The Notion of Authority. Alexandre Kojève
in political philosophy by the assertion of a judicial power situated on the same plane as the legislative or executive ones. Undoubtedly, the historical legacy is of great importance here. The famous Article 16 of the 1789 Declaration states that ‘any society in which no provision is made for guaranteeing rights or for the separation of powers, has no Constitution’. If the distinction between the separation of powers and the separation of functions is important, the division of tasks is equally fundamental. However, the existence of a hierarchy is notable especially, but not uniquely, in relations between the legislature and the judiciary. This is why the legislature is prohibited from interfering in the function of judging, in the judicial function, though it can do so by enacting retroactive or interpretative laws, or even by means of ex post facto laws. Conversely, the law of 16–24 August 1790 still charges the courts with abuse of power if they are found ‘taking any part, directly or indirectly, in the exercise of legislative power, obstructing or suspending the execution of the decrees of the legislative body’. While the 1958 Constitution of the Fifth Republic was partly driven by the desire to strengthen the executive, it is understandable that, not having the same legitimacy, it did not use, in relation to justice, the term ‘power’, preferring instead the phrase ‘judicial authority’, and so placing this in a rank subordinate to both government and parliament. This political will could not, in itself, really damage the authority of the judge as understood by Kojève. Subsequent history has verified this in every respect. And if we have witnessed justice coming gradually into a certain disrepute, this is less an effect of the latter’s frailty than a result of the deviant behaviour of some of those whose mission is to render it. Besides, if they do render justice, it is because they have captured it. But from whom? We could in fact extend the reflection on the decisions of judges: the authority of the matter being judged has, in practice, a higher significance in terms of relative, but pronounced, judicial truth than that of the background.
Even though Kojève confirmed in the Esquisse of 1943 that he would limit himself to a description of the juridical phenomenon, he also pursued his research on the foundation of right in line with Hegelian thought. What is important from a Hegelian perspective is the development of right founded on the movement of the concept: ‘the principle of right is not to be found in nature. The sphere of right is the sphere of freedom …’ In other words, it is the development of the idea of freedom that lies at the heart of Hegel’s philosophy of right. However, if the development of the idea is likewise at the heart of Kojève’s philosophy of right, it is here the idea of justice.
Kojève postpones the ontological analysis of the notion of authority, limiting himself to ‘a few brief historical remarks’. It is a question of discerning the structure of being as such, as a structure corresponding to the four phenomena of authority, and showing the metaphysical existence of eternity and time. In this respect, none of the four philosophical theories (Hegel, Aristotle, Plato, Scholasticism) supplied a satisfying ontological analysis, since each was conceived as universal, that is to say, neither of them covered all four notions of authority in a total theory, which was to Kojeve’s mind indicative of their respective inadequate ontological foundations. Reflection has therefore to be pushed further. Without coming to a standstill, Kojève’s discourse is overly brief and leaves the reader somewhat disappointed. The lines that he indicates allow us, nevertheless, to discern what must be, in this case, the ontological search for authority ‘after having elaborated the main lines of ontology’. From this ‘supposedly definitive’ approach, the analysis returns towards phenomena, and from there ‘towards being as being’, and, following a ‘perpetual back and forth’ motion, it is possible to arrive at ‘a truly definitive philosophy, that is to say, one that is true in an absolute manner’. If the approach is presented only in the form of a programme, it will not be an exaggeration of Kojève’s thought to consider that the reference to eternity, otherwise to the eternal – even for the non-believer, agnostic, or atheist – ultimately indicates, well beyond the sacred of the auctoritas, a resort to an irreducible transcendence.
The rest of the book, devoted to deductions from the previous analyses, is meant to consolidate their validity as applications. Here, too, the reader is warned that, whether it is a question of political, ethical, or psychological applications, what is presented is not an exhaustive investigation but developments that have as their framework the political sphere and not, for instance, the religious one.
Concerning political applications properly speaking, the place of the state is obviously central. Its authority is one, but its support can be individual or collective, which leads to an innovative and shrewd description of several combinations of the ‘pure’ types since antiquity, through medieval times and especially in the modern context. Evidently, a key place is reserved for the division of the three powers (executive, legislative, and judicial), for the various theories of revolutions, for the role of the bourgeoisie as dominant political power (an influence and position that can be explained only in relation to the three modes of time), for tradition as bearer of political value, for the opposition between conservative and radical-liberal parties, the Kantian ‘antinomies of political theory’ pertaining to the position of the judge, and so on. In all these spheres, the significance of the diverse variants resulting from the combinations of the ‘pure’ types is verified with concrete facts.
Unsurprisingly, the distinction between the three powers of the state, as the antiphony of both constitutional right and political philosophy, occupies a central place. The conservation of the traditional tripartite division in relation to the four kinds of authority is a problem, as if including the authority of the father were a sensitive point. We have also seen how the authority of the judge is also singular, simply because the political is envious of the judiciary, which it needs, and that ‘the (political) element of judge must be “separated” from the elements leader and master.’ It is mainly the analysis of the relations between legislative and executive ‘powers’, which, regardless of whether they are repositioned in a current context or not, shows all its potentialities: authority of the leader based on the future, authority of the master based on the present, and, we would be tempted to add, authority of the judge based on the past. Three powers, three temporal modes. But should this trinity be retained at any cost? We can consider a movement in the direction of either retreat or expansion, as there are powers that do not fit into the familiar pre-established structures and that take their revenge for this isolation or ignorance either in the shadow of the law or at least on its margins, such as economic power or the power of the media. In short, no general theory of the state in the future can disregard the various developments relating to the unity or plurality of forms of political authority, as well as its transmission, whether within the same type or from one type to another.
There are of course also ‘ethical applications’ of authority, Kojève writes, with ‘an authoritarian ethics’ serving as its necessary support: this is what has to be done to acquire and exert it, its nature and characters varying according to each type. Traditional reason, however, takes into consideration above all, if not exclusively, the authority of the judge. The return to the past, as well as study of the Japanese or Hindu middle ages, would show that a diversity of approaches becomes imperative, especially on the subject of the authority of the master. Investigation becomes all the more necessary in so far as such knowledge would permit a better understanding of many tragic historical conflicts. Above all, it would make it possible to overcome an incomplete analysis informed by a ‘Christian or bourgeois morality’, bound up, at least in its origins, with a ‘servile’ morality opposed to the morality of the ‘masters’.
Even if there exist on the plane of ethics extensions of the various types of pure authority, it remains that, in all cases, authority implies at the same time a power to resist but also an absence of resistance – better, an obedience, even if by using this notion, to which the author resorts only rarely, we must add something to his line of thought. Right or duty to resist, active or passive obedience, authority or oppression, legality or legitimacy of power, are so many further questions, not to mention the psychological applications of the authority exercised, and, especially, endured, where the powers of propaganda, of ‘rational demagogy’ and education come into play, either together or in conflict.
Rather than pursue this line of analysis, Kojève illustrates his argument by focusing on current events and a study of the ‘authority