PO301 Legitimacy and Democracy
Adam Swift: ‘Political Philosophy: A Student’s Guide’
Relationship between distributive and political justice:
Are they coincident?
Do they diverge?
Do they conflict?
Rawls’ first principles cover basic liberties, but three questions:
1. Can distributively unjust laws be legitimate, and does the state have a right to
make us comply?
2. Must laws be democratically forged to be legitimate?
3. How does democracy confer legitimacy on distributive or political decisions?
Legitimate Authority
If an authority is legitimate, one must have reasons for complying independent of the
content of its decisions.
e.g. You are the jailer of a convict that you know to be innocent. A mistake has
been made. Should you accept the legitimacy of the procedure that enforced that
decision?
e.g. A judge has authority to pass judgement, legitimised by the law he represents.
Legitimate authority means objectively justified authority, not just authority perceived to
be justified by its subjects. Legitimate authorities make mistakes, but their decisions still
have legitimacy and authority. e.g. A student can appeal against exam marks on
procedural grounds, but cannot question the judgement of the examiner. Should
we comply with unjust laws if they proceed from legitimate procedures? It seems
plausible that decision-making processes can confer legitimacy on decisions made. But
even if legitimacy is not present, there may be other reasons to comply with them.
Wrong but legitimate: Can we legitimately make ‘mistakes’ when it comes to distributive
justice, and should we rectify any errors once we identify them? If we claim that our views
are better than others’, we must claim there is such a thing as right and wrong (or at least
better and worse). But accepting the absolute legitimacy of the law entails the positivist
view that “right” and “wrong” are there to discover and not socially constructed.
Right but illegitimate: Can an authority pass a judgement that I see as correct (outcome-
based), but without legitimacy? Can perceived mistakes (or perceived mistakes) in the
judicial system undermine legitimacy? In the long run it is argued that persistently ‘false’
legitimacy will be exposed and that obviously unjust legitimate bodies will not last (is this
empirically verified?).
Adam Swift: ‘Political Philosophy: A Student’s Guide’
Relationship between distributive and political justice:
Are they coincident?
Do they diverge?
Do they conflict?
Rawls’ first principles cover basic liberties, but three questions:
1. Can distributively unjust laws be legitimate, and does the state have a right to
make us comply?
2. Must laws be democratically forged to be legitimate?
3. How does democracy confer legitimacy on distributive or political decisions?
Legitimate Authority
If an authority is legitimate, one must have reasons for complying independent of the
content of its decisions.
e.g. You are the jailer of a convict that you know to be innocent. A mistake has
been made. Should you accept the legitimacy of the procedure that enforced that
decision?
e.g. A judge has authority to pass judgement, legitimised by the law he represents.
Legitimate authority means objectively justified authority, not just authority perceived to
be justified by its subjects. Legitimate authorities make mistakes, but their decisions still
have legitimacy and authority. e.g. A student can appeal against exam marks on
procedural grounds, but cannot question the judgement of the examiner. Should
we comply with unjust laws if they proceed from legitimate procedures? It seems
plausible that decision-making processes can confer legitimacy on decisions made. But
even if legitimacy is not present, there may be other reasons to comply with them.
Wrong but legitimate: Can we legitimately make ‘mistakes’ when it comes to distributive
justice, and should we rectify any errors once we identify them? If we claim that our views
are better than others’, we must claim there is such a thing as right and wrong (or at least
better and worse). But accepting the absolute legitimacy of the law entails the positivist
view that “right” and “wrong” are there to discover and not socially constructed.
Right but illegitimate: Can an authority pass a judgement that I see as correct (outcome-
based), but without legitimacy? Can perceived mistakes (or perceived mistakes) in the
judicial system undermine legitimacy? In the long run it is argued that persistently ‘false’
legitimacy will be exposed and that obviously unjust legitimate bodies will not last (is this
empirically verified?).
