PHILOS 1B03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Orbital Inclination, De Jure
5 May 2017
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Why keep a promise: it is for the advantage of society they should keep them; and if they do not, that, as far as punishment will go, they should be made to keep them. Would it then be right to make laws, and apply punishment to oblige men to observe them?" (69: because these promises undermine utility, they are non-binding. Government authority is legitimate only as long as its rule provides benefit to the greatest number. If the condition of utility is met, the duty of citizens to obey follows, and not otherwise. Obedience to an external command (heteronomy) may coincide with an individual"s autonomous command, but this coincidence does not involve acknowledgement of another"s claim to authority. Hence, the concept of a de jure legitimate state would appear to be vacuous, and philosophical anarchism would seem to be the only reasonable political belief for an enlightened man. " (77)
