On Jesse Spafford’s State-Tolerant Anarchism

Abstract In his Social Anarchism and the Rejection of Moral Tyranny , Jesse Spafford defends a state-tolerant (philosophical) anarchism: States do not have the moral power to impose duties because they do not have the consent of the governed, and states are therefore illegitimate, but we should tolerate states and their officials as long as they act justly. This paper tries to show, first, that Spafford’s argument against state-intolerant anarchism (political anarchism) fails because it presupposes that political anarchism must be a priori. A posteriori political anarchism is a viable position. In the second section, I argue that one cannot, like Spafford, limit oneself to the moral evaluation of the actions of states and their officials (and tolerate them as long as they act justly). States without the moral power to impose duties are intrinsically unjust: They are unjust for what they are , independently from what they do . Third, I make the point that if Spafford were to consistently deny that institutions can be intrinsically unjust, he would by analogy also have to endorse a slavery-tolerant and property-tolerant anarchism that focuses exclusively on the actions of slaveholders and property-owners. Fourth, I argue that if Spafford were right that there is nothing intrinsically unjust about states that do not have the moral power to impose duties, then he should also not make it a criterion for the legitimacy of states whether they have that moral power or not. State-tolerant anarchism is not a well-motivated view.