Autonomy, Authority, and Answerability

Abstract

One of the most difficult questions about authority is how deference to authority could possibly be compatible with autonomy. Autonomy seems to require that we engage in practical deliberation and come to our own decisions regarding how we will act. Deference to authority, by contrast, seems to require that we suspend deliberation and do what the authority commands precisely because he or she commands it. Authoritative directives purport to give us reasons to act that are, as HLA Hart puts it, both peremptory (they are intended to cut off or exclude our own deliberation) and content-independent (their normative force does not depend on the merits of the commanded course of action).1 One who responds to an authoritative directive by considering the pros and cons of the commanded act and then deciding (on the merits) to comply does not, properly speaking, obey or defer to authority, but continues to reserve ultimate practical authority for herself. And, one might wonder, why shouldn’t she? The conflict between autonomy and deference will seem all the more pressing if, like Robert P Wolff, we think of autonomy as a moral duty. If we are morally obligated to make up our own minds, the very idea of legitimate authority seems to come under threat. Many would challenge the idea that we have such a duty, at least thus described. Indeed, in a complex world we may sometimes have good reason (perhaps even an obligation) to defer to the judgements of others. Scott Shapiro, however, argues convincingly that the apparent conflict between autonomy and authority cannot be so easily resolved. Shapiro suggests that the puzzle is best understood as concerning claims about ‘the space of reasons’, and, more precisely, the question of whether one can ever justify one’s actions simply through appeal to authority.2 It might seem that another’s mere say-so is not the sort of thing appeal to which could possibly count as an adequate or even relevant reason for acting. If (2011) 2(1) Jurisprudence 161–179