Political authority and human life are two of the many universal entitites that have been found in the history of mankind.Realist scholars like Thomas Hobbes had focused in his book Levianthan on the issue of humans nature being power centric .Man is brutish nasty ,bad and short.He thinks the continuous and restless desire regarding life is a key feature of human nature.Due to scarcity of resources ,humans being are constantly competing with each other to gain their fair share in the pie.Along with these two issues of desire for power and resource scarcity ,Hobbes focused on equality between individuals which was gifted by nature and distrust between individuals.Due to chaos and human nature to compete around us,actually there exist no moral and ethical rules in world .Self existence and lust for power lead humans towards a distorted sense of liberty in which we can do anything for survival and dominance.Although this presents a way to study human behaviour using a realist lens, but scholars like Hobbes think regarding human behaviour is just a fundamental extension of rules of nature owing to survival of the fittest as stated by Charles Darwin.
Owing to this ,we can see a complex interdependence being developed in the societies in which based on behaviour of others people want to get assured that individuals will perform their contracts made,and people will strive for peace.
Here comes the real issue.How to tackle this assurance problem in societies where people don’t want to be obliged to act but just try to maintain their conscience for some time. Scholars like Hobbes think that the solution for this problem lies in creation of an absolute political authority with full power .This political authority with full power will have the power to maintain the contracts,and look after peace and prosperity in the society.In this scenario, the concept of punishment cannot be neglected. This supreme political authority in any form may be monarchy is needed to form and create coercive laws that deter people being bad, brutish and nasty for society overall. The authority is the only way forward if we want to move away from the state of nature where war is a constant reality.
In this context, scholars like John Locke think in different dimensions.According to him there exist moral rules in the state of nature even if war is a constant truth there.Backed by his moral rules claim Locke projects a moral law in which all individuals are equal morally, individuals have natural duty to preserve oneself and all individuals have been given duty by the god to save whole mankind.
Inspite of the moral law and state of nature argument, I think there exists the need of a state or political authority which would tackle any confusion ,anarchy and disorder in the society. Even scholars like Locke specially focus on the need of a civil government which can solve any problems which emerge from disruption created out of the state of nature. We must understand that this state of nature involves people who have been given right to implement the law of nature. As individuals are not perfect the wrong doings which accompany the act may require strict punishments.Although when we talk about creating a political authority or state there comes a issue regarding whether we can force individuals to be under political power?In this context ,the concept of consent in establishing political authority comes forward.
Taking a separate angle on the state of nature issue we must think differently from previous scholars like Hobbes and Locke. A four stage view on evolving of the state of nature.First stage involves a serene lens to view humans i,e a sense of compassion.Although this sense is not a constant there is a continuous free will and capacity for self improvement.In next two stages there is formation of social cooperation and social units without government respectively.The fourth and final stage lays the foundation of concept of social contract between political authority and individuals as this stage involves increased competition and war among the members of the society.This social contract plays a great role in establishing peace within society although it promotes inequality.Still the conception of social contract which Rousseau imagines is a complex .This conception pre requires loss of individuality as people must move away from their individual right to community rights where attempt is made to create a collective supreme body.The social and national identity cuts across the individual identity.This helps in tackling the realist aspect of individual behaviour and suppress the tendencies of being nasty, brutish and short.
In nutshell all three scholars Rousseau, Locke and Hobbes have different point of view towards state of nature, conception of individual human life in state and how societies evolve keeping these aspects in mind. Although all three concur with the view that consent is of prime importance.If we want individuals to universally follow the duty of showing respect for law then their consent will play a vital part in this process.
The biggest stumbling block in this process is that a big chunk of individuals still have not shown any consent or desire to follow any political authority.Time and space play a big role in this phenomenon.As if any official contract signed fifty years back stands irrelevant for current generation. It cannot bring people together now.Some of the old contracts in society assume the children to go with father consent.But with time many old contracts fade away and their control goes weaker with time.
Sometimes to tackle this issue of consent regarding political authority in the state efforts for express consent or voting consent have been made , specially in democratic countries.Although the problem still persists that new generation keeps coming and in case of voting consent of people if donot vote it doesn’t mean that they donot consent.
In this context,hypothetical and tacit consent play a vital role though highly debated.Scholars like Locke have proclaimed that individuals can give tacit consent to state political authority through the benefits or the pleasure they receive from the authority. This point of view has been countered by Hume by putting forward the constraints on the free choice regarding stay in any country ,if the individual is not well versed with manners and way of life in foreign countries.
Still hypothetical consent tries to bridge the gap between political authority and individuals .This ia very innovative way to propose what would an individual do of given the choice to consent with the political authority what would individuals do? Although even this form of consent is not fully justified as scholars like Wolff have called it a weak way of consent with nothing compulsory.A big normative question that exists here is whether this type of consent really an approval for political authority or it is just the well being and enjoyment that allures people.
This form of defense of state authority is not perfect and scholars like Hume and Bentham came forward with an utilitarian approach for protecting the necessity of political authority.The important issues implicit here is that the state must try to propagate happiness in society and the concept of political authority can be defended only when it is the best way of propagating happiness. But the most important issue we tend to forget here is that each individual is different and separateness is a key aspect so we may need to promote priotarian view.All individuals cannot be similar in society.For example affirmative action can maximize happiness for poor citizens in a developing society regarding jobs but poor from other sections of the society who are not enjoying the benefits of affirmative action may never feel happy with it. Hence the dissendents try to defy the political authority. Further there can be case by case difference in societies which operate due to historical, political and socio economic conditions.For example abortion may be wrong as per islamic law but it easily accepted in western societies. Thus the role of political authority in both the scenarios is different as per the human nature and acceptance of issues.
So, based on the discussion,it is clear that the issues like consent theory and utilitarianism have their own drawbacks when we consider full acceptance for political authority by individuals who are nasty,short and bad.We must realise that all the individuals in the society may not cemdent with the need of political authority.Further,if we take world as a whole, normatively utilitarian values can lay down specific ways to accept political authority .But when it comes to region wise implementation, there can be chaos and all the principles of utilitarian way of acceptance may not be adopted by individuals.The only thing these issues points is that “Anarchy is what the individuals and states making of themselves” rather then hirerarichal, political authoritative approach in societies.This is in line with Robert Wolff view on consistence of anarchy with autonomy.
In my view promoting political and moral value pluralism in societies may help in shaping the issue of political authority in such a way that collectively it is accepted by all section of society in spirit.So,political authority is definitely a way forward as life in states is anarchic. Still we have to devise way for implementing a balance between the political authority and anarchic dissendents.
The Author Devanshu Jha is candidate at Philosophy department of LSE.He is an alumnus of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Indian Institute of Management Ranchi.
