Scots Philosophical Association

University of St. Andrews

Wolff's Defence of Philosophical Anarchism
Author(s): Rex Martin
Source: The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-), Vol. 24, No. 95 (Apr., 1974), pp. 140-149
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Association and
the University of St. Andrews
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2217718
Accessed: 08-07-2016 19:53 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Scots Philosophical Association, University of St. Andrews, Oxford University Press are
collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-)

This content downloaded from 14.139.155.66 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 19:53:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

140

WOLFF'S DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHICAL

ANARCHISM
BY REX MARTIN

Anarchism is not given any serious status in the great texts of political
philosophy until Hobbes' Leviathan. There it is mentioned and described as
the " state of nature ". We find no advocacy of anarchism, however, until
the time of the French Revolution (e.g., in Godwin). In the nineteenth
century, the century of " isms ", the term 'anarchism' came into common

use. It was perhaps first used in an approving way by Proudhon, who

adopted the term to describe his own political beliefs. One important point
about this new usage was that anarchism largely lost its connotation of
chaos-of disorder and insecurity-at least among those who advocated it.
From the point of view of its defenders, anarchism would be the selfregulation of a social order or of a group of persons or of the single individual,
where self-regulation was distinguished from coercive regulation by institu-

tions of the State (e.g., army, police, laws, courts, and jails). In a word,
anarchism would be a desirable state of society without government.
There is, of course, more complexity to the theory of anarchism than
this brief capsulation could indicate. I am referring here, in particular, to
the many proposals for decentralized social organization put forward by
anarchists historically: the industrial worker "syndicates ", the artisan
" mutualist " societies, the agrarian communes, co-operative societies of all
sorts. Now I do not want to denigrate the significance of these suggestions,
or of the utopian impulse in general. But the point is that the existence,
and even the desired quality of life, of any one of these social arrangements
is probably consistent with the existence of government.

Hence, it is to some purpose that the negative character of anarchism

has been stressed. For it is no accident that anarchism, as the name itself

implies, is best understood by reference to what it is against. Moreover,

given that the radically individualistic devil-take-the-hindmost anarchist of
the Right would tend to reject the social ideals of the egalitarian, community-

oriented anarchist of the Left, it may well be that the only thing that all
anarchists have in common is what anarchism denies. In any case, this

negative side of theoretical anarchism would appear to be a necessary

adjunct of any positive scheme that the anarchist might want to advance.
One of the characteristic ways, and perhaps the most persuasive way,
in which this "denial " side of anarchism has been expressed is in the claim
that no government can be " legitimate ". This proposition states, I think,
the essence of what the philosophical anarchist is committed to.

This content downloaded from 14.139.155.66 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 19:53:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM 141

In this essay I want to consider one of the most recent, and most interesting, of these defences of philosophical anarchism, that of Robert Paul Wolff.

His anarchist argument is directed against the claim that there could be a
government which " has a right to command and whose subjects have a
binding obligation to obey " (V 607).1 Or, alternatively, against the claim
that it could be granted to governments, as a matter of this same right, to
back up their laws with force and to employ this force against lawbreakers.
It is difficult to know, though, how we are to take Wolff's contention
that there could not be a government having " de jure legitimate authority "

(V 607). Is the ' could not ' in question conceptual or is it factual ? In other
words, is Wolff saying that statements affirming the rightful authority of

government could never possibly be true, for reasons of a logical sort, or is

he saying that none of them can be true in fact ?

It is not an easy matter to answer this question from Wolff's texts because what he says is not entirely clear. What I take him to be saying is
that it is factually impossible, or at least extremely difficult and unlikely,
for any government to stand close enough to fulfilling the truth conditions
for attributing rightful (or de jure) authority for us to call it a " legitimate
government.

