It is important to recognize that legitimacy, though not the same as authority, still depends on it. Since the overall relation between the two concepts is somewhat complex, let me review again. The state must seek to justify its rule if it is to achieve the authority, the acceptance of the right to institute binding rules on society, that is necessary if order and social cooperation are to be possible to any significant extent. For that reason, it must address its claim of legitimacy only to those within its territory whom it considers to be full-fledged members of society, for it is their allegiance alone that it seeks. From others (e.g., resident or visiting aliens) it demands merely submission.--Charles Larmore (2020) What is Political Philosophy? Princeton UP: 98.
l had not seen or spoken to Charles Larmore, one of my wonderful supervisors, for more than a decade when a visit to Brown brought us together a few years ago. Since I had not read his (2013) article, I was surprised by the direction of his thought (because unaware by his engagement with the revival of political realism in the reception of the (recall) posthumous works of Bernard Williams). Since I had then just taught Enzo Rossi's pro-seminar to the graduate students (Rossi is one of the contemporary leaders of this new type of political realism), and working with Paul Raekstad (another colleague and himself developing a version of political realism) on a paper, I was by accident fully immersed in the political realism literature ((recall here; here; here). I was also surprised by Larmore's resigned pessimism about the future of liberalism.
The engagement with political realism and the resigned pessimism are on display in What is Political Philosophy? A lucid and focused work that is simultaneously metaphilosophy and political philosophy. Larmore agrees with the political realists that the question of legitimacy is constitutive of political philosophy and helps distinguish it from moral philosophy (e.g., p. 5). He also claims it has priority over other questions in the field. In addition, in virtue of addressing the question of legitimacy, "political liberalism," and here Larmore also speaks for, and (simultaneously) corrects, Rawls, undertakes "a refoundation of the liberal tradition." (151)
Larmore's political realism responds to, and simultaneously accepts, reasonable disagreement as a feature of modernity. That is to say, and Larmore is explicit about this, he treats liberalism as a latecomer in the history of political theory (16; 123; 169). In addition, this entails that Larmore explicitly accepts Carl Schmitt's "important truth" that "every principle of political inclusion" is "also a principle of exclusion," (166-7) that is, consensus on the content of legitimacy is impossible.
At this point, one may well wonder what is so liberal about Larmore's political liberalism since it gives up on liberalism's universalism and the thought that each individual counts. (Recall that Schmitt's claim presupposes the existence of collectivities.) For, in Larmore's hands, while the principle of justification of legitimacy -- a "principle of respect" for persons -- is supposed to be moral in character, it is addressed to those who are or taken to be "citizens" or would be citizens and their "reasonable agreement," (77; see also 158-162).* Larmore is admirably frank about the (possible) exclusionary implications of this in some contexts (102-3/ 116).
Now, as an aside I consider the question of legitimacy, while important, a dead-end for the revival of the liberal tradition. You may ask why; short answer: liberals should stop focusing on justifying the state's coercion of people, and rather focus on articulating theoretically salient, emancipatory solutions to concrete problems individuals face in contemporary (political) life in light of an ambitious theoretical vision and, thereby, help re-invent the tradition.
Be that as it may, here I focus on what is, for lack of a better phrase, a mistake of articulation. For,, in the quoted passage above (and other places in his argument), Larmore conflates the nature and needs of political philosophy with the nature and needs of political life. For, let's grant, for the sake of argument, that Larmore is right about the centrality of legitimacy to political philosophy. And let's also grant him that "political rule" is the "solution" to the "need for cooperation and the basic human tendencies that render it difficult if not impossible." (82) This need and difficulty "form...the circumstances of politics." (82;** his "impossible" conveys a sense of Larmore's pessimism.) If true, it also gives a heroically, tragic quality to political life.
For, Larmore assumes without argument that authority and legitimacy presuppose an articulated attempt at justification. His reason for this presupposition is that Larmore wants to distinguish (again, let's stipulate), correctly, between mere (psychological) acceptance of a state's legitimacy by its citizens and the fact of legitimacy. And the fact of legitimacy must, according to Larmore be ground in some moral principle. He thinks a failure to do so muddles Williams' argument (and confuses Max Weber's readers). So, in what follows my objection is not to Larmore's attempt to ground the authority of political power in moral principles of some sort.
There are really two mistakes here: (i) Larmore assumes that a state can only be legitimate if it offers some kind of legitimation story, what Larmore (repeatedly) calls "a justification," (e.g., 105; 97, etc) for its authority; (ii) Larmore assumes that such authority is de facto required if the circumstance of politics are to be solved (" if order and social cooperation are to be possible to any significant extent.") While the first claim (i) can be interpreted as a conceptual claim, the second claim (ii) is a claim in political sociology or psychology. It is notable that Larmore offers no evidence for (ii). Machiavelli, who knew something about the circumstance of politics (in Larmore's sense), would deny (ii). For Machiavelli authority is maintained if "property nor...honor" of citizens "is touched."
Now in treating (i-ii) as mistakes I do not wish to deny that legitimations are recurring features of political societies. But to establish the legitimacy of a state (from a liberal perspective), the question is not what they say, but what they do (do the oppress, silence, terrorize, etc.). That is, what matters for liberal legitimacy -- say from the perspective of liberalism of fear -- is how people are treated, and can be expected to be treated, over time. It is odd that Larmore does not note this because as he says, the "guiding conviction of liberal thinking" really is "with how we should treat others." (12)
Now Larmore may response that since legitimacy involve the justified imposition of "enforceable rules" (e.g. 5)-- and enforceable rules must be articulated -- what is said is essential. The reason why Larmore would claims something like this is that he considers only two possible options to tackle the problems generated by the circumstance of politics: (a) reliance on "moral convictions." (39) This he (correctly) rejects because, as Mozi has taught before him, moral disagreement is (also) the predictable effect of the use of our reason. And if all people were systematically capable of acting from moral conviction no state would be needed among them. And (b) "the binding authority of laws, arrived at by legally established procedures." (39) Since he endorses (b) it means that for Larmore authority, and the legitimacy it helps generate, is essentially juridical in character (even if it is, in turn, secured by appeal to moral principle). And this is why Larmore slips, without commenting on it, between conceiving authority in terms of binding rules and in terms of binding laws. Once one thinks of authority as juridical in character, it might seems self-evident that justification of their authority has to be verbal.
Now, liberalism does have a fundamental commitment to the rule of law. And its absence is indeed a way in which a state may be (partially) illegitimate. (Larmore nicely argues that legitimacy comes in degrees.) But it does not follow that the justification for the rule of law is required for its authority. That is while liberalism is self-consciously philosophical in character (this is partially a feature of its lateness), it does not require the state to be philosophical in this way for it to have authority and be legitimate.
As Hume teaches, for rules to function as rules they do not require or originate in justification (even if they can be justified post facto). All effective authority may require is the coordination and stimulation of the right sort of rules long before they give rise to 'legally established procedures' or generate skilled citizens to justify them. Of course, once authority presents itself as principled, the principles appealed to can be evaluated and judged "by the moral assumptions on which they rest." (49) But Philosophy even political philosophy is a true human need, but it is not required for (liberal) authority.
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