Authority, Obedience, and Justification

We have a duty to think for ourselves. The law claims authority over us. We have a duty, at least sometimes, to obey the law. Alone, each of these premises is fairly uncontroversial. Combined, they create some intriguing puzzles. Can law’s claim of authority be justified? If so, does justified legal authority entail an obligation to obey the law? If not, are we nonetheless justified, and perhaps even obligated, to act as if such an obligation exists? While this essay is hardly the first to address these questions, it is the first to do so by combining elements of Joseph Raz’s prominent “service conception of authority,” along with John Gardner’s influential account of justification, to defend a modest version of philosophical anarchism. These philosophical resources illuminate new explanations regarding the justification of law’s claims to authority and our obedience to those claims. This Article is an exercise in analytic legal philosophy. It clarifies the nature of authority, obedience, and justification to provide a framework for understanding when claims of authority and obedience to such claims are justified. This framework has at least three important implications for the practical attitude we should adopt toward the law in our current political climate. First, we should resist currently fashionable arguments grounded in the condemnation of “lawlessness.” Second, we should acknowledge the potential value of the law, and its claim to authority, when it comes to (re)establishing the trust required to maintain our political community. Third, we should recognize obligations to the law that extend beyond any supposed obligation to obey, including obligations both to know and improve the law. Applying the framework set out in this Article allows us to maintain a healthy skepticism toward law’s claim of authority over us, recognize the value of justified obedience to law’s authority, and identify the circumstances under which we may be obligated to obey law’s claim of authority over us

Coercion, Consent, and Time

This article sets out a framework for distinguishing three kinds of norms governing past sexual (mis)conduct and our responses to it: wrongfulness norms,excusability norms, and accountability norms. The framework provides conceptual tools for making sense of (and understanding the limits of ) three distinct responses commonly offered by those accused of past sexual misconduct: “But that used to be okay!” “But everybody used to think that was okay!” and “But thatwas so long ago!

Sex, Work, and Crime (Book Chapter)

Abstract forthcoming

Sex, Work, and Crime (Book Chapter)

Abstract forthcoming

What Counts as Domestic Violence? A Conceptual Analysis

This article analyzes the conceptual structure of domestic violence and critiques various influential accounts of domestic violence operating in the criminal justice system, legal and sociological academia, and the domestic violence advocacy community. Part I presents a preliminary philosophical analysis of domestic violence with the goal of furthering our understanding of the correct use of this concept. This analysis centers around three key elements of domestic violence: violence, domesticity, and structural inequality. Part II develops an explanatory model of domestic violence based upon these key elements. Part III examines and critiques four principal accounts of domestic violence, each of which reflects the conflicting ways in which the concept of domestic violence is used in the language and methodology of the criminal justice, academic, and advocacy communities. Finally this article endorses an account of domestic violence that roughly corresponds to the one employed in the recent work of sociologist Michael Johnson