Tuo Li

The aim of this study was to clarify the concept of “legitimacy” used in theory of state and law, as the term often leads to confusion due to the plurality of its meanings in different contexts. Based on the analysis, it was concluded that the usage of legitimacy can be still be primarily categorized into two directions: legal legitimacy and moral legitimacy. Legal legitimacy represents the normative side of the concept and seeks to establish a hierarchy of legal orders, with the juspositivists like Kelsen and Hart advocating for grundnorm and rule of recognition and jusnaturalists like Aquinas and Sir Blackstone defending the supremacy of the natural law. Moral legitimacy discusses the sources contributing to the “right to rule” from the perspectives of consensus that derive from Aristotle’s advocacy for political stability and Rousseau’s social contract, and perspective of conflict that roots in Maciavelli’s distrust of human nature and Marx’s class struggle. By contrasting the theories of a variety of legal and political philosophers, this paper produced an overview of the evolution of legitimacy, which allows the readers to form a cohesive understanding of the concept and its usage.