Is There A Moral Obligation To Obey The Law example essay topic

'Must we only obey a just law; should we obey a law because it is just to do so; or else can we not obey at all?' ESSAY The questions that shall be answered in this essay are 'Must we only obey a just law?', 'Should we obey a law because it is just to do so?' and 'Or else, can we not obey at all?' Before we can answer these questions it is important to establish what is meant by the term 'just'. 'Just' in this case means 'morally just', I think, but differences of opinion exist as to its meaning. For the purpose of this essay, I shall take 'just' to mean 'fair' in the way Rawls indicates when he writes about the veil of justice in 1971: the every-day-sense of the term the average person would agree about. Should we obey a law because it is just to do so? The first question I shall address is whether one should obey a law 'because it is just to do so'.

Woolley in 1979 states: If political leaders and police chiefs had their way, all of us would believe that a powerful reason (possibly the principle, if not the only, reason) that we should obey a law is that it is a law. In fact, with the exception of a special class of laws, it is no reason at all. This is the core of discussion whether there is a general moral obligation to obey the law. This discussion started in the 1970's in the United States.

The background to it was the civil rights movement in the United States, and the Vietnam War with its political scandals. People who disagreed with the governments' policies started arguing that sometimes, a citizen is justified in acting illegally. The question is: does a citizen have a moral duty to obey the law and if so, why? In the writings of Honor'e, Raz, Smith, Finnis and Bix there are many arguments for and against a general moral obligation to obey. Often, they take each other's ideas as a basis and develop or counter argue them. I shall give a synopsis of five arguments in favour of a general moral obligation to obey, and give my own and theorists' counterarguments.

More arguments in favour and against a general moral obligation to obey the law exist than these five, but I shall take those that are clearest and mentioned most often. BENEFIT OR GRATITUDE The first argument in favour of a general moral obligation to obey the law is provided by... the Greek philosopher Plato and is known as the benefit or gratitude argument. It is the idea that for those who receive substantial benefits from the state it is immoral not to respond with the small obligation government asks in return namely to obey the law. Indeed, almost all citizens of a country, even when undemocratic, receive benefits from the state. These can be police protection, free education or social benefits, but also simpler things as the provision of roads, electricity, or water. If the benefits are considered 'substantial', they imply a moral obligation to obey the government's laws as an expression of gratitude.

Although there are many ways to counter argue this argument, it is perhaps natural the argument appeals to people who find their government a just one. There are several counterarguments. It is argued for example, that the benefits of the state are not asked for, but automatically given. We are born into citizenship and therefore, the benefits we receive are 'forced' upon us and we might like them non-existent or different... But a stronger counterargument is provided by Raz.

He claims that, in the case we should like to express our gratitude, we needn't necessarily express it by obeying the law, there being other ways of expressing our gratitude. Also, who judges whether the received benefits are substantial? CONSENT second argument for a general moral obligation to obey the law is the argument of consent. This is the idea that by some action, or inaction, we have implicitly consented to obeying society's law.

This action may be voting, accepting government benefits, or simply not leaving the country. The action equals giving consent and therefore morally obliges us to obey the law. There are strong counterarguments against this position. First of all, it can be argued that the actions above do not mean giving consent, for two reasons. The first is that citizens performing the above actions do not perceive them as giving consent to obey their country's laws.

Secondly, many of them do not have an alternative. To leave one's home country, one needs money, a passport and / or visa, an alternative and legally preferable destination and determination, a highly improbable combination. A second argument against the idea of consent is the following. Even if these actions can be held to constitute consent, does that mean the individual has to obey whatever laws the government makes from that day onwards?

It can be argued that the act of voting e. g., or not leaving is maybe insufficient to justify creating the broad obligation to obey any law the government makes. We would possibly be exaggerating the weight of this single promise. THE MORAL DUTY TO SUPPORT AND FURTHER JUST INSTITUTIONS An argument Rawls gives in favour of a moral obligation to support the law is that there is a moral duty to 'support and further just institutions'. What is meant is that if a government is generally just and democratic, its laws should be obeyed in order to support and further them. The origin of the moral obligation is thus that just institutions should be helped and supported. This argument raises the following question: how does one know what a just institution is?

Although an institution, organization or government may generally be considered fair or just, individual people's opinions will still differ and not all of them will feel a moral obligation to obey the laws of their governments or indeed have one. BAD CONSEQUENCES The fourth argument in favour of a general moral obligation to obey the law is that there is such an obligation because of the bad consequences to society if people did not obey. Hobbes states that a law is to be obeyed; even it is unjust because the alternative is a 'state of nature'. What he means is that if people do not use a system of guidance, a fixed set of rules, there will be chaos and anarchy, just like there will be crashes in a country without a traffic code. It is 'moral' to want to avoid this situation of chaos. Also, people not obeying laws set an example that it will lead to even more chaos and harm the system even further.

Although I find this a strong argument, it must be noted that it is too general to be valid. Of course, in countries that are relatively peaceful, democratic and well organized and where the population is generally happy, the statement makes sense. But when applied to rogue states, dictatorships or countries with governments that make what many perceive as unjust laws in general, it is very questionable whether there is more of a 'state of nature' with, or without the population obeying law. In these countries, it cannot be said 'negative consequences to society' give people a moral obligation to obey the law because the opposite may be true: that obeying the law has negative consequences to society. What can also be said against the argument is that the 'alternative' Hobbes talks about, the state of nature, is not completely correct. In many countries laws are broken on a massive scale, but this does not always lead to anarchy or chaos.

