Concept
Authority
Overview
Authority is commonly understood as the legitimate power of a person or group over other people.
In a civil state, authority may be practiced by legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, each of which has authority and is an authority.
The term "authority" has multiple nuances and distinctions within various academic fields ranging from sociology to political science, including religious studies.
The term authority identifies the political legitimacy, which grants and justifies rulers' right to exercise the power of government; and the term power identifies the ability to accomplish an authorized goal, either by compliance or by obedience; hence, authority is the power to make decisions and the legitimacy to make such legal decisions and order their execution.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
If increasing the activity of the government is a sufficient remedy, power is concentrated in the hands of one or two of its members: in this case the change is not in the authority of the laws, but only in the form of administering them. If, on the other hand, the peril is of such a kind that the paraphernalia of the laws are an obstacle to their preservation, the method is to nominate a supreme ruler, who shall…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The social contract & discourses
States what Authority is; names Authority several times.
When there is no form of government established by long possession, the present possession is sufficient to supply its place, and may be regarded as the second source of all public authority. Right to authority is nothing but the constant possession of authority, maintained by the laws of society and the interests of mankind; and nothing can be more natural than to join this constant possession to the present one…
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
Names Authority several times; states what Authority is.
For that which in speaking of goods and possessions, is called an Owner, and in latine Dominus, in Greeke Kurios; speaking of Actions, is called Author. And as the Right of possession, is called Dominion; so the Right of doing any Action, is called AUTHORITY. So that by Authority, is alwayes understood a Right of doing any act: and Done By Authority, done by Commission, or Licence from him whose right it is…
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Names Authority several times; states what Authority is.
Philosophers who discussed Authority
- Ludwig Büchner
- John Stuart Mill
- Max Weber
- Joseph de Maistre
- Julius Evola
- Thomas Hobbes
- Marsilius of Padua
- Michel Foucault
- Peter Kropotkin
- Hannah Arendt
- Avital Ronell
Related ideas
- Executive (government)
- Government
- Geneva
- Emile, or On Education
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Sociology
- Leviathan (Hobbes book)
- The Social Contract
- Max Weber
- Plato
- Political philosophy
- Political science
- State (polity)
- Sovereignty
- Thomas Hobbes
- Tradition
- Aristotle
- Cambodia
- United States
- Religious studies
- Social contract
- Michael Huemer
- Carl Schmitt
- Freedom
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Anarchism.