Legitimacy
Will affected parties carry the outcome — and was the commit properly authorized?
Legitimacy (at the commitment boundary) is whether affected parties accept and carry the outcome — and whether the commit was properly authorized within scope. It answers who may bind, who had voice, and whether the authorization chain is traceable — not whether the bind read evidence well ( quality — art. 20).
Introduction: When Social Stability Matters More Than Quality.
Legitimacy is not epistemic quality. One can make the same decision with or without a certificate, vote, or entitlement. Those mechanisms legitimize; they do not, by themselves, improve processor fidelity.
Legitimacy mechanisms (art. 35)
Not strict mechanisms: consensus culture, generic political process, workshop alignment without L0 record — see art. 35.
Meritocracy draws on both legitimacy (transparent pre-committed rules) and quality (measured calibration) — art. 36.
Legitimacy lost downstream
Like information in processing (data processing inequality), legitimacy can only be preserved or lost along authorization chains — an illegitimate grant cannot be “processed into” stronger standing. See art. 35.
What legitimacy is not
- Popularity or majority truth — vote on physics on D-F or empirically settled long-horizon questions
- Substitute for putting evidence and derivation on the record under false uncertainty
- Politics instead of methodology — workshops and votes where derivation, experiment, or review was required (art. 35)
- Guarantee of correct judgment — legitimate binds can still be wrong
Corpus stance
A2 — working context: Political theory uses “legitimacy” broadly; here it is an architectural layer distinct from Part IV trustworthiness and art. 20 quality.