ASSIGNMENT 


NAME: Sakshi Sharda

TUTORIAL GROUP: F

QUES: Critically examine Joseph Raz’s response to the anarchists on the notion of authority?
Ans:
INTRODUCTION:
One cannot begin to understand the concept of authority without studying Joseph Raz’s conception
of authority. Joseph Raz is a known political philosopher and his conception of authority is an
important critique of anarchism, which remains the focus of this article. We will begin with a small
introduction to his conception of authority and move unto understanding the three theses which
remain the cornerstone of his critique of anarchism. We will then try and package this
understanding of authority to understand the response to philosophical anarchist. The conclusion
will then look at the work of Bruno Leipold and his analysis towards the effect of Raz’s response
anarchism on political anarchism.
MATTER:
Raz begins his article with the conception of H. L. A. Hart1 stating law to be a social fact. He moves
on to looking at the relation between morality and law, and it is based on this the relation that Raz
proposes three theses which are:
• The Source Thesis- speaks of law being source based
• The Incorporation Thesis- understanding of law is either source based or comes from law that
remains source based.
• The Coherence Thesis- understanding law to origin from a source and having a moral
justification of law. It is important to understand here that Raz makes a distinction between
moral justification and the morally soundest justification.2

11Joseph Raz, Authority, Law and Morality (Oxford University Press) Pg 295; “ H. L. A.
Hart is heir and torch bearer of a great tradition in the philosophy of law which is realist
and unromantic in outlook.”
2Joseph Raz, Authority, Law and Morality (Oxford University Press) Pg 295; “They can be
briefly, if somewhat roughly, stated as follows:

a. The Source Thesis

b. The Incorporation Thesis
c. The Coherence Thesis”
For Raz law is a reason of conforming behaviour that is an incidental reason existing for a particular
person, applying under certain special circumstances. The reference remaining to social facts, which
can be understood as a thing originating in the institutions or culture of a society which affects the
behaviour or attitude of an individual member of that society. Raz moves on to recognise that the
focus of his essay remains to defend source thesis.
For Raz Authority remains subjective and recognises the possibility of various conceptions.
Different conceptions of authority all aim at answering the question, “when is it justified not to seek
one’s own best understanding of what should be done, but rather to act according to the direction of
another?”.3 Authority for Raz can be understood as a combination of legitimate and defecto
authority. Legitimacy of authority can either be recognised or it claims to be legitimate. This
legitimate authority is either practical or theoretical or a combination of the two. In practical
authority the source (person/institution) remains the reason for action by subjects and theoretical
authority is the reason of belief behind the authority of the source. An interesting example that one
finds for the combination of these two concepts remain that off the arbitrator. In the practical sense
the decision of the arbitrator would remain the reason for action by the disputants and in the
theoretical sense arbitrators decision in itself is based on reasons that must reflect certain outcomes
like that of justice. For Raz the agreement or consent to accepting authority is binding.
Dependence and Preemptiveness of authority for Raz is connected. The best way to understand this
is by understanding Raz’s explanation of this connection based on the example of the arbitrator. If
the disputants acknowledge the arbitrator’s authority, the disputants belief that to be the reason of
action inevitably replacing the reason which was meant to be the reason for action. Further Raz
goes on to justify his example as universal by bringing the gap between adjudicative authority and
legislative authority. For this he uses the example of An Act of Parliament making it the duty of
parents to maintain their young, Raz goes on to say that Parents have such a duty independent of the
act and this in itself justifies the act. Raz thus, tries to bridge the gap between various authority
under the conception of practical authorities. According to Raz, the crucial feature that justifies the
imposition of authoritative requirements is its capacity to help subjects to conform to the reasons

3 Brian Bix. University of Minnesota Law School. “Raz, Authority, and Conceptual Analysis”; “For
Raz, the different conceptions of (legitimate) authority are alternative answers to the normative
question, "when (if ever) is it justified not to seek one's own best understanding of what should be
done, but rather to act according to the direction of another?"
that already apply to them.4 An obligation to obey the law entails a reason to do that which the law
requires, which can have nothing to do with the obligation to obey the law.
For Raz the conception of authority can be understood in the following three theses. The first two
theses all cover what Raz recognises as the service conception of authority.
• The Dependence Thesis: The directives given by authority must apply to the subjects and the
circumstances for which the directives are intended.
• The Normal Justification Thesis: A person can be acknowledged to have authority over another
person when the subject is more capable of following the reasons for certain directives if he
accepts them from the person more than if he tries to follow them directly.
• The Preemption Thesis: Authority should result in an action based on certain reasons
andreplaces some of the reasons on which action is based.
The Service conception of authority is explained best by Raz himself: 5

“The first two theses articulate what I shall call the service conception
of authority. They regard authorities as mediating between people and
the right reasons which apply to them, so that the authority judges and
pronounces what they ought to do according to right reason. The people
on their part take their cue from the authority whose pronouncements
replace for them the force of the dependent reasons. This last
implication of the service conception is made explicit in the preemption
thesis. The mediating role of authority cannot be carried out if its
subjects do not guide their actions by its instructions instead of by the
reasons on which they are supposed to depend. No blind obedience to
authority is here implied. Acceptance of authority has to be justified,
and this normally means meeting the conditions set in the justification
thesis.”

