Philosophy

The power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience: "he had absolute authority over his subordinates".

The power or right to enforce obedience

Power- the ability to do or act.

Right- a fair and justified claim.

Enforce- impose a law/command/action/behaviour.

Obedience- Submitting to the law put in place.

Why is law in place?

In order to avoid war- Lockean Theory

We want to avoid fighting and therefore we want to create law and order.

Locke and Hobbes start to discuss about theories of political philosophy with the focus on the individual. Locke/Hobbes, they understand what is rational to be called 'right' and what actions are infact wrong. Lockes says that we retain this skill and live as rational beings. Hobbes says that self interest makes this ability. Focus is on the individual +society is formed from consequences of human nature. 

Locke and Hobbes say that in order to start a society we need:

Laws

Fairness

The Ability to help eachother and not just ourselves. 

Freedom and Liberty are crutical to political philosophy. This is because we have rights with represent how we are able to live our lives. Then laws/authority limits these rights. Locke and Hobbes say this is to benefit us.

If we were to live in a place with negative freedom then it would mean that people have the ability to do anything they desire- this could include a war of all against all. We could also say that a governmentless state would perhaps lead to a people having too much power and fighting to get the best of something! It means freedom without limits or obstacles. State of Nature will progress in negative freedom, people would do exactly what they wanted.

1) to negate the law is to gain freedom. Therefore we calls this negative freedom.

2) Hobbes would comment that without law/authority, freedom would create selfish indivuals locked inconflict-negative freedom. Hobbes- lawless freedom. 'Silence of the law'.

To have a political obligation is to have a moral duty to obey the laws of one's country or state. To be sure, some philosophers have uncovered differences between obligations and duties, the most important of which is that obligations must be voluntarily undertaken or incurred, but duties need not be. The obligation to keep a promise or fulfill a contract, for example, arises only when one has done something that generates the obligation — made a promise or signed a contract — but the duties of charity and truth telling supposedly fall on us regardless of what, if anything, we voluntarily commit to do. To have an obligation is to be bound to do or not do something, and to have a political obligation is to be bound to obey the law.

Lawfulness by virtue of being authorized or in accordance with law.A legitimate child is a child whose parents are married at a time of the birth. 

Descriptively legitimacy, refers to people's beliefs about political authority and, political obligation.Weber said, political regime is legitimate means that its participants have certain beliefs or faith in regard to it: “the basis of every system of authority, and correspondingly of every kind of willingness to obey, is a belief, a belief by virtue of which persons exercising authority are lent prestige”. As is well known, Weber distinguishes among three main sources of legitimacy—understood as both the acceptance of authority and of the need to obey its commands.the normative concept of political legitimacy refers to some benchmark of acceptability or justification of political power or authority and—possibly—obligation. On the broadest view, legitimacy both explains why the use of political power by a particular body—a state, a government, or a democratic collective, for example—is permissible and why there is a pro tanto moral duty to obey its commands.