its contribution worthwhile.
Critical philosophical anarchism has been criticized as mere skepticism: as a purely negative view, it works as a denial of positive defenses of political institutions without offering an alternative positive proposition of its own.\footnote{For example, Jonathan Wolff, “Anarchism and Skepticism,” in \emph{For and Against the State}, ed. John T. Sanders and Jan Narveson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), 99–118. This criticism is anticipated by the usual understanding of critical anarchism as a view relying merely on justification by default (see the presentation of negative anarchism above).} Without denying its theoretical function (which I retain and stress in my definition of critical philosophical anarchism), one of my main concerns is to argue that this view involves something more positive than it first appears to do: I aim to show that the arguments of critical philosophical anarchism express \emph{a prior perspective}. This perspective is characteristically anarchist in its motivating concerns and its proposals, one that is also indispensable for theorists of political obligation and necessary for the evaluation of institutions more generally. A closer analysis of anarchist arguments against defenses of political obligation is the first step toward my objective. The four conditions for theories of political obligation that the anarchist employs in his arguments, which I will present in the next chapter (the section “The conditions of political obligation”), play a central role within this analysis for understanding the anarchist perspective. These formal requirements define characteristic features of the political nature of the obligations to be examined. In fact, taken \emph{together} these conditions \emph{express} this political nature itself, that is, the particularistic, coercive, centralist, permanent, and exclusive character of the institutions to which these obligations relate. This nature is defined by “the theses on the political,” which will also be presented in Chapter 1 (the section “The two main aspects of the problem of political obligation”). In my effort to explain the anarchist perspective, I use this point to make explicit how “the conditions of political obligation,” being difficult to dispense with, become useful vehicles for very valuable yet neglected elements of the anarchist position, that their formality nevertheless leads to wide-ranging moral conclusions. In part, the examination of anarchist criticisms of political obligation serves to establish (the role of) these conditions as definitive of the link between the political and the moral feature of the problem of political obligation (which will also be analyzed in the section “The two main aspects of the problem of political obligation” of Chapter 1). I employ this point to demonstrate the value of the philosophical anarchist perspective. The crux of my argument is that the anarchist perspective involves an insight that everyone needs to share. It indicates that the lack of a special relationship that characterizes political institutions (which exists when the conditions of political obligation are satisfied) raises a fundamental question as to whether they can exist and function at all.
The anarchist \emph{ideal of legitimacy}, as part of the definition of critical philosophical anarchism (see the section “The variety of anarchisms. Defining critical philosophical anarchism within the current debate on anarchism” above), is another aspect of this anarchist view that I attempt to evaluate, which will play a central role in my argument for its positive contribution. Philosophical anarchists defend voluntarist, communitarian, egalitarian, and ecological visions of the ideal society.\footnote{On such ideals, see Simmons, “Philosophical Anarchism,” 19–21; Alan John Simmons, “Justification and Legitimacy,” \emph{Ethics} 109 (1999): 769–770.} Because these visions are not dominating models of society, they serve as indications of the proper relations that institutions must have in order to be legitimate and justified in the eyes of human beings. Characteristically, these ideals are also in constant interaction with the social visions of political anarchism. The fact that such ideals underlie the arguments of critical philosophical anarchism provides another factor explaining the positive character of this form of anarchism. Both the anarchist social visions and the anarchist attacks on the state aspire to a better understanding of human nature and society and to an assessment of human actions, relations, and achievements that is compatible with the most commonly shared moral values. I endorse the claim that anarchists are concerned with “\emph{the quality of relations between people},” namely with defending and realizing within society direct and many-sided relations, characterized by reciprocity and equal authority and participation.\footnote{Michael Taylor, \emph{Community, Anarchy and Liberty} (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 3 (emphasis mine). See also Joseph Raz, “Introduction,” in \emph{Authority}, ed. Joseph Raz (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 16–17.} This is a ground that can be shared by many anti-authoritarian and nonauthoritarian theorists,\footnote{McLaughlin is right to stress that anarchism is \emph{nonauthoritarianism} rather than an anti-authoritarian view, since it does not reject authority and every form of it as such: McLaughlin, \emph{Anarchism and Authority}, 28–29 and 33–36.} with or without anarchist convictions. Furthermore, the arguments that bring the defenders of the state and anarchists into conflict refer to issues of an explicitly social character.\footnote{A good example is provided by the argument from public goods. This argument focuses on the importance of coordinating activities in order to secure the production and distribution of goods vital for a decent life, and it reveals conflicting intuitions—those of anarchists, on the one hand, and those of their opponents, on the other. For this issue, see, e.g., Mancur Olson, \emph{The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups} (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965); John T. Sanders, “The State of Statelessness,” in \emph{For and Against the State: New Philosophical Readings}, ed. John T. Sanders and Jan Narveson (Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), 266–271, Chapter 4 here.