Okay, in deference to my friend and colleague Crispin Sartwell, with whom I often disagree on matters political and social (such as his fondness for anarchism and love of rap, to name but two), I'm posting his challenge. He's still a brilliant guy with often compelling arguments, and I'm as happy to throw down the philosophical gauntlet as the next person. So here's his manifesto and challenge to you, gentle readers (he also has a video challenge up on YouTube, and if I could remember how to embed it I would):
A Philosophical Challenge
My irritating yet astounding new book Against the State (SUNY Press) argues that
(1) The political state or government rests on violence (force and coercion).
(2) Violence is always wrong if it can't be morally justified. (That is, violence is wrong if it lacks a moral justification.)
(3) The arguments for the moral legitimacy of state - for example those of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Hegel, Rawls, and Habermas - are unsound.
(4) Hence, state power has not been shown to be morally defensible.
Until you show me otherwise, I insist that government power is in every case illegitimate.
Not only are the existing arguments for the legitimacy of state power unsound; they are pitiful, embarrassments to the Western intellectual tradition.
So I issue a challenge: Give a decent argument for the moral legitimacy of state power, or reconstruct one of the traditional arguments in the face of the refutations in Against the State.
If you can't, you are rationally obliged to accept anarchism.
Henceforward, if you continue to support or observe the authority of government, you are an evil, irrational cultist.
You're an anarchist now, baby, until further notice.
e-mail responses to c.sartwell@verizon.com
Yours in anarchy,
Crispin Sartwell
