This thesis presents a reconstruction and critique of Robert Paul Wolff's defence of anarchism. In Part One, the underlying moral theory upon which this defence is based is analyzed. The defence of anarchism is then reconstructed on the basis of this moral theory. It is argued that all claims to legitimate political authority are apparently illegitimate because such claims conflict with an.
Robert Paul Wolff was born in 1933 in New York City. He was educated at Harvard University, receiving his doctorate in philosophy in 1957. Following a brief period of service in the military, he taught at Harvard, The University of Chicago, Columbia University, and the University of Massachusetts, from which he retired in 2008 after a career spanning half a century.
In Defense of Anarchism is a 1970 book by the philosopher Robert Paul Wolff, in which the author defends individualist anarchism. He argues that individual autonomy and state authority are mutually exclusive and that, as individual autonomy is inalienable, the moral legitimacy of the state collapses.
Robert Paul Wolff uses Kant’s framework to make the case against the concept of legitimate government. His pre-eminent work, “In Defence of Anarchism”, outlines the incompatibility of Kantian moral autonomy and legitimate state authority. Wolff agues that although the decrees of the state may overlap with one’s moral code, or be.
This chapter examines Robert Paul Wolff’s arguments in In Defense of Anarchism about state authority and individual autonomy, and how plausible they are for philosophical anarchism. According to Wolff, the authority of the modern state cannot be justified because it conflicts with the autonomy of the individual. The presumptive clash between state authority and individual autonomy that Wolff.