What We Define to be Legitimate Defines Who We Are
By Will Brown — 30/08/2023
Legitimacy is a word which, like many concepts and ideals, is somewhat fuzzy and ill-defined, for, what I define as legitimate, you may deem to be illegitimate. Yet, as I will demonstrate below, what we define to be legitimate is an essential component of who we are. However, that being said, legitimacy is not a simple black and white binary opposition between the acceptable and the repulsive, but rather, is a nuanced quality, one which reveals the complexity of the decisions we make and, thus, the world as a whole.
According to the Cambridge University dictionary, legitimacy is ‘the quality of being reasonable and acceptable’ — a rather vague definition; for what is reasonable and acceptable? To which standards are they held to? Also, according to whom is something reasonable and acceptable? Within the academic realm, Mark C Schuman, author of Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches, an article cited over 23,000 times, has defined legitimacy as
a generalised perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions
Here we can observe a key element of legitimacy, that there are two sides — the ‘actions of an entity’ on one and an audience observing it, determining whether it is legitimate or not, on the other. To further this explanation, Schuman argued that there are three forms of legitimacy, the pragmatic which is grounded in the idea that something is legitimate because it is in my best interests, moral legitimacy, which contends that something is legitimate because we think it is right and the cognitive which corresponds to the individual perceptions of what is legitimate — something is legitimate if it fits into a pre-established mental frame and is understood.
As has been referred to above, Schuman’s article has been highly influential, but it is somewhat limited in its understanding of legitimacy; at least according to another article by Roy Suddaby et al. Within this text, it is argued that legitimacy is not solely a product which something possesses (as is argued by Schuman), but legitimacy is also a process, one formed by the determination of a social group — resulting in an entity’s legitimacy being constantly negotiated and in an unsteady state — as well as a perspective, where the legitimacy of an entity is determined by individual perspectives — it is the weight of these combined perspectives which produce a societal determination of what is legitimate or otherwise.
However, it should be stated that these are not competing claims or as distinct entities, rather, they are different means of ascertaining what is legitimate. For objects do have legitimate properties, these properties are determined through a social process identifying what is pragmatically, morally or cognitively legitimate and this process is produced by individual perceptions of whether something is legitimate or not.
It is also important to note that the legitimacy of an entity is not a totalising quality, by which I mean, different elements of an entity will be legitimate or otherwise in different ways. For example, a rapper can think the use of a private jet along the lines of ease of movement or enhancing their personal brand (through displays of ostentatious wealth in their music videos) is entirely legitimate, but someone with environmental concerns could deem it as highly illegitimate — owing to the significant carbon emissions emanating from its use.
As can be seen through this brief overview, legitimacy as a concept, is a useful lens through which to understand how we not only see the world around us, but also how we see ourselves. However, this reflexive element of legitimacy can be expanded upon by applying the philosophy of one of the last century’s most influential philosophers.
As an atheist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism was built atop the notion that there is no god, no creator. Therefore, if there is no divine entity from which man is created, how are we as individuals realised? According to Sartre this is grounded in the difference between an entity’s ‘existence’ and its ‘essence’.
We exist. I exist. You exist. We are born, ‘thrown into the world’ without a choice in the matter. Our existence is a blank slate of sorts, a canvas upon which we realise ourselves. A chair, for instance, exists, but we as observers burnish it with certain qualities — comfort, suitability, aesthetics etc. — which determines whether it is a good chair, a bad chair, an incredible chair or just a plain old, ordinary chair. These qualities realise the essence of the chair; its ‘chairness’ as it were. Now, a big difference between ourselves and a chair, at least in the eyes of Sartre, is the fact that a chair had its essence pre-determined by its creator; for a furniture maker designed and created the frame, whilst an upholsterer selected the fabric and produced a cushion to make it more comfortable and, perhaps, more aesthetically pleasing.
To this end, the chair’s essence precedes its existence. Yet, for Sartre, human beings have no creator. Whilst a child’s parents may desire to influence their child and steer them to have a particular essence, say as a furniture maker, the child can rebel and instead follow a different path. This is because human beings possess radical freedom, the Sartrean notion that because our existence and our actions are not predetermined, we are ‘condemned to be free’. We may not choose the situations we find ourselves in, but according to Sartre, we always have the capacity to choose how we act in them. In short, we have no choice but to choose.
Therefore, for human beings our existence always precedes our essence. Our essence, and thus who we are, is realised through our actions, not just in how we see ourselves, but also in how others see us.
If we are condemned to be free as Sartre states, and our actions, which are framed by ‘radical’ freedom, are what creates (and recreates) our essence, the question therefore is how does what we deem to be legitimate influence who we are? To consider this question, we need to answer another, namely, is it possible for you or I to do something which is wholly devoid of legitimacy?
