In Defense of Functionalism

This chapter provides a response to Anna Stilz’s chapter in this volume, “Legitimacy and Self-Determination.” I argue that Stilz’s Kantian approach to political autonomy and self-determination is vulnerable to a serious dilemma. Her account either cannot explain various intuitively wrongful instances of colonialism and annexation, or else it can only do so by departing from its Kantian foundations. I then defend a functionalist approach to political legitimacy, one that appeals to the pro tanto wrongness of involuntarily changing people’s political status. I argue, contra Stilz, that such a functionalist approach can adequately explain why certain cases of colonialism and territorial annexation are wrongful.