(do me a favor?: cut and paste this everywhere. it’s a…marketing ploy. but it’s sincere.)
A Philosophical Challenge
My irritating yet astounding new book Against the State argues that
(1) The political state or government rests on force and coercion.
(2) Force and coercion are always wrong if they can’t be morally justified. (That is, the use of force is wrong if it lacks a moral justification.)
(3) The arguments for the moral legitimacy of state – for example those of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Hegel, Rawls, and Habermas – are unsound.
(4) Hence, state power has not been shown to be morally defensible.
Until you show me otherwise, I conclude that government power is in every case illegitimate.
Not only are the existing arguments for the legitimacy of state power unsound; they are pitiful. They are embarrassments to the Western intellectual tradition.
So I issue a challenge: Give a decent argument for the moral legitimacy of state power, or reconstruct one of the traditional arguments in the face of the refutations in Against the State.
If you can’t, I insist that you are rationally obliged to accept anarchism.
Henceforward, if you continue to support or observe the authority of government, you are an irrational cultist.
We’re all anarchists now, baby, until further notice.
e-mail responses to c.sartwell@verizon.com
Yours in anarchy,
Crispin Sartwell
amazing