Abstract

Joseph Raz’s influential account of authority holds that authority is normally justified by the authority’s ability to issue directives that, if followed, would increase a norm subject’s chances of conforming to the requirements of right reason. Jeremy Waldron raises a number of challenging and important questions about whether Raz’s account of authority can usefully illuminate our understanding of law’s authority in contemporary democracies, where laws are enacted by large, diverse legislatures in circumstances of disagreement. I examine a number of these questions, and conclude that Raz’s account of authority is equal to the task of illuminating our understanding of law’s authority in the “circumstances of politics,” where we often disagree about what right reason requires, and where law is enacted by large, diverse legislatures that settle on courses of social action by adopting participatory majoritarian procedures.