Browsing by Subject "Obedience"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Authority and self-knowledge
(2010-05) Sevel, Michael Allen; Deigh, John; Martinich, Aloysius
Philosophers have long thought that practical authority is morally problematic. The most familiar explanation is that exercising authority (for example, by the giving of commands) interferes with a subject’s responsiveness to the reasons that apply to her; in this sense, authority is thought to be irrational or somehow inconsistent with autonomy. This explanation of the problem presupposes an account of what it is to exercise authority: to exercise authority over a subject is to intentionally change the reasons that apply to that subject. In this paper, I begin to develop a new account of authority’s problematic nature by focusing on the relation between the content of authoritative directives and an agent’s intention in obeying. In cases of personal authority, the issuing of a command involves the giving of an intention to act to the subject; I argue that this breaks down the self-other asymmetries which theorists of self-knowledge assume exist with respect to the ‘privileged access’ one is said to have of one’s own mind. This understanding of the problem is missed if we think about authority primarily in terms of reasons and reason-giving, as in the case of Raz’s service conception.
Essays on authority
(2010-08) Sevel, Michael Allen; Deigh, John; Leiter, Brian; Woodruff, Paul; Martinich, Aloysius; Berman, Mitchell
The chapters contained in this dissertation are three essays on the nature of practical authority, and the role it plays in the thought and action of those subject to it. In chapter 1, I criticize a recent and influential philosophical theory of authority, Joseph Raz’s service conception, and argue that it is inadequate because it does not recognize that authority thwarts an obedient subject’s ability to express her personality and character traits in action. In chapter 2, I argue that, in cases of personal authority, the issuing of a command involves the authority supplying the content of an intention to act to the subject, and that this breaks down the self-other asymmetries which theorists of self-knowledge have assumed exist with respect to the ‘privileged access’ one is said to have to one’s own mind. In chapter 3, I argue that in cases of both personal and non-personal (e.g., institutional) authority, there is a further problem in exercising and obeying authority which has gone unrecognized. I draw on recent work in social psychology to show that authoritative directives fix a subject’s understanding of her own actions across time and thus thwart the otherwise dynamic process of the development of the subject’s self-conception. I show that these arguments constitute a new burden in justifying authority and therefore revive the anarchist objection that authority and autonomy are conceptually incompatible.
The sacrifice of saying no : dynamics of conscientious objection, liberalism, and sacrifice in Israel
(2017-05) Tripp, Angela R.; Grumberg, Karen
This thesis engages notions of liberalism and sacrifice to argue for the exceptional goodness of Israel’s secular, Jewish conscientious objectors who operate against an illiberal and politicized military system. It examines theoretical and empirical models of democratic and republican paradigms to analyze the dynamics of Israel’s citizen/state relationship. It draws from oral histories and ethnographic works, to document the lived experiences of conscientious objectors, thus providing a case study of Israel’s democratic liberalism in action. In constructing a comparative analysis of the functionality of Israel’s military apparatus, specifically its Conscience Committee, an argument for the waning liberalism of Israel’s already hybrid political system is presented. Given the problematic functionality of Israel’s military structure and its necessarily political nature, the motives and behavior of Israel’s secular, Jewish conscientious objectors evidence their “goodness” as Israeli citizens. This thesis offers a qualitative analysis of that goodness by engaging disparate political and social theories.