Legal Processes and the Service Conception of Authority

On Joseph Raz's service conception of authority, one agent is normally justified in regarding another's directives as authoritative when and only when in doing so the former is likely to act in better conformity with the reasons holding for him than he would were he to attempt to work out independently what he has reason to do. I argue that the service conception imposes requirements on the kinds of processes of which authoritative directives can be the output: they must be open to and appropriately responsive to evidence about the reasons holding for subjects. I then argue for two theses about law: that law's content is influenced by (changing) evidence about the reasons holding for legal subjects, and that requirements that legal officials be open to and appropriately responsive to evidence about the reasons holding for legal subjects are expressions of law's claim to authority and Rule of Law requirements.