There are various arguments about what makes a state legitimate, or what gives the state authority in a way that creates a duty to obey. There is one aspect of conflict that I always find unsatisfying, and recently while meditating I realized why it always seems to fail in my mind.
The argument I have in mind is found in the work of thinkers such as Thomas Christiano, author of The Rule of the Majority: Fundamental Problems of Democratic Theory. Christiano argues that democracy gives government authority because of the obligation to treat members of our society equally and show them due respect. As Christiano sees it, if the law is enacted democratically with the support of the majority, disobeying that law will be putting your judgment above the judgment of your fellow citizens. This would mean treating those citizens as inferior, which would be wrong to do so. Therefore, there is an obligation to follow democratically passed laws.
There are many reasons to be suspicious of this argument. Why should we believe that there is a moral obligation to defer to the judgment of others if that judgment is more popular than your own? And more importantly, what would make this bond compelling obligation – enforceable? If you go back a few decades ago, the majority of Americans were against interracial marriage. However, some people intermarry anyway. Those who did so clearly believed (literally!) that their judgment in that matter was better than most of their fellow citizens. It seems patently false to say that in doing this, they are doing something wrong by believing they had better judgment than the majority, let alone an impermissible error in a way that makes coercion acceptable.
But there is a very important reason why I find this line of reasoning unconvincing. Missing from arguments like this is a concept that is heavily emphasized in the classical tradition of liberalism and libertarianism – the concept of reconciliation.
I think the high libertarian focus on reconciliation is why libertarians are less likely to cite the work of Ronald Coase. It’s not that Coase’s work is somehow particularly relevant to liberal politics – you can’t start with the Coase Theorem and take a straight line from there to anarcho-capitalism. But Coase pointed out that economists have been thinking about externalities in the wrong way. Previous economic analysis considered externalities as one way of setting costs. But Coase pointed out that externalities are mutually exclusive – marginalization goes both ways, between both parties. (This conclusion was reached independently by a natural scientist Sheldon Cooper!) Because of this, trying to fix externalities by saying “we should tax the group that creates the externality” doesn’t get off the ground.
Christiano’s argument suffers from this same deficiency. Even assuming that putting one’s judgment above the judgment of others is an unacceptable error, the situation is still changing. If my fellow citizens say that I should do as they have decided because if I don’t, I take my judgment as higher than theirs and behave badly, I can say the same for trying to force me to do as they did. they decided, they put their judgment above mine, they put me down and mistreated me. The situation is favorable. And by treating the alleged “wrong” of valuing one’s own judgment over the judgment of others in such an intransigent manner, Christiano’s theory treats humans equally only by saying that “some animals are more equal than others” in a double-talk manner.
Me before it was argued Yoram Hazony’s concern that an unwavering commitment to free trade would undermine the fiduciary obligations on which the nation relies suffers from the same flaw. I have given a hypothetical example of dealing with the choice between buying cheap lumber from a Canadian named Carl, or paying for the same lumber from an American named Walter:
Presumably, Hazony thinks there is a fiduciary duty to buy from Walter through Carl, but it is not clear why. After all, what Hazony often asks for is your mind loyalty to each other – and the thing about being honest with each other is that it is mutual. The responsibility goes both ways. So why can we say that I failed to show Walter due loyalty by buying from Carl? Why would you say that Walter would be failing to show due loyalty to me, by insisting that I buy from him despite the huge financial burden it would place on me? Simply saying “mutual loyalty” does nothing to solve this.
One of the best recent works of liberal political philosophy (in my opinion never to be humbled), Little Dominance by Dan Moller, makes a similar point about handling invalidity of certain actions in a consistent manner:
I want to emphasize that, perhaps contrary to some representations of classical liberal ideology, the impetus is not resentment at being asked to giveThe first is confusion about the proposition we are entitled to receive the need. The momentum goes through the correlation table: I could not issue such a request; in thinking it can be annoying you to make such a request to them; and so it is clear that see should not make such a request to us.
Moller says that “if we see even strict laws to make others worse off in order to improve our situation” – and if we apply those laws in a harmonious and equal way among citizens – then “we quickly enter a kind of freedom.”
Of course, these are not the only ideas of political authority out there. But I find it surprising that so many ideas of political authority, such as those based on trust in each other and showing due respect for the judgment of others, should withdraw – or ignore – issues of reconciliation as if those principles were at the forefront.
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