 What is legal authority, and how is it related to obligations? It is a kind of practical authority, i.e., authority over action. On one influential view, “To claim authority is to claim the right to be obeyed” (R. P. Wolff 1970: 5). There are, of course, authorities that make no such claim. Theoretical authorities, i.e., experts, are not characterized by claims to obedience. They need not even claim a right to be believed. And there are weaker forms of practical authority. To give someone authority to use your car is merely to permit him. But political authority, of which legal authority is one species, is normally seen as a right to rule, with a correlative duty to obey. On this account law claims the right to obedience wherever it sets out obligations. And to obey is not merely to comply with the law; it is to be guided by it. Max Weber says it is