In In Defense of Anarchism, Robert Paul Wolff claims that a legitimate authority cannot exist, as any authority will necessarily prevent its subject’s autonomy. Jospeh Raz, in contrast, argues that...Show moreIn In Defense of Anarchism, Robert Paul Wolff claims that a legitimate authority cannot exist, as any authority will necessarily prevent its subject’s autonomy. Jospeh Raz, in contrast, argues that a legitimate authority can exist and should support its subjects’ autonomy. In the argumentation to defend their conclusions, both focus on formulating their conceptions of (legitimate) authority. In this paper, I argue that the difference in their conceptions of autonomy is the basis of the disagreement in Wolff’s and Raz’s conclusions. After a comparison of the two conceptions and the role autonomy plays in the authors’ argumentations, I conclude that Raz’s conclusion is the more plausible of the two.Show less
