ABSTRACT
When the commander is a public official authorized by the constitution to issue commands, the command is a law or order, the threat a sanction, and the execution of the threat a case of penal force. When the commander is a private person with no authority over the addressee, the command is a naked command, the threat an assault, and the execution of the threat a battery, forcible confinement, or murder, all of which labels indicate that the actions they name are wrongful from the standpoint of a political sovereign claiming a monopoly on rightful coercion. The paradigm of formal agency has as its fundamental end the protection of each agent’s capacity to choose the ends of its action against pre-emption, interference, or destruction by the action of another. The formalism of the formal agency paradigm consists in its isolating as the sole bearer of legal rights the capacity for freely choosing ends.
