David Estlund’s Democratic Authority develops a novel doctrine of “normative consent,” according to which the nonconsent of those with a duty to consent is null. This article suggests that this doctrine can be defended by confining it to contexts involving consent to an authority, which raise distinctive normative challenges, but argues that Estlund’s attempt to deploy the doctrine fails, for it does not provide convincing reasons to think that citizens have any duty to consent. In closing, the article suggests that (...) the doctrine of normative consent might yet do some useful work in a quite different theoretical setting. (shrink)

Certain non-voluntarists have recently defended political authority by advancing two-part views. First, they argue that the state, or the law, is best (or uniquely) capable of accomplishing something important. Second, they defend a substantive normative principle on which being so situated is sufficient for de jure authority. This paper uses widely accepted tenets to show that all such defenses of authority fail.

This piece is a response to four essays that critically discuss my book Democratic Authority. In addition to responding to their specific criticisms, it takes up several methodological issues that put some of the critiques in a broader context. Among the issues discussed are “normative consent,” which I offer as a new theory of authority; the “general acceptability requirement,” which advances a broadly Rawlsian approach to political justification; and methodological questions about theory building, including a device I dub the “method (...) of provisional leap.”. (shrink)