a group of persons who have supreme authority within a given territory or over a certain population (p. 4)
- the state may be defined as a group of persons who are acknowledged to have supreme authority within a territory – acknowledged, that is, 'by those over whom the authority is asserted. (descriptive)
- the state is a group of persons who have the right to exercise supreme authority within a territory (prescriptive/ normative)
when the concept in question is nonempirical, its deduction must proceed in a different manner. All normative concepts are nonempirical, for they refer to what ought to be rather than to what is. Hence, we cannot justify the use of the concept of (normative) supreme authority by presenting instances. We must demonstrate by an a priori argument that there can be forms of human community in which some men have a moral right to rule. In short, the fundamental task of political philosophy is to provide a deduction of the concept of the state (p. 8).
- the commanded subjects already have their independent obligation
- evil consequences of defiance far outweigh the indignity of submission
- beneficent effects of government command
Obedience is not a matter of doing what someone tells you to do. It is a matter of doing what he tells you to do because he tells you to do it. Legitimate, or de jure, authority thus concerns the grounds and sources of moral obligation (p. 9).
- moral principles which ought to guide the state in its lawmaking
- under what conditions it is right for the individual to obey the laws
- social ideals of equality and achievement
- the principles of punishment
- the justifications for war
attempting to determine what one ought to do, that lays upon one the additional burdens of gaining knowledge, reflecting on motives, predicting outcomes, criticizing principles, etc. (p. 12)
so long as we recognize our responsibility for our actions, and acknowledge the power of reason within us, we must acknowledge as well the continuing obligation to make ourselves the authors of such commands as we may obey (p. 17).
If all men have a continuing obligation to achieve the highest degree of autonomy possible, then there would appear to be no state whose subjects have a moral obligation to obey its commands. Hence, the concept of a de jure legitimate state would appear to be vacuous, and philosophical anarchism would seem to be the only reasonable political belief for an enlightened man (p. 19).
men cannot be free so long as they are subject to the will of others, whether one man ( a monarch) or several ( aristocrats ) . But if men rule themselves, if they are both law-givers and law-obeyers, then they can combine the benefits of government with the blessings of freedom. Rule for the people is merely benevolent slavery, but rule by the people is true freedom. Insofar as a man participates in the affairs of state, he is ruler as well as ruled…
The government of a democratic state is then, strictly speaking, no more than a servant of the people as a whole, charged with the execution of laws which have been commonly agreed upon (p. 21-22).
Under unanimous direct democracy, every member of the society wills freely every law which is actually passed. Hence, he is only confronted as a citizen with laws to which he has consented. Since a man who is constrained only by the dictates of his own will is autonomous, it follows that under the directions of unanimous direct democracy, men can harmonize the duty of autonomy with the commands of authority.
Each man, in a manner of speaking, encounters his better self in the form of the state, for its dictates are simply the laws which he has, after due deliberation, willed to be enacted (p. 23).
- community of persons inspired by some all-absorbing religious or secular ideal
- a community of rationally self-interested individuals may discover that it can only reap the fruits of cooperation by maintaining unanimity (classical laissez-faire economy ruled by the laws of the market place)
Unless there is to be a recall election on the occasion of each unforeseen deliberation, the citizens will be forced to choose as their representative a man whose general "platform" and political bent suggests that he will, in the future, vote as they imagine they would themselves, on issues which neither the citizens nor the representative yet have in mind (p. 29).
So long as I do not, either in person or through my agent, join in the enactment of the laws by which I am governed, I cannot justly claim to be autonomous (p. 30).
If a citizen cannot even find a candidate whose views coincide with his own, then there is no possibility at all that he will send to the parliament a genuine representative (p. 32).
a political community which conducted its business by means of "instant direct democracy" would be immeasurably closer to realizing the ideal of genuine democracy than we are in any so-called democratic country today (p. 36).
The initial response to a system of instant direct democracy would be chaotic, to be sure. But very quickly, men would learn what is now manifestly not true-that their votes made a difference in the world, an immediate, visible difference. There is nothing which brings on a sense of responsibility so fast as that awareness (p. 36).
Can anyone deny that instant direct democracy would generate a degree of interest and participation in political affairs which is now considered impossible to achieve? (p. 37)
As justifications for an individual's autonomous decision to cooperate with the state, they may be perfectly adequate; but as demonstrations of the authority of the state – as proofs, that is, of the right of the state to command the individual and of his obligation to obey, whatever may be commanded – they fail completely…
A man might find that his affairs flourished in a dictatorship or monarchy, and even that the welfare of the people as a whole was effectively advanced by the policies of such a state (p. 40).
A promise to abide by the will of the majority creates an obligation, but it does so precisely by giving up one's autonomy (p. 41).
the citizens have created a legitimate state at the price of their own autonomy! They have bound themselves to obey laws which they do not will, and indeed even laws which they vigorously reject. Insofar as democracy originates in such a promise, it is no more than voluntary slavery (p. 42)
- No idea on future outcomes
- Equally promising alternatives
- rewards or burdens are to be distributed among equally deserving (or undeserving ) citizens, and the nature of the item to be distributed makes it impossible to divide it and parcel out equal shares
Briefly, there is a fundamental difference between those obstacles to decision which are outside our control, such as ignorance, and those obstacles which are at least theoretically within our control, such as psychological conflict (in the individual) or disagreement (in the society as a whole) . Whereas we have no reason to think that we could ever completely overcome natural obstacles, even in an ideal society, we must suppose that some method exists for resolving conflicts among rational men of good will which allows them to concert their activities without forfeiting their autonomy. The general adoption of decision by lot would violate the autonomy of the citizens (pp. 47-48).