My principal reason for reading him this way is that he does allege that

there can be one state in which each individual is " the source of the laws

which govern him " (DA 22). Since Wolff believes that the only legitimate
government would be one consistent with and following from the notion of
individual autonomy, he then concludes that the only sort of " just state ",
i.e., a state having rightful authority, is unanimous direct democracy (see
DA 20-23; 27; 58). In other words, there are criteria for using the term
'rightful authority of government' and these are, in Wolff's opinion, the
criteria which constitute the notion of a unanimous direct democracy.
His point, then, appears to be that the facts of the world simply do not
tend to favour the existence, or if that, then the continuation in existence,

of states having de jure authority (see DA 25-6). As Wolff says himself,

" There is, in theory, a solution to the problem which has been posed [the
problem of rightful authority], and this fact is in itself quite important.
However, the solution requires the imposition of impossibly restrictive con-

ditions which make it applicable only to a rather bizarre variety of actual

situations " (DA 23; see also p. 38).
Indeed, Wolff's sense of the factual impossibility of his theoretical solution,

unanimous direct democracy, grows in the course of his treatise. We find

him asserting later that it " offers no serious hope of ever being embodied
in an actual state " and he continues by concluding that unanimous direct
democracy is so unlikely in the course of this world that " it may be viewed
1" On Violence ", Journal of Philosophy, 66 (October 2, 1969), 601-16, cited throughout as V with page numbers following. Wolff's book In Defense of Anarchism (New
York: Harper and Row Torchbooks, 1970) will be cited as DA with page numbers

following.

This content downloaded from 14.139.155.66 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 19:53:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

142

REX

MARTIN

as the limiting case of a solution rather than as itself a true example of a

legitimate state " (DA 69).
In the light of this basic argument of Wolff's, I find it difficult to under-

stand his assertion that authority and autonomy are " genuinely incompatible " (DA 71). We could take him as meaning that they never, or that
they hardly ever, fit together in fact. This does not appear to be his meaning,

however, for he amplifies his assertion by saying " The arguments of this
essay suggest that the just state must be consigned [to] the category of the
round square, the married bachelor, and the unsensed sense-datum " (DA 71).

Earlier Wolff had said, " If all men have a continuing obligation to
achieve the highest degree of autonomy possible, then there would appear
to be no state whose subjects have a moral obligation to obey its commands.
Hence, the concept of a de jure legitimate state would appear to be vacuous,
and philosophical anarchism would seem to be the only reasonable political
belief for an enlightened man" (DA 19). It is hard to know how to take
this remark : Wolff says that the concept is " vacuous ", which could mean
that the concept is itself empty; but it could mean just as well that the
concept has no instances. Since the remark is vague and since it is preliminary, we should not put undue logical pressure on it. Elsewhere Wolff says
that the " fundamental notion of legitimate authority" is " inherently
incoherent" (V 602); but he softens this considerably when he says, at
another point, merely that " it may even be that the concept of legitimate
authority is incoherent " (V 612). In any case, Wolff makes a number of
dismissive remarks about authority in the course of this essay (see V 60710; 612; 616). Shortly after his thesis on incoherence, however, we find
him saying that "not all claims to authority are justified. Indeed, I shall
suggest shortly that few if any are " (V 604). This way of putting it says,
not that authority is an incoherent notion, but rather that it is a coherent

one having "few if any " theoretical exemplifications (see also V 608).
This interpretation is in line with Wolff's concluding mot that " the philosophical anarchist is the atheist of politics " (V 616).

The suggestion that there is a logical incoherence in the concept of

authority simply will not do in the context of Wolff's book. It contradicts
express remarks of Wolff to the effect that we do have an initial concept
of de jure authority. Indeed, merely to distinguish de jure from de facto
authority, as Wolff has done, in itself implies that de jure authority is a
coherent and meaningful concept. (On this point, see, in particular, DA
10-11.) Further, it contradicts his contention that this primitive conception
can be combined with a notion of moral autonomy to give us a coherent
conception of justified rightful authority (i.e., that of unanimous direct
democracy). Moreover, if this full-blooded notion of authority were actually
self-contradictory, as Wolff seems to be alleging, then we could make no
sense of his raising the question of exemplification over against it and going
on to decide that instances of it are impossible as a matter of fact.