} The positive horizon defined by political communal (or social) anarchism provides a suitable background for addressing these concerns. I want to argue, however, that this horizon is compatible with and in fact already incorporated within the challenge of critical philosophical anarchism. Political social anarchists oppose the state not only because of its illegitimacy, but also because of its essentially dominative, coercive, corruptive, and therefore \emph{evil} character. But this characterization of the state as evil is not an essential element of philosophical anarchism, although it may play a part in certain philosophical anarchist views. It is necessary to combine a diagnostic of what goes wrong in domination and coercion, as expressed in philosophical anarchist views, with an explicit prescriptive horizon of harmonious social relations. The required link might be found in a theoretical account that includes a properly articulated ideal of legitimacy that will set a standard, elements of which must be met by any vision of society. I want to argue that we would all, on reflection, probably agree with the anarchist on the question of the values needed to defend obligation and institutions. In examining different theories of political obligation in their dialogue with the anarchist perspective, I will approach them with respect to different instances of the anarchist ideal of legitimacy. A related central aim is to carry the role of the ideal of legitimacy further: I will examine how, more generally, it can make the task of the justification of political institutions harder. I will consider how the debate as defined by the anarchist and its results for political obligation might affect further defenses of constraints even within a background presupposing that we need, and remain with, political institutions. The extension of the role of the anarchist ideal of legitimacy in this study is an analysis of the anarchist perspective’s effect on any justification of constraints. More precisely, the ideal standards, in the light of the failure to justify political obligation, help further evaluations of institutions by imposing the relevant moral criteria as principled conditions on existing and newly arising forms of domination. It will be proved that voluntariness, justice, fairness, and association cannot ground political obligation, but they can determine the value of political institutions more generally. Thus the anarchist contribution to the political debate will be estimated both with regard to what it offers to the debate on political obligation itself and with respect to the implications of the results of this debate for more general evaluations of political institutions. In these functions, the ideal of legitimacy and the anarchist criticisms become two expressions of one comprehensive view.
This view states primarily that legitimacy is \emph{exigent} because it is difficult to see how political institutions can meet the requirements of the moral forms of the standard of legitimacy. The conditions of political obligation become themselves reflections of the relation between the two expressions of the anarchist view, the criticism that it advances and the ideal of legitimacy that it offers. As I claimed above, these conditions reflect the political nature of obligation and help in determining the positive character of the anarchist conclusions against political obligation. This is parallel to the function of the ideal of legitimacy as a standard for moral relations that institutions, with their political character, fail to meet. This standard is merged with a theoretical account of what an acceptably complete defense of political obligation must include, which may be identified as a successful combination of the four formal conditions with the different moral bases of political obligation.\footnote{This anarchist understanding of “an acceptably complete positive attempt” to defend political obligation involves also two narrow criteria of success: that the accounts are “accurate,” namely that they offer plausible principles of obligation in “their most defensible form and appl[y] them correctly,” and that they are “complete,” namely that they “identify as bound all and only those who are so bound” (Alan John Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations} [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979], 55–56). In his criticism of accounts of political obligation, the anarchist first recommends the most plausible ones, then tries to render them accurate, and then asks whether they are complete in meeting the four conditions of political obligation (Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}). Thus the anarchist participates in the development of defensible theories of political obligation and the anarchist conclusions against political obligation are derived on the basis of distinctive criteria of success when applied to defensible theories. This already shows the approach of critical philosophical anarchism to be much more than a justification by default (see Simmons, “Philosophical Anarchism,” 36, n. 9).} Thus one could say that the elements of the debate on political obligation as provided by anarchism and its ideal of legitimacy become alternative expressions of a unique outlook. If the anarchist conclusions about political obligation are correct, both the four conditions that constrain accounts of political obligation and the ideals reflecting proper social relations that states fail to meet indicate something about the political that every theorist must attend to—and they provide the way for doing so. The defenders of political institutions \emph{assume what they should seek to prove}: they focus on the merits of political institutions and attempt to derive political obligation from them. Instead, they should address the prior question about what institutions demand of us and whether these demands are justified. Political institutions cease to be viewed as lovable, and they need to be tested \emph{continually} on the basis of \emph{the problems} they create.
The category of \emph{transactional evaluations} of institutions, which will be introduced in the section “Quality-based and interaction-based evaluations of political institutions” of Chapter 1, is also relevant to the combinations presently suggested. In the following chapters, it will become clear that the anarchist ideals of legitimacy reflect the relations that would be involved in a society that met transactional evaluations. Moreover, the anarchist’s prior idea of an acceptably complete positive attempt to justify political obligation would successfully combine the four formal conditions with a moral principle, a combination that is no more than a theoretical reflection, defining the anarchist criticisms, of the application of proper social relations. In terms of the traditional defenses of the state, the different versions of the ideal preserve the demand that any defense of that kind should make clear that the four conditions of political obligation are satisfied. Thus transactional evaluations, the ideal of legitimacy, and an account of a comprehensive theory of political obligation may be seen as three different expressions of a perspective already underlying the anarchist challenge. Together these features comprise the anarchist position that I aim to explain and defend.
