Dispelling the Fiction of Surrendering : Authority, Recognition, and Merit
The discussion of authority for the past half century has been dominated by controversies over 'surrendering judgment.' The picture it suggests of citizens abandoning their prior commitments at the behest of authorities seems both troubling and infeasible. Yet, it has survived by providing the best explanation of the normativity of political commands. 'Surrendering judgment' explains two features of authoritative utterances: (1) content independence - normative force independent of reasons, and (2) overriding reasons - the ability to replace anterior reasons. Many utterances, like threats or requests, possess content independence, but overriding reasons are particular features of political commands. The two variants of 'surrendering judgment' explored here seek to explain why such a property would exist. The first claims authoritative utterances override anterior reasons because they are constitutive elements of political conventions. The second argues authoritative utterances are overriding because they provide 'exclusionary reasons' which are, ceteris paribus, rational for the agent to obey. It is argued that vagueness inherent to both accounts renders overriding reasons incoherent. Thus, while content independence remains a necessary condition for any account of authority, 'surrendering judgment' must be rejected as the product of faulty assumptions
Year of publication: |
2011
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Authors: | Cox, David |
Publisher: |
[2011]: [S.l.] : SSRN |
Description of contents: | Abstract [papers.ssrn.com] |
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