A challenge for non-anarchists

Political Philosophy
1

By “state” or “government”, I mean the whole ruling apparatus in countries, including legislators and laws, police, armies, etc.

There are countless examples of actions that would be considered morally wrong if performed by a regular person but permissible if done by state agents. Look no further than the assault and coercion stemming from the enforcement of laws.

Despite being a popular view, I have yet to see a good justification for believing in those privileges in the case of existing states. To make things clear, I propose a tentative framework:

We write C \rightarrow A to say: “If an agent satisfies the condition(s) (processes, situations, …) C, then it is morally permissible for the agent to do the action(s) A.” Some examples:

  • Consent given by X → have sex with X
  • Being very poor → steal from someone rich
  • Being chief of a tribe where X is born → demand that X follows the tribe’s traditions

A good justification must fulfill the three principles below. There is a degree of ambiguity, but I don’t think that’s too much of a problem, and I could clarify if needed.

The actuality principle: The conditions C must actually hold for the agent, here existing states.

The relevance principle: The conditions must explain why they permit the actions. There must be some sensible connection. This can be checked, for example, by imagining non-state agents fulfilling the conditions. Would those agents also have the right to do the actions mentioned?

The ground-level principle: This one is not necessary per se, but useful. The idea is to avoid highly abstract or loaded terms. The language should not obscure the relevant conditions justifying the actions, or smuggle in irrelevant stuff. Something like “Being a state → rule” would not be helpful. Avoid terms like “democracy”, “will of the people”, “social contract”, and be more descriptive about what exactly matters.

As a general term for those privileges, we may use the word “rule” in the right-hand side of the implication, but being somewhat precise would be interesting. Many believe, for example, that some laws are or can be unjust. A question we can ask, then, is how to justify some state privileges while avoiding condoning unjust lawful actions.

The challenge is then to provide a good justification for any set of such privileges (and explain why it is a good one). In other words, provide the conditions fulfilled by states (and implicitly not usually fulfilled by the regular person) that allow them to be morally justified in doing actions like coercing, assaulting, or imprisoning people.

Examples

I’ll present some justifications to see the framework in action.

Divine right of kings: It was argued by some that their legitimacy came from God himself. Basically, right granted by God → rule. The relevance might be acceptable if we believe God to be capable of doing such a thing. But the actuality principle fails. It’s unclear whether God ever did give the king those rights.

A consent theory: Those privileges come from people consenting to them. So, some people consented → rule. This fails the relevance principle, as it is not clear how some people consenting allows the state to rule over everyone. If restricted to “rule over those who consented”, then I fail to see how this is one of the privileges.

The framework should be able to handle consequentialist arguments somewhat, but in any case, if you don’t feel like it, you can just write the justification informally.

2

Thanks — I think your C → A framework is very clear, especially with the three constraints (actuality, relevance, ground-level). It does a good job of isolating where many standard justifications tend to break down.

Before going further, I just want to clarify one point about the scope, to make sure I’m not talking past your framework:

Are you treating the C → A structure as a purely theoretical / logical justification model,
or is it also intended to remain stable at the level of practical application?

I ask because the two might introduce slightly different constraints. At the theoretical level, the focus seems to be whether a condition C can justify A in principle. But at the application level, there may be an additional requirement that C can be applied consistently across comparable cases, without leading to instability depending on interpretation.

Related to this, I had a small structural question about how conditions C are treated in your framework.

In your setup, C seems to function as a single layer of justification. But it looks like some candidate justifications might rely on different kinds of dependence, rather than just different conditions.

For instance, there seems to be a difference between:
• conditions grounded in causal or practical dependence (e.g. coordination, enforcement), and
• conditions grounded in something closer to status or role-based dependence (e.g. acting as a collective agent or institution)

If these are treated as the same kind of condition, the relevance test might become sensitive to which type of dependence is implicitly assumed, especially when comparing with non-state agents.

So one question that might be worth clarifying is:

Do you see all admissible C as belonging to the same type of dependence,
or would you allow that different types might need to be kept distinct for the relevance principle to remain stable?

More generally, it seems possible that some disagreements about justification might not come from which conditions hold, but from whether structurally different kinds of dependence are being treated as if they were the same.

I’m happy to stay within whichever scope you’re aiming for — just wanted to make sure I’m aligning with how you intend the framework to be used.