Critical philosophical anarchism is mainly engaged in what Miller calls the “\emph{subversive campaign}” of philosophical anarchism.\footnote{Miller, \emph{Anarchism}, 18 (emphasis mine).} As Simmons highlights, it encourages a substantial revision of our conception of ordinary political life.\footnote{For example, in Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 200; Alan John Simmons, “The Anarchist Position: A Reply to Klosko and Senor,” \emph{Philosophy and Public Affairs} 16 (1987): 279; Simmons, \emph{On the Edge of Anarchy}, 263; Simmons, “Philosophical Anarchism,” 29.} More specifically, it questions a common-sense conception of the relationship between governments and their citizens in terms of political obligation. While philosophical anarchists accept the traditional understanding of political obligation as a special relationship with our own governments, they deny its existence. This entails the rejection of a general moral attitude toward the state and the adoption of a critical stance from which the propriety of obedience to the law is assessed on a case-by-case basis.\footnote{For example, Simmons, \emph{On the Edge of Anarchy}, 269; Simmons, “Philosophical Anarchism,” 31.} Raz, who also denies the existence of general political obligation, proposes another possible attitude, namely “respect for law,” which can apply in the absence of such an obligation, and he supports a possible special relationship between institutions and those who adopt that attitude.\footnote{Joseph Raz, \emph{The Authority of Law} (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 94–99 and 104–105; Joseph Raz, \emph{The Morality of Freedom} (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), Chapter 13.} For philosophical anarchists, such as Simmons, however, even the anarchist denial of a special political relationship and an insistence on a critical stance will not result in widespread disobedience. Indeed, Simmons claims that our political lives will not change radically at the practical level.\footnote{Simmons, “The Anarchist Position,” 275–279; Simmons, \emph{On the Edge of Anarchy}, 261–269; Simmons, “Philosophical Anarchism,” 31–32.} Horton makes a crucial point with regard to the last claim. He argues that change in our ordinary thinking about “political relations,” i.e., that which construes such relations in terms of political obligations, will have “\emph{radical}” effects on the way we usually talk about our relation to our governments as ours and, through this, on our “political relationships” and lives.\footnote{Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}, 135–136.} Thus, he conceives the challenge of philosophical anarchism as a dangerously radical one: it is “the subversion of political relationships through undermining the shared understandings which are constitutive of such relationships.”\footnote{Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}, 135.} That is why Horton wants to undermine philosophical anarchism. I disagree with Horton’s attempt and, following Simmons, I also reject the claim that a shift in our conception of our political relationships will entail widespread disobedience and chaos. The reason for this is that we have to work with existing institutions and build the new in the shell of the old. Yet I agree with Horton that such a shift can affect radically our political relationships and lives. In my opinion, philosophical anarchism both requires drastic revision in our thinking about political relations and entails radical change in our political lives. However, I see this as a positive effect of the anarchist perspective.
This claim leads to a final point. The anarchist criticisms and ideal of legitimacy explain \emph{the link between philosophical and political anarchism}: they remind us that the enduring deficiency of the state is a position that is initially shared by both forms of anarchism, and the moral criteria of philosophical anarchism are intended to be inherent in the society that political anarchism seeks to create. A demonstration of the compatibility of political anarchist social visions with the perspective and ideals of legitimacy of critical philosophical anarchism establishes a continuity within the anarchist ideology. Such a demonstration is necessary as a test on both sides of anarchism. It would provide the required combination of a diagnostic of what goes wrong with coercion with an explicit positive horizon of non-dominative harmonious social relations. I will make an attempt at this combination in the final chapters of this study.
I proceed, then, as follows: in Chapter 1 I present the overall aim and structure of my argument in this book. More precisely, the role of the first chapter is to present in more detail the problem of political obligation and the main arguments that will be developed in the following chapters. Then, in Chapters 2–5, I provide an examination of the arguments for political obligation as scrutinized from the perspective of critical philosophical anarchism. This task must be completed in order to understand the anarchist criticism. In Chapter 2 I will examine the anarchist criticisms of voluntarist theories of political obligation. In Chapter 3 the object of criticism will be a justice-based theory. Chapter 4 will look at the anarchist dialogue with a reciprocity-based theory, to wit, the principle of fairness as formulated by Hart and by Rawls. Chapter 5 will present Horton’s theory of associative obligations, mainly as a valuable view within the debate rather than as a complete theory of political obligation. The main strategy in these chapters is to extract from anarchist arguments valid claims that will form the basis of my analysis of the anarchist contribution. The focus of this strategy will be the perspective and ideal as well as the arguments about self-government, proper relations, and political constraints that characterize critical philosophical anarchism. I will then move in Chapter 6 to a direct defense of the distinctive contribution of critical philosophical anarchism as derived from the debate on political obligation. I will analyze the character and claims of the special perspective involved in the anarchist position, examining the role of this perspective and of the ideal of legitimacy in improving accounts of the justification of constraints more generally. In Chapter 7, I will examine the tasks of political anarchism in the light of the contribution of critical philosophical anarchism. In the conclusion I will provide an overview of the anarchist contribution as defended in this study.
