Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress

**Dwarkesh Patel** (0:00)
Hello, folks, and welcome to the Lunar Society Podcast. Today, it is my great privilege to talk with Professor Michael Huemer. He is, in my opinion, the best philosopher alive. He's a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, and he has written more than 70 academic articles on epistemology, ethics, metaethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy.
He has also written eight books, the newest one of which is this introduction to philosophy, Knowledge, Reality, and Value. I highly, highly recommend it. It's incredibly clear and easy to read. It covers all of the arguments and philosophy that I have been curious about since I was a teenager. So I've included a link to his Amazon page in the description where you can go and buy it. Today, we had an incredibly wide-ranging conversation about a previous book of his, The Problem of Political Authority. Just a reminder, as always, to please, please share this podcast on social media or with your friends if you enjoyed it. This is a small and growing podcast, so word of mouth really, really helps.
Without further ado, here's Professor Michael Huemer.
Okay, Professor Huemer, what is the problem of political authority? Where did you write this book?

**Michael Huemer** (1:12)
Yeah, so here's a copy of the book.
And you can order it on Amazon. That's the important thing or anywhere.
Yeah, so the problem referred to in the title is a philosophical problem about government. Basically, the problem is, what's the basis for the government's authority? And what I mean by the government's authority is, so first of all, it's usually thought that the government is entitled to give other people commands and force them to obey in situations where nobody else would be entitled to give commands and force people to obey, right? So like they could give commands that you don't already have to do, but you have to do them only because the government commanded it. And then the other part of this notion of authority is that, it's generally thought that you have a moral obligation to obey, to obey the law merely because it's the law. And again, the law could be things that you're not already obligated to do, right? So example, if I decide that I'm going to collect money from other people to give to the poor, right? Like I started a charity and I'm collecting money to help the poor, and I decide I'm not getting enough contributions voluntarily, so I decide to just like force people to pay, right?
If I do this, this is called extortion, and I'm going to wind up in jail, right? But besides that, I'm going to wind up in jail. Most people will be disapproving of this and think that, number one, I shouldn't be doing that, and number two, they don't have to pay me.

**Dwarkesh Patel** (2:48)
Okay.

**Michael Huemer** (2:49)
But when the government does this, this is called taxation and social welfare programs, which is generally most people approve of, right? They think that the government is entitled to do that, and that we are obligated to pay. That's just an illustration of the idea that the government has a special moral status, right? That most people think they have a status that puts them above other ordinary people. So the question is, why?
Why do they get to do all this stuff that nobody else can do, and why should we obey them, right?

**Dwarkesh Patel** (3:27)
So you're pointing out a contradiction between common-sense morality and common-sense political philosophy. Why should we resolve that contradiction in favor of common-sense intuitions rather than the prevalent political views?

**Michael Huemer** (3:40)
Yeah, common-sense ethical intuition. So there are the intuitions that you would apply to kind of ordinary people, and then there would be intuitions people have about the state.
But I think if you raise this issue with most people, they will see that some sort of explanation is required, right? So like most people have the initial reaction that the government has authority, but they will not generally say, and yeah, that's just self-evident and needs no explanation. Like most people can see that it needs an explanation, right? And so then they will try to give an explanation, and it will just turn out that none of the explanations are any good, right? So I mean, right? So part of the reason why we don't just go with our initial intuition about politics is that we also, you might say, we have the intuition that it requires an explanation, right?
Yeah, so that's part of it. Another thing is, you know, the ethical intuitions that I'm appealing to, so things like you shouldn't go up to people and just like steal their money or, you know, like threaten people with violence to get their money or and then lock them in cages and stuff like that.