3

C can be almost anything. The two kind of conditions you present are obviously different but both can be under C and even mixed. You need not see it as a ‘single’ layer of justification. As long as it’s ground level in its description. I am not sure what you mean by the (in)stability of the relevance principle.

4

Greetings fellow anarchist. I am a baby in anarchism and don’t understand it yet really, only that is seems far more appealing than capitalism and I vacillate between it and communism. Ready to learn more.

5

Hello! We probably aren’t thinking about the same thing when you say “anarchism” or “capitalism,” but that’s fine. Anarchism is a lot of things, but to be clear, I used “non-anarchist” in the title to mean a very specific thing: the belief in (some) moral privileges for existing states. This doesn’t have a lot to do with capitalism or communism.

I don’t even claim that not having this belief actually makes you an anarchist; it’s just to have a short, catchy (although that didn’t seem to work) title.

6

Indeed, lol. So you don’t identify as an anarchist in the political ideology sense? From my understanding, despite what some self proclaimed anarchists might say, about them being neither Left or Right, anarchism as a movement can be traced back to the far left and coming out of communism.

From what I have read it is more a refinement of communism than something with no traceable heritage to what went before it, as some would have you believe.

7

So you don’t identify as an anarchist in the political ideology sense?

It’s more that I don’t believe there is one anarchism in the political ideology sense. So I don’t think it’s very helpful to talk about “anarchism”. There are some ideas associated with anarchism that I would not agree with. And If I had to present myself I wouldn’t say I am an anarchist (because I don’t find it an helpful term to describe my position).

It definitely can and you could use that to argue about what the word “anarchism” should refer to and it wouldn’t matter to me, I’ll avoid the word anyway.

8

Then you were deceitful in your initial use of the word. You cannot use a word that everyone else collectively understands to mean one thing then complain when they assume you mean the widely accepted definition of it. Well you can do it, which you did, but it causes a lot of confusion as has happened.

If you want to use a word idiosyncratically you must say that at the outset and give your own definition of it.

9

everyone else collectively understands to mean one thing

but that’s not true. It means many things depending on the person.

I don’t think I deceived anyone. I never presented myself as an anarchist and I think it’s fair to say that the challenge isn’t relevant to anarchists. But the challenge isn’t relevant to all non-anarchists (by your definition) only most of them.

If you want to use a word idiosyncratically

It’s not an idiosyncratic use of the word, but that depends on your sphere. Do you know about ‘philosophical anarchism’?

Some ‘real’ (Left) anarchists would probably not consider that anarchism (and they would be right on some level), but again, this is all semantic. I want to avoid that, but I wanted to have a simple title that describes things fairly, and I think it does.

10

Any group of people greater than a certain size–perhaps any group–will involve conflict and coercion. It’s inevitable. Not all acts of coercion are considered morally wrong, whether performed by an individual or the group. As I see it, the goal in any group would be to minimize coercion to the extent possible and apply it fairly. Anarchism has always seemed to me to be a fantasy of some sort of perfectable humanity. Just that–a fantasy.

Perhaps this is nitpicking, but it bothers me. It’s not a “privilege,” it’s authority.

Individual coercive acts aren’t what requires external justification. It’s process that matters. The best way to ensure just rules is to make them fair–they should apply to everyone equally. Of course, that never works perfectly in real life. The best we can do is the best we can do.

12

Any group of people greater than a certain size–perhaps any group–will involve conflict and coercion. It’s inevitable. Not all acts of coercion are considered morally wrong, whether performed by an individual or the group.

I don’t think I suggested the opposite of what is written here. So I can grant you this.

As I see it, the goal in any group would be to minimize coercion to the extent possible and apply it fairly

Great! And you think states do this?

Anarchism has always seemed to me to be a fantasy of some sort of perfectable humanity. Just that–a fantasy.

Well, I don’t know what anarchism you came across, so I don’t know if my specific claim is part of this anarchism fantasy. My claim is simply that there is nothing about states that justifies them being morally allowed to do what would be immoral for the average person.

It’s not a “privilege,” it’s authority.

Well, yes, this authority is a privilege. You believe states have authority/legitimacy, so it is morally permissible for them to do X when it isn’t permissible for the average person. All I am asking is how the states acquired this authority.

