RESPONSE PAPER III

THE AUTHORITY OF LAW AND PRACTICAL REASON AND NORM

Joseph Raz has argued that authority and autonomy can go hand in hand. You can be
obeying authority and at the same time be autonomous. I shall defend this argument.

The first objection that Raz faces is that one may think that a person may lose
autonomy by obeying the authority. For ex- if the principal of the school asks a student to
wear school blazer every day, the student ought to obey the rules since they consider the
principal as the authority. Here, an observer may prima facie think that the students lose their
autonomy. But in this scenario Raz gives, in his theory an explanation to this contradiction. In
the above example cited, the students act upon the balance of reason even when they obey the
authority of the principal. The students may have reasons to not wear the blazer since the
temperature in summer is too high. But still if students chose to wear the blazer, it does not
signify that they have lost their autonomy. There may be these first order positive reasons but
positive reasons being that all the students must wear blazers as it represents the status of the
school. They act on their balance of reasons and considers that listening to the order of
principal is more weighty than not wearing blazer. Here, the order of the principal acts as an
exclusionary reason which can negate all the other positive reason to not wear the blazer.
Here, the students even when subjected to authority do not lose their autonomy. It is not like
every time a person under an authority has to obey something which is taking his autonomy.
Authority is the protected reason which mean a reason for doing an act or an exclusionary
reason for not doing so. We, by acting on the balance of reason to ought to obey the
authority, are acting on our autonomy only. This does not mean that we are losing autonomy.
While obeying the authority based on protected reason, a person still could disagree with the
action(X) while acting X. If we take another case, suppose it is hot summer, and X asks Y to
go out for an Ice cream and Y according to his/her balance of reason goes out with X. this
does not mean that X has authority over Y. But in case, Y is the protected reason which
makes X to act on his/her will, X has the authority. Y is not losing his/her autonomy if he/she
doesn’t want to go. He/she is being autonomous by giving X the authority. Therefore, the
argument that autonomy and authority cannot go hand in hand is not applicable and a person
who is under the authority can be autonomous at the same time. And a person acting on
second order reason does not loses his/her autonomy.
 One of the major criticisms of Raz has been that, according to his theory is that an
individual (X) acts according to his balance of reasons and considers a person (Y) to be the
authority. At the same time another person(Z) may act upon his balance of reason and
consider another person(A) to be the authority. Therefore, there need not be a common
authority. Here, the question will remain as to who, whether A or Y, will be the authority.
This dilemma can be resolved by using Raz’s explanation of authority. A person (reasonable
man) makes decisions based on their knowledge as according to Raz. Therefore, in general
the protected reasons will generally be shared. It will not be entirely different for two or more
persons in a particular situation to act according to that authority. Therefore, it is unlikely that
two or more people may consider two different people as the authority. For example- a
country A is ruled by a person X and he/she is the president of the country. To the citizens of
the country, the protected reason to obey him is the fact that he is the president. In case where
there is a conflict between who will be the authority, the one who becomes the protected
reason for all will be the authority. Here, the protected reason is shared by the residents of the
country and these reasons formulate the laws that govern state. There cannot exist two
authority at a time in a particular situation. For instance- X can be authority over C in a
particular instance but need not to be an authority in another situation. A person can be an
authority based on protected reasons. An individual is not rejecting his autonomy but simply
acting according to the protected reason. Therefore, an authority can be a shared protected
reason to obey it, where an individual has different balance of reason to obey the authority.

SUBMITTED BY: - BA0180002