Note: The ethical judgments on this page refer exclusively to the action — never to the person who performs it. Every person possesses inalienable dignity, regardless of what they do or have done. Cf. Note on ethical judgments (German).
Illegitimate authority is a form of political authority that violates the personalistic norm at the institutional level. It stands in disjoint opposition to legitimate authority. Whereas the latter is grounded in the common dignity of all persons and serves the common good, illegitimate authority disregards the personhood of those subject to it. It violates fundamental rights and can therefore raise no morally valid claim to obedience.
Two Ways of Illegitimacy
Thomas Aquinas distinguishes two fundamental ways in which authority loses its legitimacy:
Defectus tituli — unlawful acquisition: Authority obtained by violence, usurpation, or fraud is illegitimate from the outset. Whoever unlawfully displaces a legitimate ruler is a tyrannus absque titulo.
Defectus exercitii — abuse of lawfully acquired power: Even lawfully acquired authority becomes illegitimate through:
- laws that contradict the natural law
- laws that serve not the common good but self-interest
- overstepping one’s own competence
- a disproportionate distribution of burdens
Thomas formulates the principle: a rule that does not follow the natural law “is no longer a law but a perversion of law” (lex iniusta non est lex — following Augustine). A tyrannical regime is thereby unlawful. According to CCC 1903, directives of an authority that run contrary to the moral order are not binding in conscience.
Illegitimate Authority and the Personalistic Norm
From the standpoint of personal ontology, the decisive criterion is the personalistic norm. An authority that treats persons as mere means — that instrumentalizes them instead of affirming them for their own sake — is eo ipso illegitimate. This holds regardless of how it came to power.
The ontological dignity of every person — “the necessary essential law that every person possesses inalienable ontological dignity” — is the insurmountable limit of every exercise of authority. Where an authority oversteps this limit, it loses its legitimation. Kant too formulates this principle: “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.”
Tyranny
Tyranny is the classic form of illegitimate authority: rule for the ruler’s own benefit instead of the common good, lawless and without accountability. Aristotle defines it in the Politics (III): “Every sole ruler who is accountable to no one and rules for his own advantage exercises tyranny.”
Thomas Aquinas distinguishes:
- Tyrannus absque titulo — the tyrant by usurpation: whoever unlawfully seizes power
- Tyrannus quoad exercitium — the tyrant by exercise: whoever abuses lawfully acquired power
According to Thomas, a tyrannical regime is no legitimate commonwealth, but a perversion of order. Tyranny abuses power and violates the right to freedom.
Ontological classification: Subclass of: Illegitimate authority
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a form of rule that claims total control over all spheres of life and destroys the space of political action itself. Hannah Arendt analyzes: terror is the form of government that comes into being when violence has destroyed all power and yet retains full control. “Where violence is used, authority itself has failed.”
From the standpoint of personal ontology, totalitarianism negates the person in all three dimensions:
- It destroys bodily existence (first dimension)
- It suppresses rational awareness and free will (second dimension)
- It prevents moral perfection (third dimension)
Totalitarianism systematically suppresses the right to freedom, the right to freedom of conscience, and the right to privacy.
Ontological classification: Subclass of: Illegitimate authority; disjoint with: Tyranny
Political Corruption
Political corruption is the abuse of public power for private advantage. Lord Acton formulated it: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Corruption systematically undermines the legitimacy of an authority (defectus exercitii) and is a form of instrumentalization: the persons of the political community are degraded to means of enrichment.
Corruption is a fundamentally moral — not merely legal — phenomenon: actions can be corrupt even when they are legal. It constitutes a form of practical oblivion of the person.
Ontological classification: Subclass of: Practical oblivion of the person
Right of Resistance
The right of resistance is the normatively grounded defence against illegitimate rule and state injustice. Thomas Aquinas argues: rising up against a tyrannical regime is not sedition, for it is the tyrant who is guilty of sedition.
CCC 2243 formulates five cumulative conditions for armed resistance:
- Certain, grave, and prolonged violation of fundamental rights
- All other means of redress have been exhausted
- The resistance will not provoke worse disorders
- Well-founded prospect of success
- No better solution is reasonably foreseeable
Moreover, every citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow directives that contradict the fundamental rights of persons (CCC 2242).
Ontological classification: Subclass of: Right
Political Authority
Political authority is an ordering instance with jurisdiction over a political community. As an institution, it regulates the living-together of persons and is oriented toward the common good. It divides into legitimate authority — which is grounded in the dignity of all persons and protects fundamental rights — and illegitimate authority, which violates the personalistic norm at the institutional level.
Ontological classification: Superordinate concept: Institution; subordinate concepts: Legitimate authority, Illegitimate authority
Legitimate Authority
Legitimate authority is a form of political authority that is legitimate precisely when it is grounded in the common dignity of all persons and serves the common good. It protects the fundamental rights of persons and enables the actualization of the dimensions of personhood at the institutional level. It stands in disjoint opposition to illegitimate authority.
Ontological classification: Superordinate concept: Political authority; disjoint with: Illegitimate authority
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology. Bexten 2017, pp. 309–322 (the personalistic norm in the institutional context, rights and the exercise of authority).
Further sources:
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 95, a. 2 (lex iniusta non est lex). Transl. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Bros., 1947.
- Aristotle: Politics III, 1279b–1280a (tyranny as the degeneration of monarchy). In: The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, transl. B. Jowett. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
- Kant, Immanuel (1785): Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, transl. Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998 (Akademie-Ausgabe vol. IV, p. 429).
- Arendt, Hannah (1970): On Violence. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
- Lord Acton (1887): Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 5 April 1887.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997): nos. 1903, 2242, 2243.