Liberty, Equality, Authority

Abstract

Directive authorities (for example, political authorities with powers of command and coercion) pose a problem of legitimacy, but there are different ways of understanding the problem. On the one hand, it has been thought to rest on the inequality of social power between ruler and ruled. On this view, proprietorial authority (the authority possessed by an owner over the things that they own) creates much the same problem as directive authority, at least where property is unequally distributed. On another view, which I endorse, the problem of legitimacy arises instead from the threat that directive authority poses to the liberty of those subject to it. To grasp the point, we must distinguish freedom from liberty. While restrictions on your freedom limit your options, deprivation of liberty deprives you of responsibility for compliance. With this distinction in place, we can see why philosophers like Locke think that political authority curbs our liberty in a way that proprietorial authority does not.