  On the other hand, the considerations in discussion settle the legal relevance of institutional decisions: the decisions matter to the law as institutionally valid norms that impose obligations, which are genuine moral obligations from the point of view of the system (Raz 1990; contra Hart 1982). They settle, at the same time, the terms in which the further question of the decisions’ genuine normative relevance must be posed. This becomes the question whether institutional communications work as advertised, such that they truly create norms (norms that are valid outright, not merely in the eyes of the institution that produced them) and therefore whether subjects do acquire an obligation to take some action because the relevant institution said so. In sum, the question of the genuine normative relevance of institutional action becomes the question of whether the institutions have legitimate authority so understood (Raz 1990). Finally, these considerations leave open the question of what moral conditions must be met for the institutions to have legitimate authority. This is the business of theories of justification of authority, which include theories that appeal to consent, political association, democracy, or the ability of legal authority to secure cooperation or help subjects better conform to right reason. (For an overview, see the entry on authority; see further Finnis 1980, 1989; Raz 1986; Dworkin 1986. Notice that on Dworkin’s view political obligation is grounded in political association. Association generates obligations that associates owe one another, rather than an obligation to obey authoritative directives.)