On Practical Authority

Dr George Duke (Deakin University )

Abstract: Contemporary accounts of political authority frequently set out from the distinction between theoretical and practical authority. On this model, theoretical authority provides reasons for belief, practical authority reasons for action. The former is thus identified with the privileged epistemic position of the teacher or scientific expert, the latter employed to explain political authority: the authority of the sovereign, the state or the law. In this paper I question the project of explaining legitimate political authority in terms of the notion of practical authority. The notion of practical authority, I suggest, is ill-suited to provide the conceptual resources required for a justification of the legitimacy of political authority.