Practical Authority, Will-Imposition, and the Society of Angels

Abstract

Joseph Raz argues both that there can be practical authority without sanctions and that such authority is constituted, in part, by the power to impose its will on subjects with respect to what they must do. This essay argues that the Razian claim that practical authority is partly constituted by a power of will-imposition implies that a telling counts as authoritative only if backed by the threat of a sanction. Since law is a form of practical authority, this claim is logically inconsistent with the conclusion Raz draws from the society-of-angels argument.