Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress

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's written more than 70 academic articles on epistemology, ethics, meta-ethics, 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, and covers all of the arguments in philosophy that I've been curious about since I was a teenager. So I've included a link to his Amazon page, uh, 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 with Political Authority. Just a reminder, as always, to please, please share this podcast on social media or with your friends if you enjoy it. This is a small and growing podcast, so, uh, word of mouth really, really helps. Without further ado, here's Professor Michael Huemer. (instrumental music plays) Okay, Professor Huemer, uh, what is The Problem with Political Authority? Why did you write this book?

Yeah, so, uh, you know, here's a copy of the book, uh, case cover, and, uh, you can order it on Amazon, that's the important thing.

(laughs)

(laughs) Or, you know, anywhere. Um, yeah, so I, you know, the, the problem referred to in the title is a philosophical problem about government. Uh, basically, the problem is what's the basis for the government's authority? And, you know, and what, 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 the situations where you- nobody else would be entitled to give commands and force people to obey, right? So, like, they could give commands that y- you don't, you don't already have to do, but you have to do them because, only because the government commanded it. Uh, and then the other part of this notion of authority is that, uh, it's generally thought that you have a moral obligation to obey, right? To obey the law merely because it's the law. And, again, you know, the law could be things that you're not already obligated to do, right? So, example, if I decide that, uh, I'm going to collect money from other people to give to the poor, right? (laughs) Like I started a charity and 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? Um, if I do this, this is called extortion, and, uh, you know, I'm gonna wind up in jail, right? (laughs) But besides that I'm gonna wind up in jail, most people will be disapproving of this and think that, number one, I shouldn't be doing that. Number two, they don't have to pay me, right? (laughs) Okay. But when the government does this, this is called taxation, and, you know, social welfare programs, which is, uh, generally most people approve of, right? And they think that the government is entitled to do that, and that we are obligated to pay. So, and that's just an illustration of the idea that the government has a special moral status, right? That most people think they have a kind of status that puts them above other ordinary people. And so the question is why? Like (laughs) , you know, why do they, why do they get to do all this stuff that nobody else can do, and why should we obey them, right?