Authority, Delegation, and Plans

Understanding how large-scale hierarchical groups, such as corporations and nation-states, act is a theme of the recent literature on joint action (Bratman 2021; Gilbert 2006; Ludwig 2017; Shapiro 2011). But while several accounts analyse the practical mechanisms of large-scale agency, more focus is needed on the normative questions that these mechanisms raise. Shapiro (2011), for instance, notes that states coordinate their subjects via plans to reach common goals. This large-scale co-ordinational activity is necessary to achieve social order. However, from the practical necessity for large-scale, social coordination, and the fact that states can achieve it, it does not follow that it is legitimate for them to do so – for example, the authority’s planning seems to impair personal autonomy. My research develops a theory of political authorities as large-scale hierarchical groups that answers normative questions concerning the legitimacy of political authorities and the relationship between states and their subjects.
This thesis is divided into two parts. Part 1 proposes a three-stage model of practical reasoning that demonstrates how individuals can remain autonomous despite participating in hierarchical group action. Personal autonomy is preserved because authority’s plans help individuals respond to reasons and even enhance their reason-responsiveness capacities. I also note that there seems to be a more general tension between autonomy and shared agency that stems from the fact that plans need to be treated as exclusionary to guide our conduct. The three-stage model of practical reasoning ultimately shows that autonomy and shared agency, that is, being autonomous and acting with others, are compatible.
Part 2 addresses the legitimacy problem. It defends what I call the 'Delegation Theory of the Legitimacy of Political Authorities'. According to this theory, political legitimacy is based on the authority producing adequate social plans and providing a basic public justification for them. When these two conditions are met, the subjects have a duty to delegate their social planning powers to the authority. I then argue for normative delegation, which is a non-voluntarist theory of legitimate political authority. This research puts forward an account of political legitimacy understood as a product of large-scale, hierarchical agency, thus contributing to the emerging field of political ontology.