The Challenge and Possible Replies
This chapter forms the first step in a critical analysis of the pre-emption thesis which extends over Part I of the book. The chapter focuses on certain situations in which we ought to disobey a directive for morel reasons (Section 2.1). If these (or some of these) are cases where Razian authority is defeated by some of the reasons it is supposed to exclude, they will constitute counterexamples to the pre-emption thesis. Two ways in which proponents of the pre-emption thesis may seek to avert such a conclusion are singled out for consideration in later chapters: the first subsumes the relevant situations as cases of lack of authority (‘the no-authority reply’); the second locates them outside the scope of exclusionary force exercised by the authority’s directives (‘the scope-of-exclusion reply’). Further discussion confirms that these two alternatives exhaust the available routes of response to the challenge at hand (Sections 2.2–2.3).