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I had a philosophy lesson on this a couple of days ago and I was just wondering on what some of you guys thought on this; can there be equality with authority? Some people brought up the fact that people with authority are superior and can tell people without authority what to do but not vice-versa, so there's no equality there. But of course there's the idea of equality v.s. justice and while authority people =/= non-authority people, they are treated fairly and that's what matters.. so I'm just interested in what y'all have to say about this o:
authority is a fundamental aspect of who humans are. we are creatures of power, and this power permeates everything we do. I'll attach my ethics of power essay in a couple of hours because it engages your question very well.
A lot depends on what manner of authority and what manner of equality is in view here. In a representative system of Government, like a constitutional democracy, it is recognised that all human beings are created fundamentally equal. This does not mean an equality of wealth or possessions, nor of power or authority. It means that all life is considered of equal value, and that each individual has a certain measure of private authority to live their lives as they wish, up until the point at which this encroaches upon the rights of others to do likewise. This is a knotty issue in itself, but that is the basic principle as I understand it.
Perfect equality, with no discrimination of any kind, is an undesirable state of affairs. Those who have driving licences and those who do not should not have equal rights to drive on the road. To allow those who are unqualified to drive to do so would endanger the lives of others, and therefore encroach upon their freedom. "Freedom" and "equality" are always going to be balancing acts. To preserve both of these things, there must be some system of government, a legislature and a judiciary, to safeguard people's freedoms against those who would take them away. This requires people to be in some position of authority.
The only question left, then, is whether this authority is legitimate, representing the will of the people as is the case of a democracy, or illegitimate, in which the "powers that be" are not authentic representatives of the community. If you feel like you don't have equality with a Minister, Senator or some other kind of government official, then you have it within your power to run for office yourself. At that point, the only thing holding you back will be a relative lack of popularity within your constituency.
"Equality" in some sense is opposed to authority, but not in any sense that is problematic. Some forms of inequality are not only necessary but good, as in the case of driving rights. To preserve the kind of equality that matters, which in my own view is equality of personal freedoms, some manner of representative authority is absolutely necessary.
The only problem I see with this is having an un-elected judiciary. This is a bit of a spanner in the works.
In the truest sense of the word? No. Authority and "true" equality are mutually contradictory. If you have authority over someone, you are by definition not their equal.
However, when we talk about equality, usually we're referring to equal opportunity and equal treatment under the law, in which case the concept of authority isn't necessarily incompatible with those concepts.
There are different kinds of authority and different contexts for that authority, in a democratic political context, citizens share in alternatively ruling (commanding) and being ruled (obeying). so it is not necessarily true that the real or material appearance of authority is an instantiation of political inequality, in a republican democracy, or that political authority is what brings about inequality. Though inequality will always appear to emerge as though some persons' or institutions' authority brought it about, because it is easy to observe people and institutions acting, but difficult to derive (understand) their intentions correctly, i.e, the actual material commands or rules they are adhering to.
But there are legal historical projects that aim to reveal or at the minimum explain the fact of this phenomena (rule following/law obeying), which is so philosophically bizarre. It is much easier to explain behavior using history and psychology than to claim to understand knowledges situated in a body (isaac asimov's foundation series is devoted to presenting this divergence/convergence of methods). Equality in any one aspect is very easy to bring about, so any authority's commands can be blunted by trivial details of the context that disrupt the code. So maybe, no one could hear the authority's command, or maybe that command wasn't able to be interpreted to the end intended by the command's issuer (the authority).
In any case, I assert that inequality is useful and mathematical adjective to describe a material situation that is politically interesting, but that authority is a concept riddled with dubious philosophical assumptions.
People with authority aren't 'superior', they are not God, and thus able to issue divine commands that can only be met with obeyance. personhood, like citizenship in a republic, is a subject-effect of systemic power. Are persons with authority able to give commands that must be obeyed? In what sense are they able to? obviously there are some commands they cannot actually issue or that would be so bizarre if they were issued. Or are they only giving commands that they know will be obeyed? how do they know? why are they so confident in their belief about the command being issued? the answer brings us to reality. the v word, but we all try not to mention it. the v word contributes to explaining why rules are actually followed. Imo, we could define the v word psychologically: behaviors and mechanisms that bring complex subjects (individuals and institutions) to follow rules. so we can see that learning is a special form of the v word, and we would be familiar with 'learning' as an instance of the v word as in commonly heard refrains about 'brainwashing'. We can also see from this that there is no reason why knowledge would naturally grant a body the authority to command another in some context (for example: just because i know more about drugs then my clients doesn't mean they obey me when I tell them never to do drugs. motivation comes from some other source, aside from the code of the command.).