\chapter{\textbf{1. What the problem is}}
In this chapter I set out the central problem and argument developed in this study. For this I focus on three theorists, each of whom relates in a significant way to the position of critical philosophical anarchism. I discuss Rousseau as a traditional theorist whose view is a basic inspiration for the anarchist approach to political institutions. Joseph Raz’s theory is analyzed as a view largely compatible with critical philosophical anarchism. I use it to illustrate how accounts of state authority motivated by the anarchist perspective can be understood and improved. Finally, I discuss Simmons as a representative critical philosophical anarchist, from whose approach, however, I depart, criticizing it on central points in my defense of critical philosophical anarchism.
\section{\textbf{The problem of political obligation}}
\subsection{\textbf{The correlativity thesis}}
The problem of the existence and justification of political obligation is usually taken to be identical to the problem of the justification of political authority, which involves the establishment of the state’s (claim to the) right to rule. This right is most often seen as the logical correlate of an obligation to obey: when we assert the state’s right to rule, we \emph{automatically} recognize that citizens have a political obligation to the state.\footnote{The “doctrine of ‘logical correlativity’ ”: Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 58 and 195–197; Simmons, “Philosophical Anarchism,” 21 and 36, n.11.} Alternatively, this correlativity of right and obligation can be conceived as a normative doctrine: if we have one, we \emph{should} have the other. On this view, political obligation is understood as either a normative condition for or a normative consequence of political authority, although not identical to it.\footnote{This means that either authority or obligation is already independently justified and becomes the ground of the other, and that it reflects “a substantive \dots{} thesis about the state, namely that it is properly the instrument of its citizens’ aims” (Leslie Green, \emph{The Authority of the State} [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988], 236).} Theorists are divided concerning whether to accept correlativity in any of the above senses.\footnote{Defenders of political obligation and philosophical anarchists usually adopt correlativity; for example, Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}; Simmons, “Justification and Legitimacy”; Green, \emph{The Authority of the State}; Raz, \emph{The Authority of Law}; Raz, “Introduction”; Joseph Raz, “Authority and Justification,” in \emph{Authority}, ed. Joseph Raz (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 115–141; Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, “On the Source of the Authority of the State,” in \emph{Authority}, ed. Joseph Raz (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 142–173; Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}; McLaughlin, \emph{Anarchism and Authority}. This perspective might be explained to a significant extent by the fact that these theorists conceive political authority, or the right to rule, as something more than mere permission to coerce. For example, “What we really have in mind is a right to make laws and regulations, to judge and to punish for failing to conform to certain standards, or to order some redress for the victims of such violations, as well as a right to command” (Raz, “Introduction,” 2); and “Political authority has coercive powers, but its authority extends beyond its use of those powers. It appeals to people’s recognition of their moral and civic duties, while being ready, in many or even most cases, to use coercion if the appeal fails” (Raz, “Introduction,” 15); also, “Authority on the part of those who give orders and make regulations is: a right to be obeyed. We may say, more amply: authority is a regular right to be obeyed in a domain of decision” (Anscombe, “On the Source of the Authority,” 144). Characteristically, defenders of non-correlativity conceive authority as mere liability or permission to coerce, which is justifiably distinct from, and does not necessarily entail, a duty to obey, that is, political obligation (see David Daiches Raphael, \emph{Problems of Political Philosophy} [London: Macmillan, 1976]; Robert Ladenson, “In Defense of a Hobbesian Conception of Law,” in \emph{Authority}, ed. John Raz [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990], 32–55); Christopher Heath Wellman, “Liberalism, Samaritanism and Political Legitimacy,” in \emph{Philosophy and Public Affairs} 25 [1996]: 211–237). For a useful discussion of objections to logical and to normative correlativity, see Green, \emph{The Authority of the State}, 234–240.} To the extent that political authority is understood as a complex right to exclusively and coercively make regulations, impose duties, and demand compliance (i.e., command and be obeyed, or, more inclusively, \emph{issue directives}\footnote{“Directives” is a wider term, more suitable than “command” to cover all cases of authoritative utterance (for this, see McLaughlin, \emph{Anarchism and Authority}, 54).} and have them followed), then it is properly taken as correlative to a complex set of obligations constituting a general obligation to comply, i.e., political obligation.\footnote{This description is closer to the Lockean account of the right to rule. But it is meant to capture the elements of conceptions such as those presented in note 3 above to be given by defenders of correlativity.} In this study I take this correlativity as one central sense of legitimacy, whether in its logical or in its normative form. Since normative correlativity already involves substantive considerations about the nature of political authority and our relation to it, however, it is sufficient to focus on the normative form of correlativity for us to keep in mind that it is in the nature of the state’s claim-right to rule to generate obligations to it.