Individual coercive acts aren’t what requires external justification. It’s process that matters. The best way to ensure just rules is to make them fair–they should apply to everyone equally. Of course, that never works perfectly in real life. The best we can do is the best we can do.

You might be confused about what I am asking but I explained it above so I won’t repeat.

If I understand it correctly, you think some process justifies the moral difference between states and simple individuals committing similar acts. If that’s the case, then yeah, I want to hear what this process is.

13

My comment was that the immoral act you identified, coercion, is not necessarily immoral.

That’s not what I said. What I said is that coercion is not necessarily immoral for either a person or a state.

14

that coercion is not necessarily immoral for either a person or a state.

How does that matter?

Let’s take two questions:

  1. Are some actions immoral for the average individual?
  2. Among those actions, are some of them morally permissible if performed by a state agent (e.g., a cop)?

If you answer yes to both questions, then you can take the challenge and explain why you believe the answer to (2) is yes.

We can also go the other way around: among every action done by state agents considered morally permissible, are there some that would be immoral for the average individual to do? If the answer is yes then the challenge can be taken.

I mentioned assault too, if you don’t think the morality of coercion depends on whether it’s done by the state or not.

15

OF course some acts of coercion are justifiable. Nonetheless violent coercion is in and of itself a bad thing (some bad things are justifiable morally). So violent coercion requires justification.

That being the case, utopia must be an anarchy.

That being the case, Christian heaven (which is ruled by God’s will and law) cannot be utopian (as Lucifer discovered).

Sorry for the aside. Carry on.

16

How I would justify the permissibility of keeping officials in office for committing moral wrongdoings that are sufficient for culpability among regular citizens would be as long as officials don’t commit morally impermissible acts that, viewed from the purview of an impartial spectator, provide strong evidence for the official being prone to dangerous irrationality. What I would mean by the last term, dangerous irrationality, would be any action that, given that one’s faculties of reason are functional, would never commit themselves. For example, it is not dangerously irrational to look at the sky while it is noon and declare that, from the position where the sun lies, it seems to be 11:00AM, rather than 12:00PM. The agent making this judgement may be quite wrong, but it doesn’t provide any good evidence of them being irrational, because they made a judgement that does not deviate grossly from the truth, and on the basis of quite decent evidence and reason, such as analyzing the position of the sun in the sky. But what would be dangerously irrational is if this agent looked at the sky while it is midnight, and, looking at the position of the moon, believed that it is noon, rather than midnight. This judgement is irrational, because it is a belief that is contrary to all of the evidence that, were someone’s faculties of reason functional, never would’ve come to as well. So, many of us, being reasonable, would’ve probably come to the same conclusion as the first guy in judging it to be 11:00AM despite it truly being 12:00PM, but none of us would’ve come to the same conclusion as the second guy, who thought that it was noon even though it was truly midnight.
In this same sense, it would only seem reasonable to oust an official from office if they, under the conditions of whatever morally impermissible action they decide to commit, do so despite the action being dangerously irrational, or an action that, if we stood in the same shoes as them, looked at the motives for the immoral action made as is, absent of our personal prejudices against the action, and from this impartial viewpoint, found it to be something that we would’ve never committed ourselves, then such an official, rationally, ought to be ousted for the action.
For example, it would, under this view, not be a sufficient ground to oust an official from office for committing money-laundering if they, under specific monetary conditions, did so if, say, the income by which they attain for their service, in relation to the net income of the nation which they serve under (Say somewhere rich like Switzerland), is very meagre, and so ought to be reimbursed more sufficiently, and so, while one may view the action impartially, and so determine that such an action, regardless of the causal motives resulting in it, is still immoral, one ought still to tell to themselves, were they in the position of the official, that their reasons for doing so are, in no meaningful sense, irrational, and in many senses deeply rational, and so we ourselves would, in his position, likely do precisely the same thing. But now flip the variables around, and say that the official commits money-laundering despite himself being very rich, while the nation which he serves for is, by relation, very low income (Say, the DRK in Africa), then were we to view this action with impartial eyes, we could say that this action is deeply, and dangerously, irrational, because for what reason ought the official do such a thing? Doing so doesn’t solve any personal financial difficulties, and doing such a thing exacerbates the monetary issues of the nation which they serve for, and therefore, doing nothing for himself, while doing much, which is deadly, to his constituents. Therefore, I would consider this a robust, relatively intuitive, and generally a quite fair, system by which to determine what makes ousting an official permissible.
Here is how it stacks up to your three conditions:

Actuality principle (C must actually hold for agent A): This holds quite well, and can be structured thus: If the official adheres to condition C (Not committing an immoral action that an impartial rational spectator would never possibly do), then agent A (The official), is not justified in being ousted by constituents.

