Political Legitimacy: What’s Wrong with the Power-Liability View?
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Kjartan Mikalsen
Abstract
In this paper, I take issue with Arthur Isak Applbaum’s power-liability view of political legitimacy. In contrast to the traditional view that legitimate rule entails a moral duty to obey, here called the right-duty view, Applbaum argues that political legitimacy is a moral power that entails moral liability for the subjects of political rule. According to Applbaum, the power-liability view helps us explain how responsible citizens in some cases can act contrary to law while still recognizing the claims of law. Against Applbaum’s attempt at establishing the power-liability view through conceptual analysis, I argue that we cannot specify the moral implications of de jure legitimacy without considering the moral argument that justifies the right to rule. I further argue that Applbaum’s normative account of political legitimacy implies commitment to a normative idea that forms the basis of a strong case in favor of the right-duty view. Finally, I argue that the present defense of the right-duty view has resources to account for the moral phenomena that prompt Applbaum’s advocacy of the power-liability view.
Acknowledgements
Draft versions of the paper were presented at a workshop organized by NTNU’s Practical Philosophy Research Group and the Norwegian Practical Philosophy Network’s 2022-conference in Bergen. I would like to thank the participants at both events for valuable comments and stimulating discussions. I would also like to thank the anonymous referees and guest editors for thorough, challenging, and very helpful comments on previous drafts.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Legitimacy; Guest Editors: Matthias Brinkmann and Anthony Taylor
- Editorial
- Introduction to Special Issue
- Articles
- Persons, Agents and Wantons
- Political Legitimacy: What’s Wrong with the Power-Liability View?
- Does the Free Group Agency Account of Legitimacy Require Democracy?
- Applying Different Concepts and Conceptions of Legitimacy to the International Level: Service, Free Group Agents, and Autonomy
- Legitimacy Revisited: Moral Power and Civil Disobedience
- Regular Articles
- The Democratic Virtues of Randomized Trials
- Torture and Trolleys: Accepting the Nearly Absolute Wrongness of Philanthropic Torture of a Perpetrator
- Do Promises Towards Fossil Fuel Owners Matter?
- Does a State’s Right to Control Borders Justify Harming Refugees?
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Legitimacy; Guest Editors: Matthias Brinkmann and Anthony Taylor
- Editorial
- Introduction to Special Issue
- Articles
- Persons, Agents and Wantons
- Political Legitimacy: What’s Wrong with the Power-Liability View?
- Does the Free Group Agency Account of Legitimacy Require Democracy?
- Applying Different Concepts and Conceptions of Legitimacy to the International Level: Service, Free Group Agents, and Autonomy
- Legitimacy Revisited: Moral Power and Civil Disobedience
- Regular Articles
- The Democratic Virtues of Randomized Trials
- Torture and Trolleys: Accepting the Nearly Absolute Wrongness of Philanthropic Torture of a Perpetrator
- Do Promises Towards Fossil Fuel Owners Matter?
- Does a State’s Right to Control Borders Justify Harming Refugees?
