PHILOS 3Q03 Chapter 2: Raz Authority, Law, Morality [ Required Reading Summary ]
8 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Raz Authority, Law, Morality
-Section 1, 2 and Postscript
-The sources Thesis: all law is source based
-The Incorporation Thesis: All law is source based, or entailed in Source Based Law
-The Coherence Thesis: The Law consists of sourced based law together with the morally
soundest justification of source based law
-LAW MUST BE sourced based
Section 1: Nature of Authority
-legitimate and defacto’ authority
-The latter either claims to be legitimate or is believed to be so, and can impose their will on all
their subjects that want to follow them
-Dependence Theory : All authoritative directives should be based, among other factors, on
reasons which apply to the subjects of those directives and which bear on the circumstances
covered by the directives. Such reasons I shall call dependent reasons.
-Normal Justification Theory: The normal and primary way to establish that a person should
be acknowledged to have authority over another person involves showing that the alleged
subject is likely better to comply with reasons which apply to him (other than the alleged
authoritative directives) if he accepts the directives of the alleged authority as authoritatively
binding and tries to follow them, than if he tries to follow the reasons which apply to him
directly
-The Preemption Thesis: The fact that an authority requires performance of an action is a
reason for its performance which is not to be added to all other relevant reasons when
assessing what to do, but should replace some of them
-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 pro nounces what they ought to do according to right reason.
ructions instead of by the reasons on which they are supposed to de pend.
-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
Section 2: Application of Authority relevant to our sense of Law
-any legal force in power anywhere has defacto’ authority
-claim authority it must be capable of having it, it must be a system of a kind which is capable
in principle of possessing the requisite moral properties of authority. These considerations, I
shall argue, create a weighty argument in favour of the sources thesis. Let us review them
step by step
-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.
-Note that nothing in this suggestion assumes that all the necessary features of the law are
necessary features of every practical authority. The law may well have others. Indeed I am
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The sources thesis: all law is source based. The incorporation thesis: all law is source based, or entailed in source based law. The coherence thesis: the law consists of sourced based law together with the morally soundest justi cation of source based law. The latter either claims to be legitimate or is believed to be so, and can impose their will on all their subjects that want to follow them. Dependence theory : all authoritative directives should be based, among other factors, on reasons which apply to the subjects of those directives and which bear on the circumstances covered by the directives. The rst two theses articulate what i shall call the service conception of authority. No blind obedience to authority is here implied. Acceptance of authority has to be justi ed, and this normally means meeting the conditions set in the justi cation thesis. Section 2: application of authority relevant to our sense of law.
