La Autoridad del derecho

Abstract

The claims of authority are part of our every day life. For example, parents demand certain conduct from their children and legal officials command or forbid us to act in specific ways. In all these cases we say that authority is practical because it changes the practical situation of the agent. For example, a child intends to run after a ball that has landed on the road, but the mother stops the child and demands that she do something else such as wait on the pavement until she can safely cross the road to rescue the ball. A lecturer, driving quickly to his first lecture of the morning is asked by the police to pull over, and he obeys. At first sight, from the first-person or the deliberative point of view neither the child, nor the lecturer have a reason to act. (...)