\subsection{\textbf{The two main aspects of the problem of political obligation}}
Thus the problem of political obligation is primarily the problem of finding a special justification for the various obligations imposed on citizens by their political institutions, which are correlative to a complex right of those institutions to rule those citizens. Theorists like Horton seem to be correct that this problem in fact involves a range of questions and that, in addition to the \emph{question of justification}, the issues of the \emph{author} and of the \emph{scope} of political obligations are also central. This study concentrates on the question of justification, which, as Horton rightly points out, is presupposed by the other two and in general “has been taken to be the kernel of the philosophical problem of political obligation.”\footnote{Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}, 12–13.} It is with regard to the question “why should we obey political authority?” that I evaluate the anarchist position. The traditional philosophical discussion of political authority concerns attempts to account for \emph{de jure} political authority, that is, authority that \emph{has} the right to rule—or is exercised in accordance with a certain set of principles or rules—rather than for \emph{de facto} political authority, namely one that \emph{claims} to have this right and has this claim \emph{acknowledged} by its subjects.\footnote{For this distinction, see, e.g., Wolff, \emph{In Defense of Anarchism}, 2; Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 41–42, 196, and 206; Simmons, “Justification and Legitimacy,” 746–751; Raz, \emph{The Morality of Freedom}, 18–19; Raz, “Introduction,” 3; McLaughlin, \emph{Anarchism and Authority}, 59. In relation to these points, see the discussion of the moral feature of the nature of the problem of political obligation below.} Because no state has the right to rule, the anarchist demands the moral justification or, in other words, the legitimacy of \emph{de facto} authority. This problem has also been identified as that of \emph{state legitimacy} morally understood. I use “state legitimacy” interchangeably with “state authority” and “political obligation.”\footnote{But this use of legitimacy should not be confused with other, proper yet different, uses of the notion. For state legitimacy and an insistence on the clarification of the different uses of the notion, see Simmons, “Justification and Legitimacy,” 746–751. For example, within contemporary contractualism the focus is on deciding the \emph{content} of legitimacy (or of justice), on examining what demands political institutions should satisfy in order to be legitimate (or, otherwise, on formulating legitimate principles for institutions), a question different from an explicit defense of their right to exist and their right to rule (e.g., John Rawls, \emph{A Theory of Justice} [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971]; Thomas Michael Scanlon, “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” in \emph{Utilitarianism and Beyond}, ed. Amartya Sen and Bernard Arthur Owen Williams [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982]), 103–128. Simmons sees the contractualist approach as a special conception of “justification” of the state and opposes its being drawn together with the question of “state legitimacy,” which corresponds to the problem of political obligation, namely of legitimacy as the right to rule (Simmons, “Justification and Legitimacy,” 758–769). He himself conceives the \emph{justification of the state} as the question concerning \emph{which institutions, if any, have the right to exist} and takes it to be separate from the question of \emph{state legitimacy} as one about \emph{justification of the right to rule} (Simmons, “Justification and Legitimacy,” 739–751). For other senses of legitimacy, see Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 40–44 and 197. For nonnormative accounts of political legitimacy, see Max Weber, \emph{The Theory of Social and Economic Organization} (London: William Hodge, 1947); Rodney Barker, \emph{Political Legitimacy and the State} (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).}
Political obligation has traditionally been regarded as that notion through which we must understand a \emph{special relationship} between individuals and the political institutions of their country of residence. There are two main features of the nature of the problem of political obligation:
(a) \emph{The state, the law, and political institutions in general have a special character and status.} This is described by four theses.\footnote{For these theses, see Saladin Meckled-Garcia, \emph{Membership, Obligation and Legitimacy: An Expressivist Account} (Unpublished PhD dissertation, University College London, 1998), 14–18.} \emph{The sources thesis}: political institutions take their own validity from within the political\Slash{}legal structure, from legally defined criteria and standards. \emph{The particularity thesis}: citizens are taken to have a special relationship with their own government as it itself determines the conditions of membership within its territory. This means that political institutions have a particular constituency to which they apply and any justification of political obligation should provide a basis for obeying one’s own particular government with its own criteria for membership.\footnote{“The particularity requirement”: Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 31–35; Green, \emph{The Authority of the State}, 227–228.} \emph{The coercion thesis}: institutional requirements may be backed by coercion. The state is sovereign and monopolistic in the sense that it determines the rights and duties of its citizens in an authoritarian, permanent, and exclusionary way. With respect to this function, legal sanction, or coercion, is its primary means. \emph{The independence premise}: an account of political obligation should include criteria that show the independent nature of the “political” (as this nature is reflected in the elements of the three previous theses), and it is by appeal to this essentially political nature of institutions that political obligation should be justified. That is, the special commitment that such an obligation is supposed to express needs to be shown to be necessarily connected to its \emph{political nature}. I will be referring to these four premises as “the theses on the political.”
