Does might make right?

Philosophy Bites

By William Crooks

The maxim “might makes right” asserts that power alone determines what is morally or politically just. This position is often interpreted descriptively, that those with power define the law or morality, and normatively, that power itself legitimizes authority or ethical action. Historically associated with political realism and authoritarianism, this view has been the subject of intense philosophical scrutiny. Although it appears in ancient dialogues and underpins various realpolitik ideologies, it has been widely challenged on both moral and logical grounds.

The idea can be traced back to ancient times. In Plato’s Republic, the sophist Thrasymachus argues that justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger. According to him, rulers define justice in ways that benefit themselves and enforce it through coercion. Although Socrates pushes back forcefully against Thrasymachus, the view reflects a recurring theme in political theory: that authority is grounded not in moral legitimacy, but in the capacity to command obedience.

This view resurfaces in the thought of Niccolò Machiavelli, particularly in The Prince, where he advises rulers to be ruthless when necessary and to use power to secure stability and order. Similarly, Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, defends a sovereign with absolute power as necessary to prevent the chaos of the “state of nature.” Crucially, however, Hobbes grounds that authority in a social contract—the consent of those governed—rather than in force alone. Even the most uncompromising defence of absolute power in the Western tradition stops short of “might makes right.”

Supporters of this doctrine typically argue from a realist perspective. They claim that moral ideals are ineffective in the real world unless backed by force. In international relations, this manifests in the belief that only power—not law or ethics—preserves peace and order. Some go further, suggesting that power itself creates moral truth: if an authority can enforce laws and norms effectively, then it has the right to do so, because it establishes the conditions necessary for societal functioning.

Philosophers across traditions have rejected “might makes right” for conflating power with legitimacy. Socrates argues that justice is about the good of the whole, not the self-interest of rulers. In The Republic, Plato posits the idea of the philosopher-king: true authority comes not from force but from knowledge of the Good.

Immanuel Kant offers a particularly strong moral objection. For Kant, morality is grounded in universal principles—rules that anyone, in principle, could accept and act upon. While Kant’s strict universalizability goes too far in demanding identical rules for all regardless of context and particular relationships, he points in the right direction: moral claims must be answerable to reasons that are in principle open to everyone. A world where might determines right bypasses this requirement entirely, replacing justification with compulsion.

Modern democratic and legal traditions also rest on a rejection of this idea. Rule of law, human rights, and constitutional government presuppose that justice transcends raw power. The Nuremberg Trials, for example, rejected the defence that Nazi leaders were merely exercising power.

While “might makes right” reflects the realities of power dynamics, especially in authoritarian regimes and geopolitical conflicts, it arguably fails as a moral or philosophical justification for authority.

To evaluate the doctrine clearly, it helps to distinguish two versions of the claim: the descriptive—that those with power simply determine what counts as right—and the normative—that power is what ought to legitimize authority and moral action. Each version runs into serious difficulties.

To say that what makes something the right thing to do is merely might effectively gives those in power the arbitrary decision on what is right—that whatever they say is right is right. This cannot be, for typically there is one and only one right thing to do in any given situation and it cannot be whatever you say it is without destroying the whole practice of determining what is right. That is to say, determining what is right is a public practice that requires criteria of justification, which the notion that might is right conceptually undermines, effectively making the notion of right meaningless. This is a subtle form of moral nihilism—the view that nothing is genuinely right or wrong. If might alone determines rightness, then “right” loses any independent meaning: it becomes a label the powerful apply arbitrarily, which is indistinguishable from there being no such thing as right at all.

But should might make right? Here we are offering a justification—a claim about what ought to ground moral authority—so the descriptive objection does not directly apply. Yet the normative version faces an equally serious problem. To say that those in power should be considered right simply because they hold power is to say that authority requires no justification beyond itself. This is circular: it tells us that power is legitimate because it is power. Kant’s insight is useful here—genuine moral authority must be grounded in reasons that any rational person could in principle accept, not merely in the capacity to compel. A tyrant who enforces his will effectively has not thereby earned the right to do so; he has only demonstrated that no one can stop him.

What is true is that moral arguments without the power to enforce them are weak—the law without police is just words on paper. But this concedes far less than it appears to. The deeper error in “might makes right” is not merely that it gives the wrong answer, but that it tries to reduce moral reasoning to something else—power, consent, utility—and any such reduction destroys the practice rather than grounding it. Moral reasoning is sui generis: it is the practice we engage in when we ask what is right, and it does not need a foundation external to itself any more than language needs a foundation external to use. “Might makes right” does not merely fail as a moral doctrine—it fails to understand what morality is.