RE: Authority, Authorship and Authenticity in Life
Authority is the legitime use of Power when one person can exercise it over other(s) if there is a perception of rightfulness, effectiveness, non-domination by coercive means, and influence without persuasion on the basis of a formal contract where members accept "social formal order" to regulate their actions.
Authority is based on consent in a voluntary submission to a system of coordination and cooperation with formal rules and regulations are well defined.
We can't solve social problems with centralized despotic authority, regulations and power clustering.
Government authority always sees aggression under the Power of the law justified with the replacement of "Social Order".
Arthur Schopenhauer said that the basis of morality is the value and the feeling of compassion.
Morality is the governance of our behavior and has its roots in a property of thoughts and actions of each individual, and the element of behavioral coordination within a group of individuals in social interaction.
I like the theories of natural rights by showing that people have inalienable rights to life, property and the right to find freedom as essential ingredients for nurturing human happiness as the pillars of civilization and society.
"Fear is the mother of morality" - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Yes, to o it without fear of a false social order it does need to be approved by society, but it can be lawfully done in moral law even if the social normative order doesn't yet recognize something as immoral and you act to stop the immorality. Slavery was legal and part of the social order, but to stop slavers would have been lawfully moral regardless of the social order.
You have the authority to act morally in any devolved society that fails to recognize morality, but they won't necessarily like it and may hurt you through false perceptions of thinking you are the violent when when you aren't. Even if 95% cooperate to enslave 4%, if 1% recognize morality and act int hat authority, they are lawfully (morally) doing so, despite not "legally" doing so.
Morality (Maat) is the pillar and foundation for realer, truer and higher life indeed :)