This content downloaded from 14.139.155.66 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 19:53:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM 143

The problem, surely, is not in the concept. There is no genuine incompatibility there, but in the world, because the facts are as they are. Accord-

ingly, there might be some advantage to following out Wolff's suggestion

that unanimous direct democracy be treated as " the limiting case " rather
than as " a true example of a legitimate state " (DA 69). In other words,
let us take it that what Wolff's philosophical anarchist is claiming is not
that it is logically impossible for a government to have rightful authority
but rather that it is factually impossible, for reasons physical or, perhaps,
psychological.
Even so, the argument of the philosophical anarchist here would prove
inconclusive. A bit of reflection is enough to show this. For if Wolff's
philosophical concept of a justified rightful authority is always separated by

the nature of things from any possible exemplification in the world, then
all states represent, in differing degrees, the distance of the actual from this

ideal. So one can show the impossibility of there actually being a de jure
state. What about the nearest practical approximation ? So long as there
are, or could be, states that tend in some degree to approximate to possessing
authority over against those that tend in some degree not to, Wolff's anarchist

case cannot really be made.

It does seem clear, then, that his crucial proposition respecting the impossibility of " de jure legitimate authority " (V 607) is either self-contradictory, when construed as a logical impossibility, or radically inconclusive,
when construed as a factual impossibility. A number of hypotheses could
account for the breakdown of Wolff's theory at this point, but I think the
most fruitful is to suppose that he had something else in mind when he spoke

of a " genuine incompatibility " between authority and autonomy. I would

suggest the following reason.

The anarchist sees a close connection between the authority of government and the obligation of the citizen. It is, indeed, an analytic connection.
To say that a government has authority means, or entails, that every citizen

has an obligation to obey its particular laws. Thus, we find Wolff saying
that legitimate authority is " a matter of the right to command, and of the

correlative obligation to obey the person who issues the command. ... It is
a matter of doing what he tells you to do because he tells you to do it " (DA
9; see also pp. 4-5, 40). The anarchist is not alone in thinking this; many
defenders of the statist point of view hold the connection to be analytic
as well.

It is understandable, then, that Wolff might try to get at obligation by

way of authority. For, since it is believed that this connection holds analytic-

ally, Wolff's anarchist undertakes to deny political obligation by denying

political authority. But his animus against authority is only by the way;
indeed, it is a deflection from his principal point, which is the denial of
political obligation.
Wolff's philosophical anarchist critique of the state is actually directed,

This content downloaded from 14.139.155.66 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 19:53:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

144

REX

MARTIN

then, as I am interpreting it, against the view that the citizen is strictly
bound to obey laws just in so far as they are laws. The essence of this
opposed view, as I see it, is the claim that citizens have a special obligation
towards laws as such, as distinct from an obligation to do a certain thing
whether it is prescribed by law or not. The nature of this obligation is that
one is to do what one is told to do because it is mandated by law. The obligation is a strict one ; it attaches to all laws as the rule and can be overridden,

if at all, only in the case where a special exception can be made out.
I should add that I think the Socrates of Plato's Crito did hold something
very like this view, and held it in a particularly strong and uncompromising

version. For I take Socrates to be saying that, where a man cannot dissuade
the authors of the law from putting it into effect, then he must obey the
law. Kant, too, was a political obligationist. Indeed, Kant conceived obedience to law as a duty, as one of those things that is categorically imperative.
Unlike Socrates, though, who espoused a doctrine of unmitigated obligation,
Kant held that the obligation to obey the law could be overridden if, but
only if, what the law commanded was immoral.
The position of most political obligationists (e.g., Hobbes or Locke) is
more akin to Kant's than to that of Socrates in that they regard political
obligation as strict but capable of mitigation. In any event, these examples
suggest that the obligationist view has been a fairly common one in the
history of political philosophy and that Wolff's philosophical anarchist has
chosen to break his lance against a view which is by no means eccentric.
I think we could render Wolff's philosophical anarchist critique of political
obligation clearer, or could at least peg it down somewhat, if we allowed for
a distinction between a ground of political obligation of an intrinsic sort and
one of an extrinsic sort. An obligation is an intrinsic one when it is a feature
of the theory of the political system itself. For example, one could allege
that good citizenship in a rights-producing state involves, in a way that
could reasonably be exhibited, some sort of strict commitment to abide by
the laws that define those rights.
On the other hand, an obligation is an extrinsic one when it requires
some extra-systematic feature to ground it. For example, one could allege
that a person has a standing of obligation towards the laws in as much as it
is divinely commanded that men obey laws, i.e., obey laws simply because
they are laws. Or, again, the man who had bound himself to obedience by
an oath or some sort of promise would have an extrinsic ground of obligation,
but an obligation nonetheless to obey all particular laws.
I would argue that extrinsic grounds of obligation never create strict
obligations to obey laws qua laws. When God commands us to obey laws,
we obey them because God says so. Our obligation is to what God commands and not principally to the laws at all. There is nothing about law
per se, without the super-addition of the will of God, that makes obeying
them obligatory.

