Interesting Conversation on Weber

i-0eb256796884ead7fc1911af365511e0-weber.jpgHere is your philosophical conversation to ponder over for the day. (I am cleaning out links, and this is the sort of stuff you get when I am cleaning out links.)

I recently read an interesting interchange on about Weber's idea that a state is defined by a monolopy on the legitimate use of force in reference to the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech.

Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy argued that no Western state actually possesses a monopoly on force making this definition largely irrelevant:

I want to claim that this echo of Weber (who said "Today ... we have to say that a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory") is utterly inapt in gun control debates, at least such debates in a Western country.

To begin with, note that, read literally, my friend's proposal is not "old-fashioned." It's not new-fashioned. It has never been the fashion in any jurisdiction in America.

1. Every jurisdiction in America has always recognized individuals' right to use not just force but deadly force in defending life. To my knowledge, every Western democracy does the same (though with some differences about the permissible occasions for and extent of such use of deadly force, and of course with differences about what deadly weapons people are entitled to possess). It may well be that virtually every state in the world does the same, at least in many situations, though I can't speak confidently about that.

...

So whatever the meaning of Weber's statement might be, it does not mean only a state may physical force, or even lethal force -- nor would such a policy be sound or morally acceptable (since it would require a prohibition on all private self-defense using lethal force of any sort). It might mean that the private use of force is allowed only to the extent it's permitted by the state (in Weber's words, "the right to use physical force is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state permits it[; t]he state is considered the sole source of the 'right' to use violence"). This may be a controversial moral proposition but which could at least be consistent with the reality I describe above, and with the moral imperative of allowing self-defense. It might also be read as meaning that only the state may generally use retaliatory force, which is to say force aimed at after-the-fact retaliation (whether for retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, or whatever else) when the imminent need for self-defense has passed.

Read the whole thing.

To these comments Kieran Healy at Crooked Timber responded that the emphasis of the definition was a monopoly on the legitimate use of force -- because states license gun owners and hence confer legitimacy to non-state actors:

It's the legitimacy point that's key. The state claims the right to regulate who can and cannot do things like own weapons, shoot people, run some kind of armed organization or what have you, and under what circumstances and with what restrictions. Which is precisely what Volokh's examples show: jurisdictions allow, laws recognize, and so on. It is this legitimacy claim that is behind the state's labeling certain groups as terrorists, for example. Volokh goes on to say that his "point is simply that this Weber quote is of no relevance to the question of private gun possession for self-defense." Weber won't resolve any detailed policy questions in that department, though his definition does make it clear that in a modern state the private ownership of weapons is something the state will certainly claim the right to regulate.

Read the whole thing. (I realize that I have somewhat caricatured their statements to place them in more opposition than is actually there but I think that this is an interesting idea.)

So here is our philosophical question of the day, is Weber's definition accurate? Do modern states claim a monopoly on legitimate force? Do they actually possess this monopoly?

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Libertarian political theorists ordinarily refer to a state monopoly on the initiation of force. That's probably a much easier concept to defend ...

By Scott Simmons (not verified) on 24 Apr 2007 #permalink

There are basically no substantial differences between Volokh and Healy. Healy's post is an argument against Volokh's correspondent's pretty obviously wrong reading of Weber as indicating that only direct agents of the government can legitimately used force in a "modern" state, but Healy directs it at Volokh for some odd reason.

Weber is being descriptive, not normative, and it is an accurate description of how the law in many contemporary states views the use of force. The USA is in a grey area because of the way the constitution is structured, it can be argued that the state recognizes self defense is a reserved right retained by the people rather than flowing form the approval of the state, but the state itself takes no consistent formal position on the matter.

If the state allow other entities to legitimately use force it is only because they act as extension of the state's capacity.

For example gun owners and private security contractors are permitted to have the capacity to use force under the premise of national, community or self-defense. Permission is granted but it is under the terms of the state.

An example of a states failure to monopolise the use of force is in an incidence of coup de etat or armed rebellion. Cases such as this is a direct challenge to, in fact an actual demostration of failure, of the state vis-a-vis the monopoly of the use of force.