(In)equality is a useful concept from mathematics for democratic political philosophers. This is because understanding the workings of liberal-republican democracies demands paying careful attention to which bodies are counted as a citizen, and because in a liberal-republican democracy, benefits, obligations, and identities are supposed to be distributed in accordance with a supposed code, the constitution, which is not more or less revisable... At the minimum the constitution of a republic recognizes the rights of citizens to exist when it identifies who is and is not a citizen, but what about the status of non-citizens that are part of society? the contradictory features of the count of who is a part of society is the origin of politics according to one contemporary republican philosopher:
"There has only ever been one ontological proposition: Being is univocal. There has only ever been one ontology, that of Duns Scotus, which gave being a single voice. In effect, the essential in univocity is not that Being is said in a single and same sense, but that it is said, in a single and same sense, of all its individuating differences or intrinsic modalities. Being is the same for all these modalities, but these modalities are not the same. It is 'equal' for all, but they themselves are not equal. It is said of all in a single sense, but they themselves do not have the same sense. The essence of univocal being is to include individuating differences, while these differences do not have the same essence and do not change the essence of being - just as white includes various intensities, while remaining essentially the same white. There are not two 'paths', as Parmenides' poem suggests, but a single 'voice' of Being which includes all its modes, including the most diverse, the most varied, the most differenciated. Being is said in a single and same sense of everything of which it is said, but that of which it is said differs: it is said of difference itself. No doubt there is still hierarchy and distribution in univocal being, in relation to the individuating factors and their sense, but distribution and even hierarchy have two completely different, irreconcilable acceptations.
Similarly for the expressions logos and nomos, in so far as these refer to problems of distribution. We must first of all distinguish a type of distribution which implies a dividing up of that which is distributed: it is a matter of dividing up the distributed as such. It is here that in judgement the rules of analogy are all-powerful. In so far as common sense and good sense are qualities of judgement, these are presented as principles of division which declare themselves the best distributed. A distribution of this type proceeds by fixed and proportional determinations which may be assimilated to 'properties' or limited territories within representation. The agrarian question may well have been very important for this organisation of judgement as the faculty which distinguishes parts ('on the one hand and on the other hand'). Even among the gods, each has his domain, his category, his attributes, and all distribute limits and lots to mortals in accordance with destiny. Then there is a completely other distribution which must be called nomadic, a nomad nomos, without property, enclosure or measure. Here, there is no longer a division of that which is distributed but rather a division among those who distribute themselves in an open space - a space which is unlimited, or at least without precise limits.
Nothing pertains or belongs to any person, but all persons are arrayed here and there in such a manner as to cover the largest possible space. Even when it concerns the serious business of life, it is more like a space of play, or a rule of play, by contrast with sedentary space and nomos. To fill a space, to be distributed within it, is very different from distributing the space. It is an errant and even 'delirious' distribution, in which things are deployed across the entire extensity of a univocal and undistributed Being. It is not a matter of being which is distributed according to the requirements of representation, but of all things being divided up within being in the univocity of simple presence (the One - All). Such a distribution is demonic rather than divine, since it is a peculiarity of demons to operate in the intervals between the gods' fields of action, as it is to leap over the barriers or the enclosures, thereby confounding the boundaries between properties. Oedipus' chorus cries: 'Which demon has leapt further than the longest leap?' The leap here bears witness to the unsettling difficulties that nomadic distributions introduce into the sedentary structures of representation. The same goes for hierarchy. There is a hierarchy which measures beings according to their limits, and according to their degree of proximity or distance from a principle. But there is also a hierarchy which considers things and beings from the point of view of power: it is not a question of considering absolute degrees of power, but only of knowing whether a being eventually 'leaps over' or transcends its limits in going to the limit of what it can do, whatever its degree. 'To the limit', it will be argued, still presupposes a limit. Here, limit [peras] no longer refers to what maintains the thing under a law, nor to what delimits or separates it from other things. On the contrary, it refers to that on the basis of which it is deployed and deploys all its power; hubris ceases to be simply condemnable and the smallest becomes equivalent to the largest once it is not separated from what it can do. This enveloping measure is the same for all things, the same also for substance, quality, quantity, etc., since it forms a single maximum at which the developed diversity of all degrees touches the equality which envelops them. This ontological measure is closer to the immeasurable state of things than to the first kind of measure; this ontological hierarchy is closer to the hubris and anarchy of beings than to the first hierarchy. It is the monster which combines all the demons. The words 'everything is equal' may therefore resound joyfully, on condition that they are said of that which is not equal in this equal, univocal Being: equal being is immediately present in everything, without mediation or intermediary, even though things reside unequally in this equal being. There, however, where they are borne by hubris, all things are in absolute proximity, and whether they are large or small, inferior or superior, none of them participates more or less in being, nor receives it by analogy. Univocity of being thus also signifies equality of being. Univocal Being is at one and the same time nomadic distribution and crowned anarchy. "
Yes, their commands must be obeyed, as disobedience is met with legal repercussions. You may choose to accept those legal repercussions instead of obeying that command, but in that case they're still your superior as you must face legal consequences if you wish to disobey them.
