Political_authority

Political authority

Political authority

Add article description

This article is about the philosophical aspects of political authority. For general discussion of political authority, see Power (social and political).

In political philosophy and ethics, political authority describes any of the moral principles legitimizing differences between individuals' rights and duties by virtue of their relationship with the state.[1] Political authority grants members of a government the right to rule over citizens using coercion if necessary (i.e., political legitimacy), while imposing an obligation for the citizens to obey government orders (i.e., political obligation).[2]

A central question in political philosophy is "To what extent is political authority legitimate?" Views range from political authority and having no legitimacy (philosophical anarchism) to political authority being virtually unlimited in scope (totalitarianism).[1]

References

  1. [1]
    Christiano, Tom (19 March 2013). "Authority". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  2. [2]
    Huemer, Michael (January 2013). The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 5–7. ISBN 978-1137281654.


Stub icon

This article about political philosophy or theory is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Political_authority, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.