Legitimacy and two roles for flourishing in politics

It is good for people to flourish. But does the state have the authority to promote the flourishing of its citizens? Some political philosophers—perfectionists—hold that it does.1 For perfectionists, the state has the authority to pursue policies meant to promote the flourishing of its citizens, and it is appropriate for the state, or state officials, to take considerations about what will promote flourishing into account when exercising their authority. Traditionally for perfectionists, the fact that a policy will promote the flourishing of the citizens may legitimate the state's using its authority to pursue that policy, even if the policy does not promote any non-perfectionist aims— that is, aims other than flourishing.

Other political philosophers—anti-perfectionists—hold that the state acts illegitimately when it tries to promote flourishing.2 These philosophers hold that the state does not have the authority to try to promote flourishing and that flourishing does not legitimate the extension of state authority to pursue a particular policy. One influential anti-perfectionist argument for this conclusion is that, however good it is for people to flourish, considerations about flourishing are not the appropriate grounds for political authority, and so it is an illegitimate extension of authority contrary to people's rights when the state uses its authority to promote flourishing. Let's call this argument the legitimacy objection to perfectionism.3

How should perfectionists answer this argument? After discussing the legitimacy objection in Section II, I explore one common perfectionist response in Section III—that there are natural or political duties to promote people's flourishing that can ground the state's authority to promote flourishing.4 I am skeptical that responses of this kind are dialectically effective. Rather, in Section IV, I suggest that the appropriate space for perfectionist state action lies in using considerations about flourishing to select among courses of state action that the state may legitimately pursue for non-perfectionist reasons. This consideration-based perfectionism allows officials to take considerations about flourishing seriously, without extending the legitimate scope of state authority, thereby avoiding the legitimacy objection.

This shows that there are two distinct roles that flourishing could play within political life. On the one hand, flourishing could be something that the state is sensitive to in making its decisions. On the other hand, flourishing could be something that partially grounds the domain of legitimate state authority. The ability of consideration-based perfectionism to avoid the legitimacy objection shows how these roles can come apart—the state can be sensitive to flourishing even if flourishing does not partially ground the domain of legitimate state authority. Proponents of the legitimacy objection collapse together two distinct roles that flourishing can play in politics, and assume that responding to one role, the ability to legitimate state action, is sufficient to reject perfectionism in politics. In Section V, I explore how recognizing these two roles alters the effectiveness of different anti-perfectionist responses to perfectionism, by comparing political liberal and Kantian responses. This puts into relief questions about what anti-perfectionists find to be fundamentally problematic about perfectionism.

One perfectionist response to the legitimacy objection is to argue for the state's authority to promote flourishing using the same method as anti-perfectionists. That is, some perfectionists argue that the authority to promote flourishing is grounded on a duty to promote the flourishing of others.24 If there are such duties, then it is possible to ground the state's authority to promote flourishing on the basis of fulfilling such a duty, just like the natural duties anti-perfectionists invoke. To this end, some perfectionists hold that there is a natural duty to promote flourishing—a duty that arises prior to any form of political organization—while other perfectionists argue that there is a political duty—a duty that arises within political society—to promote flourishing. In Section III.I, I will discuss the position that the duty to promote flourishing is a natural duty held by individuals, and I will address the second possibility in Section III.II.

My focus in this article has been on how perfectionists might fruitfully respond to the legitimacy objection. To do this, I have introduced one particular role which perfectionist considerations about flourishing could play in politics consistent with the legitimacy objection: as considerations to select among policies that are independently legitimated on non-perfectionist grounds. This allows the state to be sensitive to the flourishing of citizens, even though the range of responses it may engage in is constrained. I have contrasted this with a different role that considerations about flourishing might play in politics: as considerations that can ground the state's authority and so determine the boundaries of legitimate authority. My suggestion is that perfectionists can effectively answer the legitimacy objection through dropping the second potential role for considerations about flourishing within political life while retaining sensitivity to concerns about flourishing.

I want to conclude with some remarks on what this shift in what role perfectionist considerations play within political life means for anti-perfectionists. To see this, it might be helpful to zoom in on Pallikkathayil's disagreement with political liberals, such as Quong, about the form that anti-perfectionism should take. Political liberals hold that one problematic feature of perfectionism is that it requires the state to rely on controversial views about flourishing or the good life and that citizens have a claim against the state exercising authority on such grounds.46 Pallikkathayil rejects the idea that the problem with perfectionism has to do with the kinds of considerations used. Instead, the problem for Kantians like her is that perfectionism involves an illegitimate exercise of state authority—perfectionism involves “coercion undertaken for the sake of one's own good rather than for the sake of establishing mutual independence”: that is, the legitimacy objection.47 This is meant to produce a more “dialectically powerful” argument against perfectionism.48

The distinction between the two roles that perfectionist considerations about flourishing may play within political life shows the limits of Pallikkathayil's argument. While the legitimacy objection is dialectically effective against the second role that flourishing may play within political life—extending the range of legitimate state action—it is not an effective response to the first role—the state's sensitivity and responsiveness to the citizen's flourishing. Since consideration-based perfectionism simply permits the state to be sensitive to considerations about flourishing, it avoids the legitimacy objection. By contrast, political liberal positions like Quong's do target the first role directly by arguing that there is something problematic about the state using perfectionist considerations.49 The legitimacy objection, then, is dialectically limited in terms of its ability to respond to certain roles that perfectionist considerations can play in political life, and some further argument, such as the political liberal's, is needed to address both roles outlined here.

By helping to separate out and clarify the different roles that flourishing may play in political life, consideration-based perfectionism points to the need for anti-perfectionists to clarify what is fundamentally of concern with perfectionist state conduct. If the issue is solely with the role of considerations about flourishing in legitimating state action, then a form of perfectionism can coexist within an anti-perfectionist framework for state legitimacy. But if both roles are at issue, then some further argument beyond the legitimacy objection, or some variant of it, is needed to explain what is wrong with perfectionism. Responding to consideration-based perfectionism, then, should help anti-perfectionists to clarify what their commitments are, and so allow them to recognize what kinds of arguments they need to address the form of perfectionism to which they are opposed.

I would like to thank those who have helped me along with this article, either directly or indirectly: Michael Ashfield, David Clark, Jasmine Gunkle, Quyen Pham, Jacob Ross, Mark Schroeder, and Collis Tahzib. I would also like to thank participants in the Iowa Graduate Philosophy Conference and the Shandong−USC Conference, and an anonymous reviewer for this journal. Finally, I thank Jonathan Quong for his extensive feedback and support in the development of this article.

None relevant.

There are no potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

The author declares human ethics approval was not needed for this study.