There is no way to get around it. In the absolutist sense, the very concept of authority clashes with the very concept of equality.
Yes, their commands must be obeyed, as disobedience is met with legal repercussions. You may choose to accept those legal repercussions instead of obeying that command, but in that case they're still your superior as you must face legal consequences if you wish to disobey them.
Besides, you're essentially saying the only way to win the game is not to play. I fail to see how that means authority is compatible with equality in the most literal sense.
Besides, you're essentially saying the only way to win the game is not to play. I fail to see how that means authority is compatible with equality in the most literal sense.
Everyone breaks the law. You're somewhat right in that's pragmatic to follow laws that will get you in trouble for not following. But there's no such thing as "legitimate" authority either. If you don't morally agree with a law, and in a pragmatic sense you can get away with not following it, you shouldn't follow it. Most people do that without ever rationalizing it.
Everyone breaks the law. You're somewhat right in that's pragmatic to follow laws that will get you in trouble for not following. But there's no such thing as "legitimate" authority either. If you don't morally agree with a law, and in a pragmatic sense you can get away with not following it, you shouldn't follow it. Most people do that without ever rationalizing it.
Fair enough, but if the authority body in question is aware that you're breaking the law they do have the ability to bring punitive action against you. There are no laws that the government isn't allowed to enforce, such a thing is nonsensical. If the only way to avoid consequences for disobeying orders or laws is to cheat the system by not getting caught doing so, then you're not really equal in the absolutist sense, are you?
That being said it could be argued that "true" equality is a fallacy anyways, because human beings are inherently different and have different abilities and skill sets. If I can run faster than you, then are we truly equal in the most literal sense of the word? This is why I feel we have to define what we colloquially call equality as equal opportunity and equal treatment under the law.
Yes, their commands must be obeyed, as disobedience is met with legal repercussions. You may choose to accept those legal repercussions instead of obeying that command, but in that case they're still your superior as you must face legal consequences if you wish to disobey them.
There is no way to get around it. In the absolutist sense, the very concept of authority clashes with the very concept of equality.
just because concepts may nullify another in an 'absolutist' sense, doesn't mean contradictions are impossible to resolve. and i only talk about these things practically and realistically, the way they exist, not in an absolutist definitive sense. concepts that are seemingly contradictory might still resolve themselves in reality.
what if the person receiving the command has the authority to disobey? for example in the U.S armed forces ppl are supposedly bound to disobey unconstitutional orders. And how would they know? How do they decide to know? These are the questions that interest me. And after all what will happen? Suppose the person giving the order, interpreted by the receiver as unconstitutional, can immediately dismiss and replace that person with another that is more likely to interpret the order as constitutional? Nuclear war, anyone?
legal repercussions are very slow in reality, if you can afford to retain a lawyer and post bail, or if it is never discovered the order has been disobeyed. Thus an additional conception, aside from legal authority, is needed to explain why orders are followed or not.
And if authority is a result of the legal system, who has the authority to interpret/decide the legal system? we can see that the trial is supposed to be about justice through the interpretation and application of the law in a contest between two parties.
and so this is a category error: to speak of equality and authority absolutely, such that authority nullifies equality absolutely, and then to claim that a trivial legal context is what actually makes hierarchy. Although it may be true that the fact of authority makes the possibility of equality incomprehensible, that isn't related to explanations of how or why orders are obeyed. I maintain that at least one additional psychological concept (it starts with a v) is needed to theorize why an order is actually obeyed in the context it emerges from, aside from the orientation of some idealized written legal apparatus. And that this additional concept is intimately related to the emergence of real political authority and real political inequality.
Yes, many humans do like having an authority figure to emulate or follow, but ever since the American Revolutionary War, there has also grown this psyche of humans like being told what to do unless they agree. Basically, this song captures that spirit.
Gene Roddenberry thought that humans have a need to improve, as does their society, and under a strict administration/regime with rules limiting ideas, they will stagnate, and perhaps even rot outright. For many, this sort of culture would probably be worse than death. This was stated multiple times in many episodes, especially in TOS, and caused the main characters to break the Prime Directive to help save cultures from their own societal rules.
If we ever have an authoritarian society like Nazi Germany or even the Russian Federation, don't be surprised if some states start seceding from the Union.
The problem is when those in power use their interpretation of the law to their advantage, or takes away civil liberties in the name of security, or even just because they can. There is also the question of at what point is it right to basically disregard someone's authority, and if force is used enforce authority, at which point should proportional force be used to resist, including punishment for disobeying a law or decree you consider unfair. We might see this sort of activity as we go deeper into the Trump Administration if it is going to be as bad as some progressives thinks it will. I could go into far better detail later if anyone cares.
