Mark Ethics, July 1999 v109 i4 p739 Justification and Legitimacy(*). (philosophy of the state) A. John Simmons. Abstract: Different arguments are needed to show that a state is justified and that it is legitimate. Justifying the state is associated with the treatises of 18th-century philosophers. The Lockean approach to this issue captures features of institutional evaluation that the Kantian approach does not. Standard justifications of the state are offered to those motivated by objections to states. …
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showed last 75 words of 3569 total
…come to feel obligated toward and believe in the rights of those who simply wield over them irresistible power, with no more moral authority over them than such power yields. Attitudinal accounts of state legitimacy appear to disregard such lessons. On such accounts states could create or enhance their own legitimacy by indoctrination or mind control; or states might be legitimated solely by virtue of the extraordinary stupidity, immorality, imprudence, or misperceptions of their subjects.