Relevance principle: This also holds, because the condition of the immoral action (insofar as it isn’t dangerously irrational), not being a sufficient grounds to oust an official, seems sensible for making the official’s action permissible, because if your impartial reason—apart from what your own personal prejudices might declare—make the immoral action of the official seem plausible for oneself to make were they in their place, then it would be in a sense hypocritical, if not a blatant special pleading fallacy, to condemn the official for the action if you, yourself, likely would’ve committed precisely the same action if you used pure impartial reason alone to observe the immoral action as being, in a sense, plausible, and reasonable, for oneself to make.

Ground-level principle: Also holds, because this standard is very simple to comprehend: If one’s rational faculties—deployed impartially—make the immoral action seem plausible, and possibly rational, for oneself to make, then, even if the action is still itself immoral, it would therefore lack a grounds for ousting an official.

This is quite a long post by me already, so if one can see a possible outlet to attack my standard that I might’ve not yet covered, then say something.

17

This is running under the assumption that ‘privileges’ are what? You need to explicate this following your ‘ground-level principle’.

My point being that practically everyone is born with certain advantages (I am assuming this is basically what you mean by ‘privilege’). Why does there need to be justification for this? If I am born with the physical disposition to be tall and strong, then I would argue it is faulty to ask me to ‘justify’ this.

How is a state ‘justified’ in any action is dependent upon popular opinion. This is also how you speak here asking:

Does it matter? If it does then so does the choice of the population. The issue with states is that in the past people had some kind of choice in participating or opting out of state rule, but this is almost completely absent today.

Such is covered by Karl Popper in his work Open society and its Enemies

What do you make of his remarks?

How about Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia? How does you thinking fall comparatively with these thinkers?

This might give me a better idea of what you are exploring.

18

As I noted, as I see it, under certain circumstances coercion may be acceptable for either an individual or a state. It also might be unacceptable for either. I thought you are saying there is no acceptable coercion for a state. If that’s not what you mean, perhaps we don’t disagree.

Again, for the issue of coercion it depends on the the situation. Any action that is not for a legitimate purpose might not be acceptable for either. You’ve only given coercion as an example. What else did you have in mind.

I don’t think the answer is any different.

I thought you meant assault to mean physical coercion. Again, that might be acceptable for either the state or an individual. If you meant something different, be more specific.

19

This is running under the assumption that ‘privileges’ are what?

Well the privilege is that states are morally permissible to do what would be immoral for the average individual. At least if you believe that, if you don’t then the challenge isn’t for you.

Why does there need to be justification for this? If I am born with the physical disposition to be tall and strong, then I would argue it is faulty to ask me to ‘justify’ this.

I am asking for a justification of your belief. If you believe you are tall and strong, then a justification could be that you know the average height is X and you took your height and it’s greater than X. There is nothing faulty here.

Imagine asking someone who believes men should have the right to vote but not women to justify their belief.

How is a state ‘justified’ in any action is dependent upon popular opinion.

It doesn’t unless you believe in some form of moral relativism but then sure that’s also a justification we can discuss.

Does it matter? If it does then so does the choice of the population

I am talking generally, so everyone in the world outside of state agents if you want. But whether you answer yes or no, I don’t dispute that. I am posing a challenge to those who would respond yes and yes to the other question.

What do you make of his remarks?

What remarks? If you know what these thinkers would say to my challenge, then please enlighten me.

20

Sure, “actions” here can refer to very specific situations. So take what you would consider unacceptable coercion if done by the average individual and ask if for all those instances, it is still unacceptable if done by a state agent. If the answer is no then you can take the challenge.

Or the other way around, take what you would consider acceptable coercion if done by a state agent and replace only the state agent with an average individual and ask if, for all those instances, the coercion is still acceptable. If the answer is no then you can take the challenge.

21

There is if you are asking for a moral justification where none is needed. How do we discern empircal truths from subjective opinions when it comes to applying the label ‘privilege’ and asking for moral justification in the appropriate situation.

Do you think being born tall and strong requires moral justification. I hope not.