(b) \emph{The commands of political authorities are directed at the behavior of individuals in the public domain.} This means that such commands have a direct effect not only on the beliefs of individuals, but also on their actions (such directives guide their practical reasoning and behavior). In this way they are reasons for action—\emph{normative requirements}, those with the power to direct action—in the same way as moral or prudential reasons. More importantly, for those who accept and discuss the problem of political obligation, political obligations are understood to be \emph{moral} in character.\footnote{See, e.g., Raz, \emph{The Authority of Law}, 244; Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}, 13–15.} They are the defining terms of a special moral relationship between citizens and their polity, a concomitant of the latter’s status as a normative power, that is, of its claim to a moral right to impose directives on its citizens. Yet the most convincing reason for requiring a moral ground is that it provides the most appropriate way of \emph{filtering} political requirements in order to decide which of them can properly be attributed the status of obligations. Thus it works as a criterion for distinguishing requirements that can be accepted as valid laws from requirements that are unacceptable. When, for example, individuals are presented with laws against bodily harm and laws discriminating against a specific group of people (such as immigrants), they need to be able to assert the acceptability of the former and exclude the latter by reference to a stable testing ground. Since institutions have a considerable effect on our lives, such filtering is necessary and valuable, because it demands that institutions need to be sufficiently motivated in doing so: there have to be convincing reasons in favor of their interference. A moral ground provides the strongest basis for normative requirements, creating a distance from our institutions that is beneficial to a critical assessment of their function and quality. These points express the second important aspect of the issue of political obligation as traditionally understood: a justification of political obligation must involve the provision of \emph{moral grounds} for supporting political institutions, if political obligation is to be acceptable.
Together (a) and (b) say that an adequate justification of political obligation involves the \emph{recognition of the legitimacy of political authority qua political, on the basis of moral reasons}. Following philosophical anarchists, I see as inevitable the need to defend the existence of special obligations in the political domain with \emph{moral} principles and arguments. This is so mainly because of the direct and dominant role that political institutions, with their requirements and present practices, play in our social lives and because they claim the right to do so. The demands of political institutions affect primarily individual self-determination and social equality, which gives rise to a constant requirement to put limits on these institutions and conditions on how they do so, rooted in individual life and morality. As the anarchist reminds us, domination and coercion can never be desirable in themselves, without proper motivation. They are always a defect, needing to be counterbalanced by merits that are sufficiently strong to qualify the agencies that incorporate them. The very fact that obligations are requirements, which involve a “pressure to perform,” makes explicit the tie between obligation, domination, and coercion, thus pressing the demand for proper justification.\footnote{Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 7.} These points relate to the other central feature in the traditional understanding of the debate over political obligation: the appeal to a moral reason as a ground of the political \emph{qua political.} To appeal occasionally (or even frequently) to moral reasons as justifications for compliance with particular laws does not constitute a moral recognition of the authority of the law.\footnote{For the meaning of such a recognition, in comparison with other kinds of reliance on moral reasons, see Miller, \emph{Anarchism}, 16–18, and Raz’s view discussed below.}
\subsection{\textbf{Quality-based and interaction-based evaluations of political institutions}}
Two central elements of the evaluation of states that are found in discussions of political obligation are \emph{quality} and \emph{specific interaction}. The former involves general positive qualities or accomplishments of institutions (such as justice and the supply of important goods), and it is a commonplace in moral arguments for their existence. The latter refers to “morally significant features of the specific histories of interaction between individual persons and their polities” (components such as actually giving one’s consent).\footnote{Simmons, “Justification and Legitimacy,” 764. These elements ground Simmons’s distinction between “\emph{generic}” and “\emph{transactional} evaluations” (Simmons, “Justification and Legitimacy”). In this study I also apply, in relation to the first kind of evaluation, the term “institutional morality,” which is drawn from an analogous distinction between “theories of institutional morality” and “theories of emergence” (Meckled-Garcia, \emph{Membership, Obligation and Legitimacy}, Chapter 2). Schmidtz makes a distinction similar to Simmons’s, between “teleological” and “emergent” justifications (David Schmidtz, “Justifying the State,” in \emph{For and Against the State: New Philosophical Readings}, ed. John T. Sanders and Jan Narveson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), 81–97; Simmons, “Philosophical Anarchism”). But I find his account less satisfactory.} Judgments about the \emph{nature} of political institutions, the qualities that might make them morally acceptable, provide a basic condition that institutions must satisfy, and in this respect they affect judgments about political obligation.\footnote{Quality is the factor that Simmons ties to the question of justification as he understands it, which is considered to precede arguments for political obligation (Simmons, “Justification and Legitimacy”). The basic idea here is that we cannot morally bind ourselves to immoral institutions.} Some of the theories of political obligation employ them more centrally, as grounds of that question. But the general moral relationship based on the nature of a state overall differs from the particular moral relationship that is the focus of the problem of political obligation. It will be part of the argument of this study to see whether the one can ground the other and, in general, to assess the role of institutional qualities in justifying political obligation. This study follows a classical perspective in seeing the problem of political obligation as concerned with grounding a special bond between individual and government through understanding “the \emph{relationship} or \emph{transaction} which could create” such a bond.\footnote{Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 4 (emphasis mine).} This study also stresses the fact that political obligation is a special bond between a \emph{particular} government and each \emph{particular} citizen. Having such a particularized character, political obligation seems more likely to derive from very specific relationships, characterized by the actual and particular features of direct transaction, and it is doubtful that these can be captured by more generally described connections between states and subjects.\footnote{In relation to these points, see on the “particularity requirement” (Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 31–35) and the discussion of “the political” above. The arguments of the following chapters will help decide the force of these considerations.} Thus, political obligation appears more relevant to the category of transactional evaluation, which Simmons considers to be the proper one for assessing the question of political obligation.
