Stimulus:
The selected stimulus is an extract from the ultimate frisbee official rule book. According to it, ultimate is a non-contact team game where two sides try to win by throwing the disc to the other side’s end zone. Moreover, this game is self-officiated, which means that players are responsible for calling their own fouls and solving any disputes during the discussion on the playing field. According to the rules, “all players are responsible for knowing, administering, and adhering to the rules,” and therefore players were the umpires during the game instead of any external referees. Self-officiation is regulated by “Spirit of the Game,” which is defined as principles that place “the responsibility for fair play on the player.” It is indicated in the rule book that “mutual respect among competitors, adherence to the agreed upon rules, and the basic joy of play.” Players are expected to be objective, honest, and willing to consider opponents’ opinions.
Introduction:
In contrast with most other forms of competitive sports, Ultimate Frisbee stands out because its games are entirely played in the spirit of self-officiation. At the heart of self-officiation lies the “Spirit of the Game,” which involves the internalization of rules, and fair play without the aid of referees or external powers. This raises the philosophical issue: can legitimate authority exist without external enforcement? “Legitimate Authority” in this sense refers to the rightful power to make rules or decisions that are supposed to be followed by the participants. “External Enforcement” is the enforcement by a third-party external authority who is above the participants.
This essay examines the matter in light of two competing philosophical views. The first one is the social contract theory developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, according to which people are capable of reaching collective self-government by following the General Will. Thomas Hobbes, on the other hand, contends that without a sovereign there would be chaos in human relations.
1. Rousseau’s Social Contract Theory
Rousseau first separates authority from successful coercion. “Force does not create right,” because compelled obedience is an act of necessity rather than a moral duty (Rousseau, 1762/2008, Book I, ch. 3, p. 3). This distinction is persuasive: if superior force alone generated legitimacy, authority would transfer whenever a stronger power appeared, and “right” would add nothing to domination. External enforcement can explain why a person complies, but not why that person ought to comply. However, this is only a negative argument. Showing that force is insufficient does not yet demonstrate that collective self-government can produce binding obligations.
Rousseau’s positive answer is the social compact: a form of association in which each person, “while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone” (Rousseau, 1762/2008, Book I, ch. 6, p. 7). Because each transfers the same powers to the whole community, no private person becomes another’s master. Citizens are subjects when obeying the law but sovereigns when authoring it; obedience can therefore express autonomy rather than submission. Habermas strengthens this account by arguing that laws claim legitimacy only when they could receive citizens’ assent through a legally constituted process of public reasoning (Habermas, 1996, p. 110). His refinement exposes what Rousseau leaves unclear: equal authorship requires more than initial consent. It also requires continuing opportunities to demand reasons, challenge interpretations, and revise rules.
The general will explains what collectively authored rules should aim at. Rousseau distinguishes it from the will of all: the former “considers only the common interest,” whereas the latter merely aggregates private interests (Rousseau, 1762/2008, Book II, ch. 3, p. 13). A decision is therefore not legitimate simply because a majority prefers it. It must be general both in its source and in its object: all participate, and the rule applies to all rather than targeting a particular person. This is more demanding than simple consent and helps explain why shared rule-making can bind dissenters. Yet it also creates an epistemic problem. Citizens may sincerely disagree about what the common good requires, and Rousseau admits that “the people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived” (Book II, ch. 3, p. 13). Without an independent test, a victorious faction may redescribe its private interest as the general will.
Isaiah Berlin sharpens this objection. Rousseau says that a citizen who rejects the general will may be “forced to be free” (Rousseau, 1762/2008, Book I, ch. 7, p. 9). Berlin argues that positive liberty becomes dangerous when an authority distinguishes a person’s supposedly rational or “real” self from the choices of that person’s empirical self; coercion can then be presented as liberation (Berlin, 1969, pp. 131–134). Rousseau has a partial defense: a genuinely general will must “come from all and apply to all,” so a command serving a faction cannot qualify (Rousseau, 1762/2008, Book II, ch. 4, p. 15). Nevertheless, the defense remains circular if the majority itself decides whether its decision is general. Rousseauian legitimacy therefore needs institutional safeguards, like equal voice, publicity, rights of appeal, and revisability, to prevent collective authorship from becoming collective domination.
Hume challenges an earlier step: the claim that consent grounds political obligation. Historically, “almost all” governments arose through “usurpation or conquest,” not fair agreement (Hume, 1748/1987, p. 471). Mere residence cannot amount to tacit consent when leaving is costly or unrealistic. This is damaging to Rousseau as a literal history of states, but less damaging to his theory as a normative standard. A voluntary practice such as Ultimate more closely resembles an expressly accepted association: participants knowingly enter a rule-governed activity and can ordinarily withdraw. Even there, however, consent varies in quality; inexperienced players may not understand the rules, and team hierarchies may discourage contestation. Consent is thus relevant but neither binary nor sufficient. Rousseau establishes the possibility of legitimate internal authority only when agreement is informed, reciprocal, and continuously contestable.
