The Exclusionary Power of Political Directives

Abstract

AbstractI defend the exclusionary power of political directives. The prevailing account, which I call the additive account, holds that a legitimate directive only provides a pro tanto obligation for subjects to comply. I show that it falls into a Goldilocks dilemma, giving either insufficient or excessive weight to these obligations. Pace the additive account, I argue that a legitimate directive not only gives subjects a pro tanto reason to comply but also excludes all the reasons bearing on its justifiability regarding subjects’ actions as required by the directive. Unlike Raz, who grounds the exclusionary power of legitimate directives on authorities’ supposedly superior epistemic competence, I justify it by drawing on Kantian political philosophy, which grants states a unique moral standing to make coercive decisions on behalf of their citizenry as a solution to the problem of unilateralism.