The Problem of Political Authority Quotes

“Government is an extremely prominent and fundamental feature of the structure of our society. We know that people tend to have a powerful bias in favor of the existing arrangements of their own societies. It therefore stands to reason that, whether or not any government were legitimate, most of us would have a strong tendency to believe that some governments are legitimate, especially our own and others like it.”
― Michael Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey

“According to [this] widely accepted theory…we experience an uncomfortable state, known as ‘cognitive dissonance’, when we have two or more cognitions that stand in conflict or tension with one another – and particularly when our behavior or other reactions appear to conflict with our self-image. We then tend to alter our beliefs or reactions to reduce the dissonance. For instance, a person who sees himself as compassionate yet finds himself inflicting pain on others will experience cognitive dissonance. He might reduce this dissonance by ceasing to inflict pain, changing his image of himself, or adopting auxiliary beliefs to explain why a compassionate person may inflict pain in this situation.”
― Michael Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey

“Is this a book of extremist ideology? Yes and no. I defend some radical conclusions in the following pages. But although I am an extremist, I have always striven to be a reasonable one. I reason on the basis of what seem to me common sense ethical judgments. I do not assume a controversial, grand philosophical theory, an absolutist interpretation of some particular value, or a set of dubious empirical claims. This is to say that although my conclusions are highly controversial, my premises are not. Furthermore, I have striven to address alternative viewpoints fairly and reasonably.”
― Michael Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey