Practical Authority as Grounded in a Plausible Claim of Right

Authoritative directives are distinguished from other imperatives, like the demands of a robber, in virtue of being made under a claim of right that subjects treat as plausible. This essay argues that the reason a directive must be grounded in a plausible claim of right to count as authoritative is that a directive counts as authoritative only if backed by detriment that is reasonably likely to deter enough noncompliance to enable the authority to minimally achieve the ends she intends to achieve by directing behavior (the Detriment Thesis or DT, for short). Only DT can explain why directives must be grounded in a plausible claim of right to count as authoritative.