This content downloaded from 14.139.155.66 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 19:53:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM 145

By the same token, when utility commands us to obey the laws, we obey
them because this is useful to the end of the greatest happiness of the greatest

number. Our obligation is, logically, to the principle of utility only. Again,
there is nothing about law per se, without bringing it under the superordinate principle of utility, that would make obedience obligatory.
Now it seems to me that the logic of Wolff's main argument in defence
of anarchism is captured in the account I have given of these extrinsic
grounds of political obligation. The principal impediment to seeing this is
the way in which he has himself chosen to pose the issue; Wolff says in the
preface to his book, " I had no trouble formulating the problem-roughly
speaking, how the moral autonomy of the individual can be made compatible

with the legitimate authority of the state " (DA vii). But this is too rough
surely the more natural distinction for Wolff to draw is between obligation

and autonomy, rather than between authority and autonomy.

In fact, many of Wolff's characteristic passages actually read this way.
For example, we find him saying that the autonomous man " will deny that
he has a duty to obey the laws of the state simply because they are the laws.

In that sense, it would seem that anarchism is the only political doctrine
consistent with the virtue of autonomy " (DA 18; see also pp. 19, 29, 38).
Moreover, many of his passages against authority, on the grounds of violation

of autonomy, translate easily into objections against obligation (see, for

example, DA 71-2). The only reason one can give for Wolff's having mislocated his animus against obligation, by directing it against authority, is
his belief that they were the same thing, or somehow analytically connected.

Once we have made the translation of Wolff's argument into the terms
of obligation and autonomy, we do see it as belonging to the same logical
type as the ones we have heretofore been considering. It is simply one
more case of offering an external grounds type of analysis of the notion of
political obligation. Instead of the will of God, or of the demands of the
Principle of Utility, Wolff posits the absolute moral and intellectual autonomy

of the individual person as the external ground (see DA 17 and 72).

It is into this context that I would like to set Wolff's principal allegation.

If there is a logical incompatibility, it is between the obligationist view and

the doctrine of autonomy. The argument would go something like this. For
obligation-political or otherwise-truly to be justified, i.e., for it to be
morally rightful, it must at a very minimum be compatible with the paramount demands of autonomy. Political obligation, as the obligationist uses
that term, is not and could (logically could) never be compatible with those

demands. Hence, political obligation can never be morally rightful, as

defined by the demands of autonomy, and hence it is no true obligation at
all. It is in this way that political obligation is like a round square, and this
because there is a " genuine incompatibility " between it and autonomy.
What Wolff is getting at, then, when he calls " rightful" political obliga-

tion-or authority, as it were-an " inherently incoherent " notion requires

This content downloaded from 14.139.155.66 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 19:53:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

146

REX

MARTIN

a bit of restating. His principal objection to the notion of rightful political

obligation is moral, not logical. It is only by importing a moral sense into
the term " rightful " that Wolff is able to say that the notion itself is inherently incoherent. But all he is really saying is that political obligation
and moral autonomy are " genuinely incompatible ". Nonetheless Wolff's
allegation of a " genuine incompatibility " is a powerful one. For, if his
allegation is true, it would be nonsensical in principle to say that any man
is ever under a moral obligation to obey laws, where what is morally rightful
is defined by the notion of autonomy.

