In his recent book, Legitimacy: The Right to Rule in a Wanton World, Arthur Applbaum tries to show that a formal institution—in this case, a government—can be what he calls “a free moral agent.” For those of us who are interested in the issue of the moral agency of formal groups, Applbaum’s theory presents a fresh approach—and refuting Applbaum’s argument is a helpful new way of clarifying a thesis that I (and others) have defended elsewhere. Against Applbaum’s account, I argue in this presentation that a formal group agent must be a wanton.