The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey by Michael Huemer New York: Palgrave 2013. Pp. xii, 394. Index. 978-1137281654.

Abstract

In The Problem of Political Authority, Michael Huemer argues for anarchism, and so against the authority of state-made law and against the moral legitimacy of the use of force to compel obedience to this kind of law. He explains why the state lacks legitimate authority before suggesting reasons to think that it isn’t necessary as a source of social order. He opts for minimalist moral foundations, eschewing any sort of elaborate normative theory in favor of the intuitionist approach to moral reasoning he defended in his earlier Ethical Intuitionism; his decision to opt for minimalist foundations should make the book accessible to readers inclined to endorse a wide range of normative assumptions.