Benevolent authority appears to be a means to successfully accompanying each individual in achieving their personal autonomy. This article considers two potential consequences of this thesis. One is that this motivates us to try to develop a dialectical approach to authority and to recognition (part one). Authors agree on the fact that authority exists only when its legitimacy is recognized. Many contemporary thinkers, such as Taylor, Honneth and Ricoeur, have used the Hegelian notion of struggle for recognition in order to analyze our societies. What are the possible articulations between these two positions? The second consequence discussed concerns the difficulty of occupying a position of authority today (part two). Many researchers in education sciences question under what conditions it is possible to exercise authority. Our second part asks the question: “why must those who exercise benevolent authority also take care of themselves?”