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Wiki MarkupAdams asserts that "\[n\]o one simply as a human being has authority over another. It is always with respect to some special office or position that one holds \ [_sc_. that one has authority\]" (6). But, then, subsequently, he says that "\[t\]O be a man . . . is, as it were, to have an office, a position, defined by the imperative to live so that one would stand justified under rational criticism"; and in this connection, he speaks of man's "office as a human being" (14).

On the face of it, these statements seem incoherent, involving, as they do, both denying and affirming that being a human being simply as such is a matter or holding, or having, an office or position. But perhaps what makes this apparent incoherence no more than that is that Adams is tacitly assuming a distinction between holding or having the general office or position of being a human being simply as such and holding or having some special office or position above and beyond that general office. At any rate, he uses the qualifier "special" as one would expect him to do if this were his meaning, although, admittedly, he makes no use at all of the corresponding qualifier "general."

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