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Political authority is the right to rule — to issue commands that create obligations — while legitimacy is the property that makes authority morally justified rather than mere power. Philosophers distinguish de facto authority (actual power to compel) from de jure authority (the moral right to do so). Accounts of legitimacy invoke consent (Locke), fair procedure, natural duty (Rawls), and democratic participation. A central puzzle is the 'authority problem': even a just state seems to violate individual autonomy, since it claims a right to override individual judgment regardless of whether the commands are correct.
Work through the taxonomy: (1) what is the difference between authority and power? (2) what makes authority legitimate? (3) does legitimate authority generate genuine moral obligations? Compare consent-based views with 'natural duty' views (where we have a duty to support just institutions independent of consent).
From your study of social contract theory, you know that political philosophers have long tried to ground state authority in something beyond mere power — Hobbes in rational self-interest, Locke in natural rights and consent, Rousseau in the general will. Political authority and legitimacy is the direct descendant of that project: a systematic attempt to distinguish states that have the moral right to rule from those that merely have the power to compel.
The foundational distinction is between de facto and de jure authority. A well-organized criminal enterprise exercises de facto authority — people do what it demands because the cost of refusal is too high. But we do not think anyone has a moral obligation to pay the protection racket. A legitimate state, by contrast, makes a stronger claim: it asserts not just the power to require compliance but the moral right to do so, such that citizens who disobey are not just strategically unwise but doing something wrong. De jure authority, if real, generates genuine obligations — moral reasons to comply that go beyond fear of enforcement.
Consent-based views are the most intuitive starting point: a state is legitimate if, and because, those subject to it have consented to its authority. Locke is the paradigm case. The appeal is clear — consent respects individual autonomy and explains why the governed have special obligations to their state (they agreed to it) rather than to any random power center. The problem is equally clear: almost no one has explicitly consented to anything. Locke's appeal to tacit consent — the idea that staying in the country counts as agreement — faces the objection that staying is rarely a real choice when exit is costly or impossible. Later theorists have invoked fair-play (accepting the benefits of a cooperative scheme generates obligations) or hypothetical consent (what would rational persons agree to under fair conditions), but each move introduces new difficulties.
Rawls offered an important alternative: a natural duty account. On this view, we have a moral duty to support and comply with just institutions — not because we consented, but because just institutions are owed our support as a matter of justice itself. This avoids the consent problem but introduces a different one: if legitimacy is grounded in justice, what exactly is the relationship between the two? Can an unjust state be legitimate? Most political philosophers today say yes — legitimacy and justice are distinct dimensions. A democratically governed state with broadly fair procedures may be legitimate even while enacting policies that are morally wrong. This matters practically: it explains why political obligation can exist even in imperfect states, and it explains why revolution is not automatically justified whenever any injustice occurs.
Finally, philosophical anarchism — the view that no state actually has de jure authority over individuals — deserves to be taken seriously rather than dismissed. The 'authority problem' states it sharply: authority claims the right to override individual judgment regardless of whether the state's commands are correct. But if a command is wrong, shouldn't you disobey? And if you should always check whether a command is correct before obeying, how does the state's authority add anything beyond what your own reasoning already delivers? This is a genuine puzzle. Legitimate authority, if it exists, must do more than correlate with correct commands — it must provide a reason to comply even when you think the command might be wrong. Spelling out what that 'more' is remains one of political philosophy's central tasks.
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