Legitimacy
The right to be obeyed, held by a rule or authority rather than by its author.
What it commits you to
Legitimacy is distinct from power: it is what makes an authority's commands binding on people who did not choose it. Aquinas's claim that an unjust law is not a law at all is the sharpest version, since it makes legitimacy structural rather than historical. Every governance question about AI reduces, eventually, to who holds legitimate authority and by what warrant.
Which realms lean on this
Philosophy carries the arguments the other four kinds are downstream of — what an agent is, what a person owes, what a rule is for.
philosophy · 8 realms — The Care Weft, The Contractual Court, The Existential Wilds, The Kantian Citadel, The Longview Foundry, The Middle Kingdom, The Pragmatic Wharf, The Sangha Terraces.
Canon that discusses this
See also
Original position
philosophyThe hypothetical forum at which principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.
Reasonable rejectability
philosophyThe standard that a principle is unacceptable if someone could reasonably refuse to live under it.
Institutionalisation
governanceA principle hardened into a rule enforced by an organisation that outlives its authors.
Imperative of responsibility
philosophyThe duty to weigh the full, indefinite consequences of an action before taking it.