"Command and Natural Equality"
Abstract:
How is it possible for one person’s commanding another to be consistent with their mutual moral equality? This is the question I address in my presentation. My point of departure is the thought that command poses a problem from the point of view of our moral equality in that to command another is to take the commandee's agency to be subject to one's own choice, and in that sense to take her as one’s inferior. I argue that valid that valid—that is, binding—command is possible only if it is institutionally mandated. That is, inequality of the sort inherent in the relation between commander and commandee has to take institutional form in order to be consistent with the parties’ \enquote{natural}—that is, moral—equality. I conclude with some tentative remarks on what in turn follows from the dependence of valid command on institutional form for the normative principles governing our political and non-political institutions.