What is Legitimation?

Dr Robert Simpson (Monash Philosophy)

Abstract: What sense can we make of a claim like “racist jokes legitimate racial discrimination”, if it refers to a social context in which racial discrimination is legally sanctioned, and those sanctions are widely supported? There is a distinctive concept of ‘legitimation’ at work here. But its meaning isn’t clear. And as a result the term sometimes looks more like a rhetorical device than a bona fide critical concept. In this paper I try to remedy this. After distinguishing the target concept from some other uses of the term ‘legitimation’, I present two rival accounts of the target concept. One says: A legitimates x when A makes x seem normatively legitimate in a local context. The other says: A legitimates x when A contributes to the descriptive normalisation of x in a global context. I argue that legitimation seems like a more credible critical concept if it’s understood according to the second account, and explore some implications of this.