Consent theory claims that political legitimacy rests on the consent of the governed. The theory has been marginalized in political philosophy due to the success of Hume’s objections, which observe that consent theory entails anarchism, as almost nobody has consented to be governed. However, these standard objections leave the foundations of consent theory untouched; the consent theorist, confident in the appeal of these foundations, can endorse anarchism in response. This article offers an objection that focuses on what makes consent normatively appealing in the first place, the value of individual autonomy. On almost any plausible reading of that foundation, one should not be a consent theorist.
To be together with other people, truly together, is a social good. Perhaps it is deeply entwined with other social goods that have been subjected to sustained philosophical discussion such as friendship. Still, in its own right, the topic of the nature and apparent value of togetherness has been largely neglected. This article advances three claims: (1) that togetherness of a certain relevant sort consists in sharing a sense of the meaningfulness of things; (2) that this sort of togetherness is a lead candidate for being the internal goal of personal relationships as such; and (3) that togetherness so understood is valuable because senses of the meaningfulness of things are to be shared. The argument of the article articulates a sense in which even solitary meaningful experiences have a social structure.
