Fundamentals

Liberalism and consent: why political authority needs limits

By Daniel Sardá · Published on September 24, 2026

6 min read1,310 words

Consent seeks to reconcile individual liberty with political authority, but it does not make government or a majority all-powerful.

When may a political authority legitimately compel people who are, in principle, free? That question lies at the center of the relationship between liberalism and consent. If no one is naturally born subject to another person's political will, power requires justification. It is not enough that it exists, works effectively, or commands greater force.

One influential answer within the liberal tradition holds that legitimate authority must rest, in some sense, on the political consent of those who live under it. John Locke offered one of the best-known versions of this idea. But liberalism is not a uniform doctrine, and an appeal to consent does not by itself settle every question about legitimacy and obedience.

Key idea: Consent tries to explain why free people may be subject to a shared authority; it does not give that authority unlimited permission.

The problem consent tries to solve

In his [Second Treatise of Government](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7370/pg7370-images.html), Locke begins with people who are naturally free and equal. To form a political community, they must agree to unite and accept a common way of making decisions. Consent therefore serves as a bridge between liberty and authority: it seeks to show how political power can arise without assuming that some human beings are born as the masters of others.

This account shifts the burden of proof. Individuals do not have to show why they deserve to be free; power must show why it may impose rules and sanctions. Force can produce obedience, but the capacity to command is not the same as a right to command.

Nor is the point to imagine that every law will be individually accepted by everyone. A political society must be able to act even amid disagreement. The theory must therefore explain both the moment when a community is formed and the rules by which that community makes decisions.

Forming a society is not choosing every government

Locke distinguishes two issues that are often conflated. The first is the agreement by which several people constitute a political body. The second is the decision over who will govern and under what institutional form. Óscar Godoy Arcaya's study of liberty and consent in Locke underscores the importance of keeping these levels distinct.

By joining a community, its members accept that it may act as a single body. Majority rule emerges as a practical solution: if unanimity were required for every decision, collective action could be paralyzed. Yet accepting a procedure does not mean supporting every ruler, approving every law, or giving up the right to judge how power is exercised.

This distinction avoids two mistakes. Belonging to a society is not the same as endorsing the government of the day. And losing a vote does not automatically make everything the majority decides legitimate.

Express, tacit, and hypothetical consent

The word “consent” can conceal very different situations. It is useful to distinguish at least three senses:

• Express: a person directly states that they accept membership in a political community.
• Tacit: acceptance is inferred from conduct, such as living within a jurisdiction or using certain services and infrastructure.
• Hypothetical: the question is what rules reasonable people would accept under ideal conditions, even if they have never actually expressed approval.

For Locke, express consent binds in a way that should not be confused with tacit consent. The latter may generate a duty of obedience while someone enjoys benefits under a jurisdiction, but its scope is disputed. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Locke's political philosophy addresses the interpretive difficulties raised by this claim.

Consider someone who lives in a country because their family, work, and community are there. To say that they freely chose every rule in force merely because they do not leave ignores the real costs of exit. The same applies to voting or traveling on a public road: such conduct may show participation or use, but it does not prove full authorization for every action of the state.

Hypothetical consent raises a different problem. It can help assess whether an institution would be reasonable or just, but it is not the same as a will that has actually been expressed. Saying, “You would have accepted this under ideal conditions,” offers an argument for justification, not a description of an act of consent.

Useful distinction: Inferring acceptance from residence, voting, or the use of public services calls for more caution than recording express consent.

The majority decides, but it cannot decide everything

Majority rule allows the political body to make common decisions. It is not, however, the source of arbitrary power. In Lockean theory, the legislature is limited by the ends for which it was established and by rights the government does not create at will.

Life, liberty, and estate—“property” in Locke's broad sense—are not merely revocable concessions from the state. Authority exists to protect them through public, general rules. It cannot invoke society's initial consent in order to destroy what justified its creation.

This helps clarify the difference between democracy and unlimited power. A fair election answers who has received authorization to govern under certain rules. It does not, by itself, answer what the winner may do. Majoritarian procedures matter, but so do rights, the distinction between rulers and ruled, and limits on power.

Protecting dissenters does not deny majority rule. It makes majority rule compatible with the liberal premise that every person retains a sphere of liberty that does not disappear upon becoming part of a minority.

Legitimacy does not mean unconditional obedience

One institution may have stronger credentials of legitimacy than another and still enact an unjust rule. Likewise, saying that consent helps legitimize a political order does not show that every individual has a duty to obey any command whatsoever. Institutional legitimacy, political obligation, and obedience to a particular decision are related but distinct questions.

For Locke, political power retains the structure of a trust. When a government attempts to impose arbitrary domination or seriously and persistently attacks the life, liberty, and estate it was meant to protect, it breaches that trust. Power may then return to the people. José María Martínez de Pisón examines this connection between consent, rights, and resistance.

In this framework, resistance is not a license to disobey whenever one disagrees, nor an invitation to treat every unpopular policy as tyranny. It is a last response to a grave breach of the purposes and limits of authority. That demanding threshold matters: without it, the theory could justify permanent instability; but without the possibility of resistance, initial consent could become an irrevocable authorization.

Caution: Consenting to a political order does not oblige people to accept its transformation into arbitrary power; nor does every ordinary conflict make a government illegitimate.

An important basis, but not a sufficient one

The central objection to theories of consent is straightforward: very few people have unequivocally expressed their acceptance of political authority. If real consent is rare and tacit consent is inferred from constrained choices, it is difficult to ground a universal obligation in it. That is why other theories also appeal to the justice of institutions, natural duties, or reciprocity among those who sustain a shared system.

This criticism does not make consent useless. It retains a decisive function: it reminds us that power must justify itself to those subject to it. It requires us to ask whether citizens have alternatives, whether they can withdraw support, whether rules protect minorities, and whether rulers answer for their use of authority.

The relationship between liberalism and consent therefore ends in a demand, not a blank check. Authority is not legitimate merely because it commands, nor is a majority legitimate merely because it prevails. A government based on free persons must explain where its power comes from, what it is for, and which boundaries it may not cross.