2. Hobbes’s Leviathan
Hobbes begins not with the moral source of authority but with the conditions under which rules remain effective. The laws of nature favour peace, yet “covenants without the sword are merely words” when no common power can assure compliance (Hobbes, 1651/2017, ch. 17, p. 77). His point is subtler than the claim that everyone is selfish or dishonest. Even a person disposed to comply may reasonably fear exploitation by others and therefore defect defensively. Enforcement produces assurance: it alters incentives and makes each person’s compliance less dependent on uncertain trust. Rousseau explains how rules can be ours; Hobbes asks whether each of us can safely act as if everyone else will treat them that way.
However, Hobbes concedes that enforcement is not conceptually necessary. If a multitude could reliably observe justice without a common power, “there would be peace without subjection” (Hobbes, 1651/2017, ch. 17, p. 78). His conclusion is therefore conditional and empirical: because durable large-scale agreement is improbable, coercive institutions are normally required. This concession matters for the stimulus. Ultimate takes place within a relatively small, repeated community in which rules are public, disputes are immediately discussed, and reputational consequences make conduct visible. These conditions reduce—but do not eliminate—the assurance problem. The game does not refute Hobbes; it shows that his premise varies with institutional scale, relationships, and stakes.
Nor does Hobbes derive political authority from force alone. The commonwealth is instituted when each person declares, “I authorize and give up my right of governing myself” to a representative on condition that others do the same (Hobbes, 1651/2017, ch. 17, p. 79). The sovereign’s power is thus authorized through covenant and justified by the end of common protection. Indeed, subjects’ obligation lasts only while the sovereign retains “the power to protect them” (Hobbes, 1651/2017, ch. 21, p. 101). Hobbes therefore offers a functional account of legitimacy, not simply a celebration of coercion. Yet protection is a thin standard: a ruler might suppress conflict efficiently while denying subjects any meaningful role in deciding the terms of their security.
Locke exposes the central weakness of Hobbesian absolutism. Hobbes assigns the sovereign final authority to judge controversies (Hobbes, 1651/2017, ch. 18, p. 83), but Locke argues that absolute monarchy is “inconsistent with civil society” because subjects have no authority to which they can appeal against the ruler (Locke, 1689, Book II, ch. 7, §90). Hobbes removes individuals from being judges in their own cases only by installing one unanswerable judge. His reply would be that dividing final power recreates the uncertainty sovereignty was designed to settle. Yet this presents a false choice between an absolute sovereign and no final procedure.
Constitutional review, separated powers, and public appeals can settle disputes while limiting arbitrariness. Pettit’s republican standard improves both theories: authority preserves freedom only when institutions prevent arbitrary interference and remain under the control of those affected (Pettit, 1997, p. 107).
Arendt offers a deeper challenge to identifying order with coercive capacity: “Power and violence are opposites” because power arises when people act together, whereas violence is merely instrumental (Arendt, 1970, Part II, p. 56). This supports Rousseau’s view that legitimate power is generated horizontally before it is administered vertically. Nevertheless, Arendt’s contrast is too sharp if interpreted as showing that sanctions are always hostile to power. Real institutions often combine shared authorization with limited enforcement; a sanction can protect rather than replace collective power when it is publicly justified, proportionate, and contestable. Her argument therefore defeats the claim that coercion creates legitimacy, but not the Hobbesian claim that legitimate norms sometimes require enforcement against strategic abuse.
3. Conclusion
In summary, Ultimate Frisbee demonstrates that legitimate authority need not always depend on external enforcement in the Hobbesian sense. Hobbes offers an important challenge because he shows that self-interest, distrust, and biased judgment can undermine cooperation when there is no final arbiter. However, Hobbes’s account is too narrow because it treats legitimacy mainly as the power to secure obedience and prevent disorder. This cannot fully explain why players in Ultimate often follow rules, retract mistaken calls, and hold teammates accountable even when no referee forces them to do so.
Rousseau provides the stronger explanation of the stimulus because he shows how authority can become legitimate when individuals recognize themselves as co-authors of the rules they obey. Spirit of the Game functions as a limited form of collective self-government: players are not merely subjected to rules, but help sustain the conditions that make fair play possible. Therefore, the stimulus supports a qualified Rousseauian conclusion: legitimate authority without external enforcement is possible, but only when participants share rule knowledge, accept reciprocal accountability, and genuinely commit themselves to the common good of the game.
References
Arendt, H. (1970). On violence. Harcourt, Brace & World.
Berlin, I. (1969). Two concepts of liberty. In Four essays on liberty (pp. 118–172). Oxford University Press.
Habermas, J. (1996). Between facts and norms: Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy (W. Rehg, Trans.). MIT Press.
Hobbes, T. (1651/2017). Leviathan, Part 2: Commonwealth (J. Bennett, Ed.). Early Modern Texts.
Hume, D. (1748/1987). Of the original contract. In E. F. Miller (Ed.), Essays: Moral, political, and literary (pp. 465–487). Liberty Fund.
Locke, J. (1689). Second treatise of government.
Pettit, P. (1997). Republicanism: A theory of freedom and government. Oxford University Press.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1762/2008). The social contract, or principles of political right (G. D. H. Cole, Trans.). Online Library of Liberty.