  What is worth noting is that the idea of legitimate authority as a right to rule in the strong sense described above does describe a kind of ideal of political community. The idea of legitimate authority as a right to rule to which citizens owe obedience gives each citizen a moral duty to obey, which it owes to the authority. So this form of legitimacy is grounded in a moral relationship between the parties that goes beyond the fact that they are fellow human beings. The establishment of a robust right to rule depends on the fact that each citizen rightly takes as a reason for obedience that it has a moral duty owed to the authority. Since a legitimate political authority with a right to rule is predicated on the fact that citizens have moral reasons grounded in the right to rule to obey it, the right to rule engages citizens at a deep moral level. The exercise of political power is founded in a moral relationship between moral persons that recognizes and affirms the moral personality of each citizen.