These are some preliminary points that will play an important role for the main argument of this study and will be further clarified in the course of its development. Whether or not justification and legitimacy are separate dimensions of the evaluation of institutions and whether or not justification in terms of institutional qualities (or of generic evaluation) is directed primarily at the existence of the state, anarchism challenges political institutions with regard to both existence and obligation. This study concentrates on its position with regard to the particular relationship of political obligation. Nevertheless, one of my main objectives is to show how the critical philosophical anarchist perspective makes the problem of political obligation central for a broader evaluation of political institutions, thus ultimately a challenge to their very existence.
\section{\textbf{The conditions of political obligation}}
The four theses that define the political nature of obligation and the demand for a moral ground are accompanied by certain formal conditions that have traditionally been used to determine theories of political obligation and that are pressed by anarchists. In the next few pages I will clarify which of these conditions remain operative and introduce their role within the debate on political obligation.
Theories of political obligation, which attempt to justify morally a specially political kind of requirement, are constrained by four formal conditions: \emph{particularity}, \emph{generality}, \emph{bindingness,} and \emph{content-independence}. I call them “the conditions of political obligation.” These conditions appear as merely formal requirements, which a theorist of political obligation might find reasons to dispense with, against the anarchist standpoint. But one task of this study is to make explicit how their role is indispensable in the debate on political obligation and how these conditions characterize the anarchist perspective, ultimately helping decide the anarchist contribution within this debate. This study is aimed at confirming that they are justifiably offered as determinants of the link required between the political nature of obligation and its second aspect, that of moral justification.
The particularity thesis, which defines a central part of the nature of the political, itself provides a first condition on how to attempt to assign moral weight to the bond of political obligation, namely that we show the moral significance of citizens being bound to \emph{their own} states. Being coherently in the nature of political institutions to address their requirements to a specific constituency, \emph{particularity} is a natural and inevitable condition within the debate. Two other general assumptions of a justification of political obligation involve the demand of “universality,” namely that moral justification applies to all subjects with regard to all laws, and the demand of “singularity in ground,” namely that all obligations are based on one and the same moral reason.\footnote{Jonathan Wolff, “Pluralistic Models of Political Obligation,” \emph{Philosophica} 56 (1995): 10.} Both of these assumptions have been questioned:\footnote{For this, see Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 35–37. Particularly for arguments against “universality,” see Green, \emph{The Authority of the State}, 240–247.} the first because of the possibility and appropriateness of excluding some people from having political obligations; the second because of the possibility and appropriateness of appealing to more than one reason to explain different individuals’ obligations to obey the same law and to explain the same individual’s obligation to different laws. Several theorists are content with seeing reasons for political obligation as \emph{prima facie} reasons, with appealing to a plurality of grounds, and with establishing political obligation for many of the citizens but not for all.\footnote{Gans, \emph{Philosophical Anarchism}; Wolff, “Pluralistic Models of Political Obligation.”} Even philosophical anarchists such as Simmons recognize that universality and singularity are not necessarily features of political obligation.\footnote{Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 35–37. And yet Simmons and other anarchists have been criticized for posing “particularly rigorous and demanding standards of moral justification” of the state (Horton, \emph{Political Obligation}, 134).} Thus, I do not adopt these two conditions as appropriate constraints on accounts of political obligation.
Nevertheless, what should be drawn from the above considerations is the recognition that, in order to justify political obligation, a sufficient amount of \emph{generality} is necessary. This is not because of the worry that is claimed to have generated the demand for the universal application of political obligation, namely, that without political obligations certain people will become a threat to those who obey.\footnote{For an expression of this worry, see Wolff, “Pluralistic Models of Political Obligation,” 27.} Beyond this worry, I insist on generality and on the other three conditions of political obligation proposed by philosophical anarchists\footnote{Namely, “particularity” as reflected in the particularity thesis above, “bindingness” and “content-independence” (for these two, see the next paragraph).} because they provide an appropriate (and perhaps the most suitable) way of ascribing to the traditional understanding of the problem of political obligation the significance that, I argue in this project, it has. Generality also corresponds to the centralized and monopolistic character of political institutions. Finally, it captures a central characteristic of the anarchist approach to accounts of political obligation, namely that we should be interested “in describing all moral requirements which bind citizens to their political communities.”\footnote{Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 37. For his support of generality, see Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 55–56.} Klosko (1987) and other defenders of the state recognize the necessity of generality, and it is in fact this aspect that has created the most difficulties for them. As I will argue, all accounts of political obligation proposed so far fail to justify political obligation for \emph{most} of the people. Thus, the justification of a general political obligation has not yet been given.
