Whenever you need some brain food I highly recommend CATO Unbound. And the March discussion, Authority, Obedience, and the State with Michael Huemer, Bryan Caplan, Tom G. Palmer and Nicole Hassoun will no doubt be enlightening.

About this issue:

"Many people grant the state the moral right to do all sorts of things — things that, were they done by private individuals, we would nonetheless find appalling. Can we justify this expansive moral authority, whether through social contract theory or otherwise? If we can't, what happens next?" [More…]

Lead Essay

Firing the opening salvo this month is Michael Huemer, professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It's entitled The Problem of Authority, and I'm sure you'll find it intriguing.

Here's the CATO Unbound summary:

"Michael Huemer advances two broad theses: First, we should judge government actions using precisely the same standards that we commonly employ in judging individuals' actions; governments and their agents get no special moral status. Second, he suggests that a society without a monopoly government might not be as different different as is sometimes imagined. Those who fear corporate power should question whether government, which bears a striking resemblance to an especially large, ill-behaved, and overbearing corporation, can ever be a vehicle for social justice." [More…]

Read the lead essay here…

Read the series here…