Legitimacy (Dee Speaking)
						MAIN PATH: Malik
						Malik

You guys are debating several sociological questions; namely, what conditions are necessary for major progress on racial issues, how crucial is the removal of stigma, how important is the restriction of hate speech, and others. I want to raise a philosophical question: the question of legitimacy.

Most political philosophers discuss the question "What makes government legitimate?" The question means, roughly, "Why are we morally obligated to obey certain governments but not others?" Is it because a certain kind of government has been ordained by God, or because a certain kind of government advances the welfare of the people, or some other reason? In our culture, the most widely accepted answer is that governments are legitimate because in some way they derive their authority from, and express, the will of the people they govern.

Your project to purge the culture of racism and sexism (and perhaps other 'isms'?) creates a problem for this scheme. This argument for legitimacy only works as long as government does not create the popular will that it expresses. If government creates the values and attitudes of the people, then the fact that it represents them or manifests them no longer gives it legitimacy. This is obvious in the extreme case of a totalitarian government that succeeds in molding its people's attitudes completely. We might say that they manifest its will rather than it manifesting theirs.

On a much more limited scale, the same problem arises with your project. If we give government the right and the power to purge the culture of sexist and racist ideas, have we thereby undermined the only argument we have for its legitimacy?

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