Colloquium - Kit Wellman, Washington University in St. Louis

Abstract: This space explores whether there is any space between justice and legitimacy and what, if anything, ocupies this space. And if there is space between justice and legitimacy, what follows from this? More specifically, this essay considers whether legitimate states act permissibly when they act unjustly, (2) whether the constituents of legitimate regimes have a moral obligation to obey just laws, and (3) whether external parties have principled reasons to refrain from forcibly preventing legitimate states from perpetrating injusticies opon their constituents.