A Survey of the History of Western Political Thought on Political Authority

Abstract

In the non-political field, authority is a social relationship based on personal needs and a psychological mechanism realized by respect. This determines that authority is characterized by fragmentation and potential (Chen, 2021). However, the inherent characteristics of authority are obviously disadvantageous to the rulers who pursue the general obedience of their subjects. Therefore, in the political field, authority must be transformed into a universal and unified political authority. Max Weber believes that authority is the possibility that a group of people will obey certain or all orders (Webber, 1978: p. 212). This also affected the academic research on political authority after the Second World War, which has never been divorced from Weber’s empirical research (for instance, Frank Furedi’s Authority: a Social Study and Richard Sennett’s Authority). In fact, reviewing the history of Western political thought, we can find that there are many political thinkers who try to think about political authority from a normative point of view, including Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and so on, but their understanding of political authority and the means of legalizing political authority are different. This paper believes that Hobbes’ understanding of political authority is closer to its essential attribute and plays an important role in the history of Western political thought, so it is necessary to focus on it. Of course, due to the limitations of the times, Hobbes’ view of political authority also has some defects, so it has been questioned by thinkers of different schools of contemporary thought. By examining Hobbes’ view of political authority, Yves Simon, the representative of Neo-Thomism, reconstructed the relationship between authority and liberty, and made a strong positive defense for political authority. Based on this, this paper has three purposes: first, by tracing back to the history of Western political thought, make a normative interpretation of political authority; second, to interpret the core meaning of Hobbes’ view of political authority; third, survey Yves Simon’s contemporary exposition of political authority.