In the state of nature as envisaged by Hobbes, it is easy to imagine how the competence, experience, superior skill or strength of certain individuals would make them obvious candidates for leadership roles which others might be pleased (or wise) to accept. This remains true, in a local way, in all human groups; "natural leaders" emerge, and familiar aspects of social dynamics prompt others to submit to their authority in particular respects.
But in the state of nature, or situations very like it, authority tends to be arrogated by the strong, and then protections and remedies against its abuse prove hard to come by, making justice unlikely because contingent on the whim or personality of those in charge. This does not make for desirable forms of civil society, as history very painfully shows. But rather than reject the idea of authority altogether, as an anarchist might recommend, the solution is to constitute it properly, so that its benefits can accrue, the chief of them being co-ordination of social effort, peace, justice, and protection of the weak.
Civil society is premised on the rule of law; laws have to be made when required, so a person or body has to be invested with power to devise them, and there has to be an expectation that they will be observed. This in turn requires enforcement and sanctions where necessary, which in turn requires the existence of suitably empowered agencies such as a police force and courts.
To secure these desiderata there has to be an agreement to accord authority to law-making and law-enforcing agencies, subject—so the democratic principle insists—to the possibility of revocation by those on whose behalf it is exercised. If I am party to, and beneficiary of, a standing decision to have a police force, then if I am stopped for exceeding a speed limit, and required by policemen to produce my driving licence, this is an acceptable subjection to their authority. And the example can be generalised: the existence of legitimately constituted authority is fundamental to the functioning of a good society.
But authority obviously has to be constrained and revocable to be acceptable, and there has to be proper remedy against its abuse, which is why the bearers of delegated authority have themselves to be subject to bodies that can hold them to account—in western liberal democracies, an electorate and an independent judiciary.
Justified authority is what exists when arrangements of these kinds are in place, and work. By analogy and derivation, the authority of schoolteachers, team captains and other archons in more local hierarchies has the same kind of ground.
Sent in by Tabitha Stiles, Braintree. Send your philosophical queries and dilemmas to AC Grayling here