Now that his principal contention has been made out, and Wolff's talk
about the inherent incoherence of certain political notions like obligation
suitably construed, his other arguments fall readily into line. His opposition
to majority rule direct democracy (see DA 57-8 and 70), to electoral represen-

tative government (see DA 29-31), and to the " social contract " theory
(see DA 69-70) all rest on this claim of a genuine incompatibility between
obligation and autonomy.
I think, however, that there is little advantage in pursuing Wolff's line
of argument further. It is one instance of a general type. The point is,
simply, that all extrinsic grounds exclude political obligation in principle.
To say that where we have extrinsic grounds of obligation we have no political

obligations is merely to redescribe the contention that our standing before

the law is governed by extrinsic grounds of obligation. This is a really
interesting contention only if we have first disposed of so-called intrinsic
grounds.

As I see it, the question of political obligation here, whether it is an

intrinsic notion in a theoretical system of political concepts or not, really
depends on what that system is. Hence, to see if different persons really
do have political obligations we would need to descend to the detail of giving

body to the different notions that make up first one system of political
concepts and then another. I would suggest that most systems, when so
explicated, would not have room for a strict obligation to obey laws just
in so far as they are valid laws.
For example, in a theoretical schema for the American political system,
which would include at a minimum such notions as civil rights and democratic electoral procedures, I certainly believe that no strict bond to obey
all particular laws, just as " valid " laws, could be exhibited. In the sense
indicated, there is no place for political obligation in this system. I believe
this could be shown, but I will not undertake to do so in this paper.
What I would have us conclude, then, on the crucial question of political
obligation is really very simple. In so far as the anarchist's critique is
directed against political obligation in the strong sense I have been describing,

where obedience is either an unfailing rule (Socrates) or an unfailing one in

a legitimate state (Locke) or an unfailing one except in a case of life or death

(Hobbes), there is considerable merit to it.

This content downloaded from 14.139.155.66 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 19:53:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM 147

Where his case is made on extrinsic grounds, it seems to me an impeccable

one. For whatever the ground of obligation is, in the extrinsic case, it is
not a ground within, not an integral feature of, the theoretical system of
political concepts. There is no logical or conceptual connection, by hypothesis, between this ground and the concepts of the theoretical system.
Hence, the connection between the ground of obligation and our so-called
duty to obey the law is wholly contingent and oblique. This is all that the
philosophical anarchist needs to say to make the extrinsic case.
If the case is made on intrinsic grounds, however, the philosophical
anarchist's case is strong, but not logically conclusive. He can show, or
probably can show, that most theoretical systems of politics will not support any obligation of the citizens in the strong sense that the anarchist is
interested in. I do not think he can show that every conceivable system, or
even every system that has been advanced historically, is unable intrinsically

to support obligation in the strong sense. (For one such example, there is
the State of the Guardians in Plato's Republic.) In so far as Wolff's philosophical anarchist tries to cover these cases by ruling them out on the basis
that any assertion of " authority " or " legitimacy " is incoherent, then he
fails-for reasons I have already given.
The case of Wolff's philosophical anarchist, then, is very powerful; but
it is not as powerful as he has claimed. For one thing, Wolff has rested
content with the case that can be made against political obligation on extrinsic grounds. Now this is, admittedly, a conclusive case, but to stop at
it is really to beg the question. So, Wolff's anarchist critique, in so far as it
has this character, is a simplistic one. For another thing, Wolff, like anarchists generally, has presented his critique as an attack on political authority,

but what he means by " authority " is " that which requires obligation ".
Hence, by attacking political obligation and showing that it is not required,
Wolff thinks he has undermined authority as well. He represents himself
as having made a clean sweep of the entire series of political concepts.
But there is nothing logically compelling in Wolff's contention against
authority. It depends on the proposition that political authority and political

obligation are analytically connected, as a feature of the meaning of these

terms, or that they somehow mutually entail one another. A bit of reflection
will indicate that this proposition is false.

For one thing, the statement " This government has authority but the
citizen does not have to obey each and all of its laws" is not self-contradictory or in any way absurd. Indeed, if the argument of this paper is
accepted, this statement would have to be true for the governments and
citizens of most states, even in those cases where the government could
reasonably claim to have authority. This would suggest that something
weaker than strict obligation is consistent with the notion of authority.
And, if the statement is not self-contradictory, then the proposition as to
the analytic connection is false.

