Against Philosophical Anarchism
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Springer Nature B.V. 2020
AND FABIAN WENDT*
AGAINST PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM
(Accepted 18 February 2020) ABSTRACT. Philosophical anarchists claim that all states lack political authority and are illegitimate, but that some states are nevertheless morally justified and should not be abolished. I argue that philosophical anarchism is either incoherent or collapses into either statism or political anarchism.
It has proven difficult to show that (at least some) states have political authority. Many philosophers have therefore been tempted to accept the anarchist claim that all states are illegitimate. On the other hand, most philosophers understandably shy away from advocating the abolishment of the state. Philosophical anarchists like A. John Simmons and Leslie Green have brought the promise that one can have it both ways. According to them, one can endorse the radical anarchist claim that all states are illegitimate without drawing radical practical conclusions. This makes philosophical anarchism an initially attractive position. I will argue that the promises of philosophical anarchism are illusory. I proceed in seven steps. First, I introduce philosophical anarchism (Section I) and explain how it differs from political anarchism on the one hand and statism on the other hand (Section II). I then spell out why philosophical anarchism is either incoherent (Section III) or collapses into either political anarchism (Section IV) or statism (Section V). I end with a discussion of objections (Section VI) and a conclusion (Section VII). I. PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM
Philosophical anarchism upholds the following set of claims:
FABIAN WENDT
Philosophical Anarchism (1) States do not have political authority. (2) States are illegitimate if they do not have political authority. (3) Some states justifiably exist, and so we should not aim at abolishing them. (4) Some states are justified in doing (some of) the things that states typically do, like enacting and enforcing (certain kinds of) laws.
Let me briefly explain each of these claims. On (1): To have political authority would mean to have the right to rule, which is a bundle of more specific rights. There is some disagreement about what these more specific rights are, but the Hohfeldian claim-right to be obeyed, the liberty-right to enact and coercively enforce laws (within certain limits) and the power to thereby impose duties1 have been regarded as the most important among them. Recently, some have argued that the claim-right to be obeyed is not essential for the right to rule.2 For the purposes of this paper, I can stay neutral on this issue. An important feature of political authority is that it applies to all citizens and all persons on a state’s territory. A state that merely has authority over some citizens and some persons on its territory does not have political authority as we conceive it.3 Anarchists disagree as to why states do not have political authority (and I will try to stay neutral on this as well). Robert Paul Wolff thinks that no state could possibly
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