The other two conditions that work as proper formal constraints on accounts of political obligation become very explicit in the last facet of the problem to which I want to draw attention, namely our understanding of the character of the notion of political obligation. A good example is Raz’s proposal. Political obligation “is a general obligation applying to \dots{} all the laws on all occasions to which they apply.”\footnote{Raz, \emph{The Morality of Freedom}, 234.} It is not an “incidental reason.”\footnote{Raz, \emph{The Morality of Freedom}, 234.} It is a reason to obey the law \emph{because it is the law}, that is, “to obey the law \emph{as it requires to be obeyed}.”\footnote{Raz, \emph{The Morality of Freedom}, 236. I agree with Simmons that political obligation is not only the obligation to obey the law but involves much more, such as the duties of citizenship, which involve supporting political institutions in other ways, for example, by participating in the defense of one’s country (Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 5). This point is suggested also by the analysis of correlativity at the beginning of this chapter. For a similar position, see also John Horton, “Peter Winch and Political Authority,” \emph{Philosophical Investigations} 28 (2005): 235–252; John Horton, “In Defence of Associative Political Obligations: Part Two,” \emph{Political Studies} 55 (2007): 15. Yet in the present paragraph I use Raz’s discussion to make a different point about the character of political obligation and I adopt his terminology only as part of that discussion.} It involves the acceptance of the directives of the law not only for their content, but also for the conditions or criteria by which they may be overridden. The law is not absolute, but the considerations under which it is defeated should be recognized by the law itself. Such considerations might be strong moral reasons that override the obligation to obey the law, but one’s acting according to them irrespective of any recognition of their application by the law itself constitutes a violation of the law. Thus, although the application of the law does not imply that reasons other than those recognized by the law are less important, the law is “exclusionary” and “its rules and rulings are authoritative.”\footnote{Raz, \emph{The Morality of Freedom}, 236–237.} It is in the very nature of the law and it is its raison d’être that it functions as a conclusion of practical reason, already excluding certain considerations; this is what the law is. Only by understanding that political obligation is the obligation to obey the law because it is the law can we avoid losing sight of the demand that any suggested justification should be a ground for exactly this kind of requirement. Given this understanding of political obligation, it is possible to recognize that what anarchists deny is a \emph{general obligation to obey political institutions as they require to be obeyed.}\footnote{Green, \emph{The Authority of the State}, 225–226.} These considerations are represented in the following chapters by the terms “\emph{content-independence}” and “\emph{bindingness},” which designate the last two conditions of political obligation.\footnote{The recognition of these features as characteristic of political obligation is not incompatible with the claim that political obligations are not “all things considered” reasons for action (Simmons, \emph{Moral Principles and Political Obligations}, 7–11). They are also reflected in the special nature of the “political” as defined in the four theses presented above. Similar considerations about the character of political obligation are echoed in Friedman’s analysis of the notion of authority (Richard B. Friedman, “On the Concept of Authority in Political Philosophy,” in \emph{Authority}, ed. John Raz [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990], 56–91). See also Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart, “Commands and Authoritative Legal Reasons,” in \emph{Authority}, ed. John Raz (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 92–114.}
The upshot of the above discussion is that it makes obvious that the four conditions of political obligation already provide defining features of the political nature of such obligations, which is a central aspect of the debate.\footnote{Another way of rejecting universality and singularity of ground as conditions of political obligation is observing that neither of the two has a direct and relevant connection with the features that make the requirements of political institutions political. That is, neither of them is necessary for the permanent, authoritative, monopolistic, and coercive character of political institutions.}
In sum, the problem of political obligation concerns fundamentally (a) an \emph{ethical} relationship between people and the political community of which they are members, that is, one involving \emph{moral grounds} for a special relationship to our polities. These grounds are strong, but neither absolute nor exhaustive. This issue is also (b) \emph{political} in the sense that membership in a polity is characterized by the special features of the political as defined by the theses on the political and as reflected in the conditions of political obligation. The arguments to be examined in the main part of the study are approached on the basis of accepting the debate over political obligation in these terms.
\subsection{\textbf{The paradox of authority}}
We live in a world dominated by political institutions. We find our lives ruled and controlled by them. We mostly take this situation for granted. How did we arrive at such a state of affairs? And is this how things should be? In many other areas of our lives we feel that things should be under our own control. We think that it is important to be able to decide and make choices for ourselves. We consider it important that we be free to act within a background of various options and free to pursue the best options for ourselves in life. We do not want other people to tell us what to do and to take control over what concerns us. So why in the case of the state do we take rule for granted? Even within the state, the desire for self-government survives in the form of dissatisfaction, when there comes a point that political interference feels unbearable. Why, then, do we so readily accept political power? Should we do so?
We can attempt to answer the philosophical question of the justification of authority by answering first the question of its genesis: why did centralized power arise? And how? And why does it continue to exist now? A good explanation for \emph{how} this happened is the \emph{hybrid} approach defended by Michael Taylor.\footnote{For the analysis of the origins of the state that follows, see Taylor, \emph{Community, Anarchy and Liberty}, section 3.3.} This view focuses on the development of gross inequality and the weakening of community, asserting that these are both the concomitants and the consequences of state formation. More specifically, state formation has two bases, the first being the emergence of leadership in acephalous\footnote{“Acephalous,” or “acephalos” in Greek, means “without a head” (