This content downloaded from 14.139.155.66 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 19:53:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

148

REX

MARTIN

For another thing, the notion of what authority is-the having of a

rightful licence to issue rules with a presumption of compliance, or the
having of a possible title to back these rules up with threats and even with
the use of force, or the having of a rightful capacity to prohibit all use of
force to its subjects-and the notion of what obligation is-the citizen's
being strictly bound to obey every law issued by the government-do not
entail one another. It is possible to disobey a law without using coercive
force or to disobey a law without claiming that the law is " invalid " or that
governments have no title to issue laws at all or that citizens have no call to
pay heed to them and, of course, it may be possible for a citizen to be strictly
bound to law even with respect to a government that does not have rightful
authority. If these things are so, or if only one or two of them are, then the

mutual entailment breaks down; hence, the proposition as to the mutual

entailment of authority and obligation is false.

It follows, then, that Wolff's philosophical anarchist in making his case

against political obligation has, even if that case had been wholly successful,
not made a case against political authority. Or, in other words, the claim
that there can be political authority is consistent with the claim that there
cannot be political obligation. So philosophical anarchism is, in principle,
compatible with a belief in political authority or in the legitimacy of the
state. This may be shocking to many persons and especially to philosophical
anarchists like Wolff, but this is only because they are confused.
Moreover, it does seem to me that, given the notion of authority, political
philosophers could reconstruct much of the traditional doctrine. They could
say that the citizen's standing towards the law, under a government that
has authority, is one of " respect for law ". Hence they would have in this
notion a ground of general and conscientious " going along" with the law
intrinsic to any system of political concepts in which the notion of authority
figured.

This notion of principled compliance with law out of a sense of respect,

based ultimately on authority, would be an intermediate case between
political obligation in a strong sense and no obligation at all. We might
describe it as being in a state of allegiance. The implications of this notion
are, I think, striking.

First, it provides a logical space for the concept of civil disobedience.

This is so because, on the one hand, there seems to be little sense to civil

disobedience without an attendant notion of authority and, on the other

hand, no possibility of justifying such disobedience where one is strictly
obligated to obey laws.2 Moreover, under a presumptive bond of compliance
the citizen does not have to be strictly bound to obey every procedurally
2Wolff, of course, claims to have undercut the very notion of civil disobedience
when he denies authority (see V 610 and, esp., 611). I am surprised, though, that some
recent thinkers appear to believe that civil disobedience can possibly co-exist with
strict political obligations (see, for example, Raphael, Problems of Political Philosophy
(London, 1970), pp. 111-4).

This content downloaded from 14.139.155.66 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 19:53:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM 149

valid law. He can be given a wider latitude of action than that, although
his field of action is still a circumscribed one. The theory of civil disobedience

would by and large be called upon to map out this field.

Second, the preservation of a notion of authority makes it possible to
reinstate the distinction between " mere violence " and " the legitimate use
of force" (V 601), a distinction which Wolff was intent on discrediting
altogether (see V 606-9 esp.). I say " makes it possible ", since it is not a
foregone conclusion, or should not be, that just because a political agency
has de jure authority it thereby has the title to punish, i.e., the right to
attach penalty clauses to its laws and to enact penalties against lawbreakers.
I must say, though, that I doubt that the philosophical anarchist would
be content to leave standing the notions of compliance with the law and
possible entitlement to coerce, even in an attenuated form. There would
appear to be only one way in which his strategy against them could succeed,
by undermining definitively the whole notion of political authority.

Now it should be noted that I have not argued that the philosophical
anarchist could not find any grounds for rejecting the whole notion of de
jure political authority. I have contended only that he could not regard the
concept as internally incoherent and that he could not get rid of it just by
puncturing the whole notion of political obligation.

The value of Wolff's defence of philosophical anarchism, then, has been

more in its promise than in its performance. He has been largely content,
in the current antic mood, to cry out that the emperor has no clothes on.
Perhaps he will yet get on with the business of demonstrating that there is
no emperor.3
University of Kansas

8I am much indebted to Professor Charner M. Perry for his very helpful criticisms
and advice concerning an earlier draft of this paper.

This content downloaded from 14.139.155.66 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 19:53:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms