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John Henry · 03-24-2004, 01:50 PM

I'd be interested to see what anyone makes of this (Aside from any stylistic comments. I know it's badly written.) I'm normally fairly anarchistic in my views, so this sort of seemed interesting to me, but you may well find it mundane.) I hope someone can find convincing arguments to the contrary.

Justification of the necessity for authority

1) Either we assume freedom to be an axiomatic necessity (a) or we don't (b)

2) In case (b), there is no need to justify the existence of authority, since restriction of freedom would not be considered
to be a problem

3)In case (a), we must decide what is meant by freedom. It is fairly widely agreed that, within a political context, freedom
exists when nobody imposes their will on anybody else. That is to say that the free will of neither any one person nor that
of any group of people is restricted by any other person or group of people.

4)Whenever there is any large enough group of people who will come into contact with one another, especially in an
environment where there are limited resources, conflicts of interest are certain to occur. Where these cannot be solved
by compromise, one party will have their interests satisfied at the expense of the other party. Thus the will of the first
party has been imposed on the other to the the other party's detriment and their freedom has been infringed. By (a) this is
not a satisfactory situation.

5) In certain situations, such conflicts can be resolved by previously mutually agreed guidelines, such as codes of ethics,
laws, religious rules, etc. For example, if person X wishes to kill person Y and person Y wishes to stay alive, it is
generally considered that the interests of person Y take precedent over those of person X.

6) Unfortunately many such situations are not resolved according to such mutually agreed guidelines as may exist, but rather
in such a fashion that the interests of one party are satisfied at the expense of the interests of the other, due to some
inherent advantage possessed by the first party, such as superior guile, might or popularity.

7) In these cases, it is necessary for an impartial third party to arbitrate and to enforce the mutually agreed guidelines
in such a way that such arbitration and enforcement represents less of a restriction of freedom than would result from a
failure to intervene. Thus we have a necessity for authority in case (a)

To summarise:

If we believe that there is no need for freedom, then there is no need to justify the existence of authority. If we believe
that there is a need for freedom, then there is a need for authority to intervene and arbitrate in those instances where one
party would seek to impose their will on another.

03-24-2004, 01:50 PM	#1 (permalink)
John Henry Addict Location: Grey Britain	The Necessity for Authority I'd be interested to see what anyone makes of this (Aside from any stylistic comments. I know it's badly written.) I'm normally fairly anarchistic in my views, so this sort of seemed interesting to me, but you may well find it mundane.) I hope someone can find convincing arguments to the contrary. Justification of the necessity for authority 1) Either we assume freedom to be an axiomatic necessity (a) or we don't (b) 2) In case (b), there is no need to justify the existence of authority, since restriction of freedom would not be considered to be a problem 3)In case (a), we must decide what is meant by freedom. It is fairly widely agreed that, within a political context, freedom exists when nobody imposes their will on anybody else. That is to say that the free will of neither any one person nor that of any group of people is restricted by any other person or group of people. 4)Whenever there is any large enough group of people who will come into contact with one another, especially in an environment where there are limited resources, conflicts of interest are certain to occur. Where these cannot be solved by compromise, one party will have their interests satisfied at the expense of the other party. Thus the will of the first party has been imposed on the other to the the other party's detriment and their freedom has been infringed. By (a) this is not a satisfactory situation. 5) In certain situations, such conflicts can be resolved by previously mutually agreed guidelines, such as codes of ethics, laws, religious rules, etc. For example, if person X wishes to kill person Y and person Y wishes to stay alive, it is generally considered that the interests of person Y take precedent over those of person X. 6) Unfortunately many such situations are not resolved according to such mutually agreed guidelines as may exist, but rather in such a fashion that the interests of one party are satisfied at the expense of the interests of the other, due to some inherent advantage possessed by the first party, such as superior guile, might or popularity. 7) In these cases, it is necessary for an impartial third party to arbitrate and to enforce the mutually agreed guidelines in such a way that such arbitration and enforcement represents less of a restriction of freedom than would result from a failure to intervene. Thus we have a necessity for authority in case (a) To summarise: If we believe that there is no need for freedom, then there is no need to justify the existence of authority. If we believe that there is a need for freedom, then there is a need for authority to intervene and arbitrate in those instances where one party would seek to impose their will on another. __________________ "No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."