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Justification and Legitimacy.md

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---
bibtex: @article{simmons1999justification,
    title={Justification and Legitimacy*},
    author={Simmons, A.J.},
    journal={Ethics},
    volume={109},
    number={4},
    pages={739--771},
    year={1999},
    publisher={JSTOR}
  }
---

Justification and Legitimacy

AJ Simmons 2001

Simmons argues that while currently conflated, there is an important difference between showing that the state is justified and showing it is legitimate.

Justifying something typically involves showing that it is prudently rational, morally acceptable or both. p123

This in turn involves rebutting objections that can be comparative (that it is preferable to other things) or non-comparative (that it is not wrong). p124

Justifications can be maximising: they have to show that they defeat all objections; or non-maximising: they have to simlpy show they avoid violating some important principle. p124

If justifying the state means showing that every state is immune to all possible objects, then this project seems impossible. If however, it means showing that some forms of state are morally defeasible, then the project is more viable. p125

That a limited state is justified - it is on balance a good thing - does not for Locke show that any particular limited state is legitimate.

Just because a state does good things, doesn't show that it has a special moral relationship with any particular subjects that gives it a right to rule them. p132

For Taylor, a "society is legitimate when members so understand and value it that they are willing to assume the disciplines and burdens which membership entails." p132 This conception however, simply reduces legitimacy to some reservoir of loyalty.

"To call a state legitimate is to say something about it...the attitudes of a state's subjects are at best a part of what argues for its legitimacy, not that in which its legitimacy consists." p133

If legitimacy is solely in the perception of subjects, then a state can increase its legitimacy via indoctrination and brain washing. p134

But binding consent cannot be given when it is unfree or uninformed.

The virtues of a state are one thing, the nature of its rights over people are another. p136

"State are not entitled to demand form unwilling inhabitants anything that one person may not demand from another independent of states." p139

"Rawlsian justification is principally a justification of coercion offer to those who already accept the necessity of living in some kind of state." p143

Locke argues that the limited state is morally acceptable and a good deal. Rawls argues that it is justified to those already living under authority. p143