What Raz tries to explain here is that authority tells subject what they ought to do on the pretext of
right reasons that apply to them. For these people like in the case of arbitrator, the reasons are
replaced by the source. He says to count the reasons behind the source of authority and the
directive is to be guilty of double counting.
For Raz Law necessarily has defect authority. A legal system may not have legitimate authority but
it must consist of other features of authority to justify its claim of authority. One claim simply

4Luciano Venezia. Raz’s Normative Theory of Authority. Philosophical enquiries; Pg 2, “According

to Raz, the crucial feature that justifies the imposition of authoritative requirements is its capacity
to help subjects to conform to the reasons that already apply to them.”

5 Joseph Raz, Authority, Law and Morality (Oxford University Press) Pg 299
comes from the fact that law originates from sources officially recognised as authorities. Second
comes from the conception that the source has the right to impose obligations and the subject owe
the source allegiance. Third claim comes from the fact that the. Subject ought to obey the law as
required. Raz explains the third factor as the necessity to obey a bad law6 which can be best
understood as the legal justification for Racism and its propagation until repealed by the source
institution.
Understanding the conception of authority and its relation with law let us now look at the response
that Raz gives to philosophical anarchism, which denies that state has authority. It comes from the
conception of a person by Robert Paul Wolf which states that, “people’s primary obligation is to be
autonomous, to obey only their own moral laws.” The state claims authority over people so they
obey its directives which inevitable leads to a clash making a legitimate state impossible. Raz
recognises this analysis7 and attempts to refute it by his service conception of authority by
explaining the example of the arbitrator.
He calls this understanding premature for nay law to be able to claim authority it must come close
to the conceptions of authority. Thus, it may not have all the features but it will have some of the
characteristics. It is important that Raz states that a law can fail to have authority but only in certain
ways only. For Raz law is a system of directives which has authority till these directives are
authoritatively binding and at the sa,e time authority to the source exists only when the directives
issued are authoritatively binding. The fact that law can claim to have authority implies that it is
capable of having authority. Law typically will have the non- moral, non- normative attributes of
authority.
Raz then goes on to clarify that anarchists have to agree with the importance of legal institutions,
and this importance does not translate to them being good. This institutions express the collective
and binding judgement for the society (subject and context) as to how people should behave
(directive). These directives are not attributing moral merits, and the application of these directive

6Joseph Raz, Authority, Law and Morality (Oxford University Press) Pg 300, “Even a bad law, is the
inevitable official doctrine, should be obeyed for as long as it is in force, while lawful action is
taken to try and bring about its amendment or repeal.
7Joseph Raz, Authority, Law and Morality (Oxford University Press) Pg 300, “This peremptory
character has often led people to say that in accepting the authority of another one is surrendering
one's judgment to him, that the acceptance of authority is the denial of one's moral autonomy, and
so on. Some saw in these alleged features of authority a good deal of what often justifies submitting
to authority. Many more de rived from such reflections prove that acceptance of authority is wrong,
or even inconsistent with one's status as a moral agent.”
depends on the acceptance of merit.8 Thus, an institution has authority if it enables people to better
conform with reason.
CONCLUSION
Raz’s theory avoids an important critique of subject’s consent, but the normative theory has been
criticised on various other grounds Thomas Christiano argues that Raz‘s conception of authority
ignores the moral significance of disagreement among equal citizens about the proper organization
of their political communities and sees authority is undemocratic to which Raz agrees but does not
view it as a problem. Another critique comes from Bruno Leipold who states that Raz’s response to
philosophical anarchism strengthens political anarchism which claims anarchism as a better
alternative to the state9 , though personally I do not agree with this critique simply because for Raz
when he speaks of authority as a better way to follow directive does not necessarily mean that the
directive in itself needs an alternative.

REFERENCE:
1. Raz, Joseph (1985). Authority, Law and Morality. _The Monist_ 68 (3):295-324.
2. Raz, Joseph (1979). The Authority of Law. Chapter 12. Oxford University PressRaz, Joseph
(1985). Authority, Law and Morality. _The Monist_ 68 (3):295-324.
3. Leipold, B. Res Publica (2015) 21: 309.
4. Brian Bix, Raz, Authority, and Conceptual Analysis, 50 Am. J. Juris. 311 (2006)
5. Luciano Venezia. Raz’s Normative Theory of Authority. Philosophical enquiries, [Link]-
[Link], 2013, pp.95-110.

8Joseph Raz, Authority, Law and Morality (Oxford University Press) Pg 321, “Given the centrality
of that feature it is justified to interpret the action of law-makers who are in a hurry to get back
home, who vote without paying attention to what they are voting for, in the way described. Two
features stand out. First, while this is an evaluative judgment, it is not a judgment of the moral merit
of anything. Second, its application depends on the fact that the perception of importance of the
feature focused upon is shared in our society, that it is shared, among others, by the law-makers
themselves.”

Bruno Leipold, Political Anarchism and Raz’s Theory of Authority. University of Oxford
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