It is Rousseau's claim that when a political community deliberates together on the general good and embodies its deliberations in general laws, it thereby acquires legitimate authority over all the members of the deliberating body, or parliament. Thenceforward, each member of the society has a moral obligation to obey the laws which have been willed by the collectivity (p. 49).
When any law is proposed to the assembly of the people, the question is not precisely to enquire whether they approve the proposition or reject it, but if it is conformable or not to the general will, which is their will. Each citizen, in giving his suffrage, states his mind on that question; and the general will is found by counting the votes. When, therefore, the motion which I opposed carries, it only proves to me that I was mistaken, and that what I believed to be the general will was not so (p. 50, Book IV of Social Contract).
- 手段與可能目的不符
- 相關知識是可以學習的
- 在有更多知識後會改進行動
He thinks, finally, that the proper test of these matters is a vote, in which the majority must inevitably be correct. Hence, when a member of the assembly "gives his suffrage," he is not expressing his preference, but rather offering his opinion on the character of the proposed law...
Since the majority are always right, a member of the minority will by that fact be revealed as supporting inappropriate means to his own end in short, the minority are like the individual who dashes for the wrong train, or the intern who prescribes the wrong treatment (p. 54).
- Confusion of assembly attempting to aim at general good and the one which actually succeeds
- Three possible conditions of the assembly:
- the citizenry may vote on the basis of private interest, in which case they are not even attempting to realize the general good (“aggregate will”)
- the people may strive to achieve the general good, but choose poor laws because of their ignorance, or simply the unpredictability of important aspects of the problems which they face
- the assembly of the people may aim at the general good and hit it (only this, if happens in all cases, has authority in Rousseau argument)
- Only concern two questions “Which law do you prefer?” and “Which law tends to the general good?”, but not the third, “Which alternative will win?”
- If majority must be correct, then the vote becomes a prediction of choices to prevail but not for general good
Modern interest-group democracy is, under some circumstances, an effective means of reducing frustrations, or at least of reducing the connection between frustration and political disaffection. But many other forms of political organization might accomplish this result, such as benevolent autocracy or charismatic dictatorship. If democracy is to make good its title as the only morally legitimate form of politics, then it must solve the problem of the heteronomous minority (p. 58).
That would be like saying that I prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla when I am offered chocolate first, but prefer vanilla to chocolate when I am offered vanilla first! (p. 63)
there is some one-dimensional array of all the alternatives, on which each individual can locate his first choice, and which has the property that for every individual, the farther to the right an alternative is from his first choice, the less he prefers it, and the farther to the left an alternative is from his first choice, the less he prefers it (p. 64)
- imperfect rationality of men
- the passions and private
- limitations of intellect and knowledge
- embrace philosophical anarchism and treat all governments as non-legitimate bodies whose commands must be judged and evaluated in each instance before they are obeyed
- give up as quixotic the pursuit of autonomy in the political realm and submit ourselves (by an implicit promise) to whatever form of government appears most just and beneficent at the moment (p. 71)
It is out of the question to give up the commitment to moral autonomy. Men are no better than children if they not only accept the rule of others from force of necessity, but embrace it willingly and forfeit their duty unceasingly to weigh the merits of the actions which they perform (p. 72).
The state is a social institution, and therefore no more than the totality of the beliefs, expectations, habits, and interacting roles of its members and subjects. When rational men, in full knowledge of the proximate and distant consequences of their actions, determine to set private interest aside and pursue the general good, it mustbe possible for them to create a form of association which accomplishes that end without depriving some of them of their moral autonomy. The state, in contrast to nature, cannot be ineradicably other (p. 78).
- collective pursuit of some external national goal
- collective pursuit of some internal goal which requires the organization and coordination of the activities of large numbers of people
- maintenance of our industrial economy whose functional differentiation and integration are advanced enough to sustain an adequately high level of production
Only extreme economic decentralization could permit the sort of voluntary economic coordination consistent with the ideals of anarchism and affluence. At the present time, of course, such decentralization would produce economic chaos, but if we possessed a cheap, local source of power and an advanced technology of small-scale production, and if we were in addition willing to accept a high level of economic waste, we might be able to break the American economy down into regional and subregional units of manageable size…
But in return for this price, men would have increasing freedom to act autonomously. In effect, such a society would enable all men to be autonomous agents, whereas in our present society, the relatively few autonomous men are-as it were-parasitic upon the obedient, authority-respecting masses (pp. 81-82).
On the side of pure theory, I have been forced to assume a number of very important propositions about the nature, sources, and limits of moral obligation. To put it bluntly, I have simply taken for granted an entire ethical theory. On the side of practical application, I have said almost nothing about the material, social, or psychological conditions under which anarchism might be a feasible mode of social organization (p. xxvii).
To recognize this truth is both liberating and sobering: liberating because it frees us from the illusion that with sufficient analytical skill, we can somehow hit upon a scheme that will appeal to all rational persons of good will; sobering because it requires each of us honestly to acknowledge the nature of his or her commitments and interests, and not to hide behind false claims of objectivity. The simple fact is that genuine direct unanimous self-legislation is the foundation of the truly legitimate state, and every other political arrangement is a compromise covertly or overtly designed to aid some interests in society and frustrate others (p. xxi).
If Political Theory is the search for the fundamental principles of legitimate authority, as I suggested in the opening pages of In Defense of Anarchism, then Political Theory is dead. In its place you must put political action, guided by reason and directed toward those collective goals to which you and your comrades have committed yourselves. If you have no comrades, then neither this little book nor anything else can help you (p. xxv).
