The Nature of Governmental Authority

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dc.contributor.advisorMorris, Christopher Wen_US
dc.contributor.authorPhillips, Cindyen_US
dc.contributor.departmentPhilosophyen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2019-09-27T05:36:35Z
dc.date.available2019-09-27T05:36:35Z
dc.date.issued2019en_US
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation puts forward a series of arguments and theoretical proposals concerning institutional authority—particularly, governmental authority. I attend to conceptual debates regarding the function of legal systems and the nature of authority. Moreover, I cover a normative debate regarding the permissible use of political power. The overall view that I build is that governmental institutions have a decision-making authority over the status of certain normative relations in society, and they were designed to have this decision-making authority to serve the need of making group decisions, despite persistent disagreements about policy outcomes, in order to solve practical problems. Chapter 1, “My Overall Perspective,” provides a guide to my overall view regarding the nature of governmental authority. This PhD dissertation takes the form of the three-paper model, and a reader may not see the conceptual links between these papers. In this chapter, I present the view on the nature of governmental authority that comes out of these papers. Chapter 2, “The Presumption of Liberty and the Coerciveness of the State,” presents a challenge to skeptics who think that nearly all uses of political power is impermissible. I argue that a state can engage in permissible uses of political power over a broad range of domains without possessing any entitlements. Chapter 3, “What Authority Is, What It Is Not,” argues against the orthodoxy that authority is a species of power over others. I then build and defend the view that authority is a status that authorizes a person or entity to change one’s normative status. Chapter 4, “Law’s Function as a Decision-Procedure” provides an analysis of how we can determine the law’s essential function. I use this analysis to argue that the law’s essential function is a decision-making one. Each of these chapters is a standalone paper. None of these papers presupposes another one, and they can be read in any order.en_US
dc.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.13016/pk9d-b8ia
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/25010
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledPhilosophyen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledauthorityen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledcoercionen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledinstitutionsen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledlegal positivismen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrollednormative systemsen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledpolitical poweren_US
dc.titleThe Nature of Governmental Authorityen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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