Authority and Reason‐Giving 1

The phenomenon of authority – political and otherwise – has rightly generated much philosophical attention. But this literature has failed to fully appreciate that authority is a particular instance of the phenomenon I call robust reason-giving, the kind of reason-giving present also in cases of requests and promises. In this paper I place discussions of authority in the context of robust reason-giving, and then, utilizing an analysis of robust reason-giving that I develop in another paper, I draw some lessons about authority. In particular, I show why there is nothing metaphysically puzzling about authority, and how – in broad outline – authority may be justified. In the process I also critically evaluate Joseph Raz's influential service conception of authority, generalize his notions of exclusionary and protected reasons, and debunk the thought that authorities have a right to rule in the sense that the duty to obey the authority is owed to the authority.