I’d argue that it is not possible. Whilst we may do something which is against our own best interests in one sense, let’s say having a heavy night out on the town with some friends and drinking eight or more pints — which is not a good thing to do from a health perspective — we may see it as good from another perspective, for instance by spending time having fun with people we like to be with, we are being sociable, which has other health benefits. Another, less socially accepted example of this would be an adulterous partner, who despite their actions being highly illegitimate, even in their own eyes (I know it’s wrong, but…), they can justify their actions through pragmatic ends or emotional ones (I fell in love).
Even self sacrificing actions, such as taking the proverbial bullet, have a degree of self-justifying legitimacy to them — pragmatically it is very much against my own interests (for I will die as a result of my own actions) but morally it is the ‘right’ thing to do (but I saved a life).
Therefore, because we have a choice, we have no choice but to act in a way we, in some part, deem to be legitimate. The binge drinker, the adulterer, the hero: each are essences and identities produced through actions which are legitimate in one sense, but are not in another. These are all grounded in radical freedom and choice. To this end, we exist (according to Sartre this is ‘being in-ourselves’), our actions determine who we are in our own eyes (being for-ourselves) and in the eyes of others (being for-others). Yet, these actions which constitute who we are, cannot exist without our own sense legitimacy — for action cannot exist without a legitimising cause.
To this end, it is not just our actions which produce our essence, but what we define to be legitimate. Therefore, what we define to be legitimate defines who we are.
Now, this argument is not meant to be interpreted as some Myers-Briggsian means of categorising people as one personality type or another (i.e. you’re a pragmatist and I’m a moralist), for that would be utterly stupid — what we deem to be legitimate changes entirely upon the situation within which we find ourselves. Rather, the purpose of this argument is to highlight the entwinement of our own individual agency and the social structures within which we all live. We choose to act in certain ways, produced via different legitimising causes, yet as discussed above, what is deemed to be legitimate is in-part socially produced. If you subscribe to the Sartrean argument that we all have radical freedom, that we are condemned to be free and that our actions create our own essence, then what we define as legitimate, defines our actions, which defines our essence and, thus, who we are.
Now, before concluding, it is important to point out two potential counter points to this argument. Firstly, what we define to be legitimate is not always a conscious decision, for there is much we deem to be legitimate which is ‘taken for granted’ — a ‘subcategory’ of Schuman’s forms of legitimacy. However, if we consider Sartre’s notion of ‘being for-ourselves’ — the reflexive self-understanding of our own being and essence — this is a conscious appraisal of what we deem to be legitimate. It could also be viewed in terms of what we deem to be ‘not-legitimate’ — which I argue is qualitatively different to ‘illegitimate’ (which has its own essence) — yet, defining what is not-legitimate is a different means of reaching what is legitimate.
The second counter point concerns arguments that we do not possess radical freedom, which is bound in the notion that our brains pre-determine everything we do by doing them before we are aware of it. Whilst this is an interesting debate, one which is beyond the scope of this essay, I argue that we, as individuals, make sense of ourselves and others as if we do possess free will (if not radical freedom). Even if our brains do pre-determine everything that we do, we orient ourselves in the world as free actors who can agree or disagree, legitimise or de-legitimise, the situations and scenarios we perpetually encounter on a daily basis.
Ultimately, this essay argues that what we define to be legitimate defines who we are. This is through an inability for us as human beings to take a course of action which is wholly devoid of legitimacy — owing to the argument that even the most morally reprehensible (and thus illegitimate) actions can be legitimised through another perspective (such as pragmatism or ‘cognitive’, understood framing). Therefore, as our actions — which build our ‘essence’ — are instigated through, what I have termed ‘legitimising causes’, what we define as legitimate shapes the actions we take. Thus what we define as legitimate defines who we are.
Building upon this, it is essential to position our actions within the contexts, situations and scenarios where they take place. For what is legitimate, or rather, what legitimising elements exist within our actions, is contingent upon when and where the action takes place — something which is socially constructed. By pursuing the argument that what we define to be legitimate defines who we are, we are able to better situate ourselves within the social realm by interrogating what makes something legitimate or otherwise.
References
- Cambridge University Dictionary, 2023., Legitimacy Definition [online] Available at <https://duckduckgo.com/?q=legitimacy+definition&ia=definition> [Accessed 01/08/2023]
- Suchman, M.C., 1995. Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of management review, 20(3), pp.571–610.
- Suddaby, R., Bitektine, A. and Haack, P., 2017. Legitimacy. Academy of Management Annals, 11(1), pp.451–478.
