Abstract

The problem of political authority concerns whether the institutions, practices, and activities we commonly find governments comprised of have sound moral foundations. The question is whether even the best of human communities, with their myriad of official elements, possess moral underpinnings so that what they require of their members may be enforced by some of their members. Political authority is expected to lend moral support to giving orders or issuing commands or handing down directives to people, which they may be made to follow by some officials in the name of the public interest or as requirements of good community life.