Against the argument of setting a bad example (this being the negative consequence of not following the law) can be said that not obeying the law does not always set a bad example. A famous example is that of someone driving alone in the middle of the night with no other traffic in sight. Is this person morally obliged to stop at every stop sign? Should this person have a bad conscience if he ignores a red light at 3 am and in doing so does not create a bad example and causes no harm?

FAIRNESS The last argument in favour of a general moral obligation to obey the law I shall address is the fairness and reciprocity argument, also known as the 'necessity and interdependence' argument. The argument is provided by H.L.A. Hart in 1955 and is the following. When some people restrict their liberty by obeying rules, other people benefit. The people who have restricted their liberty have a right to similar submission from those who have benefited by their submission and which means those have a moral duty to submit themselves. For clarification's sake, I shall take the example of following the traffic code. Say Mrs. X benefits from the fact that people follow the traffic code because it means her child can safely cycle to school everyday.

Now that Mrs. X benefits from the fact that these people restrict their liberty somewhat, it would be immoral for her to drive irresponsibly. She has a moral duty to also submit to the traffic code. This would only be fair. It is hard to counter argue this argument.

Here too, however, it can be said it the argument is too general. I support the argument in the case of countries that are generally considered fair and democratic. But how about countries that are not generally fair and democratic? Do women in a country that oppresses them, that restricts their liberty and that benefits men have a right to 'similar submission' of the society's men?

Would this mean one week women are oppressed by men, the following week vice versa? Surely no gender should be oppressed at all? A second counter argument is that people do not always benefit from other people's 'submission'. Harts' argument states that when people restrict their liberty by obeying rules, other people benefit.

But as we saw before, if I stop for a red light in the middle of nowhere, with no other individuals to either harm or give a bad example to, no one benefits from my behaviour... CONCLUSION In conclusion to these five arguments, I think there is not enough ground to claim there is a general, i.e. unconditional, moral obligation to obey the law. If it were 'just to follow the law' that would mean all individuals, in all societies under all governments have a general moral obligation to follow the law. The arguments of fairness (when you profit from the fact other people obey the law, you should also do so) and consequence (people are morally obliged to follow the law in order to avoid chaos) are strong indeed, but seem too general when looking at all countries, all governments and all citizens. They thus seem insufficient to ground a general moral obligation. It must be noted many theorists seem uncomfortable with such a conclusion.

It is as if whether one concludes there is or isn't a general obligation to obey the law depends on whether one hopes, or thinks there should be such an obligation. This is probably also why some arguments come across as being very 'unnatural'. It is understandable people hope such an obligation can be found because there are so many arguments in favour of obeying the law. These, however, do not constitute an obligation to obey the law and should not be confused. Those theorists who find there is no general moral obligation to obey the law do not argue we should never obey the law, nor that there is never any moral reason to do as the law tells us. They do say, however, that moral reasons to obey the law should go beyond the reason 'because the law says so' or 'because it is the law'.

As Fuller puts it: 'The legal status of a norm may give it no intrinsic moral weight. ' On the other hand, those theorists who argue in favour of a moral obligation to obey the law often state that the duty to obey the law may be overridden by a duty of greater weight. It seems as if the question is thus perhaps not 'Is there a general moral obligation to obey the law?' but rather 'How do we create moral obligations for ourselves and what are the limits for those obligations?' This brings us on to the second question. Does the fact there is possibly no general moral obligation to obey the law mean we cannot obey at all?

In his writings, Raz concludes there is no general moral obligation to obey the law. However, he says this does not mean we cannot obey at all. He writes that in spite of a moral obligation for people to obey the law, they can still have the attitude of respect towards the law. He says that an alternative attitude is possible: if one respects the law, this respect itself is a reason for obeying the law. He draws an analogy with friendship, saying that in a friendship the fitting action is required from a friend regardless whether the friend desires to perform it or not. Similarly, if one respects the law the fitting behaviour is required.

If you respect the law, Raz says, this gives you reason to obey it. The attitude of respect is thus an alternative to a 'moral' reason to obey the law. Another reason the absence of a general moral obligation to obey does not mean we cannot obey law at all is the following: what about a practical or pragmatic attitude towards the law? A question the articles raised for me was 'do we need a moral obligation?' In the writings of theorists the concept of morality is perhaps a little overrated. Raz writes that 'in iniquitous societies it is equally permissible to have 'practical' respect for the law. ' I agree.

Is wanting to avoid chaos in society, for example, purely motivated by ethics? I think it is more of a practical than a moral issue. Are pragmatic or practical reasons not sufficient to motivate the individual? If so, surely there is noting wrong with that? The fact there is perhaps not a general obligation to obey the law does therefore not mean we cannot obey the law at all. We can obey the law out of respect or be motivated to do so for practical reasons, these two attitudes substituting a 'moral' motivation...

The third question; whether we should only obey a just law, is problematic: who judges whether something is just or not? Having established there may not be a general moral obligation to obey the law, there are other reasons why people should not only obey 'just' laws. If they respect the law, this can be their reason to obey 'controversial' law all the same. Secondly, there are practical reasons to obey an 'unjust' law. People may find that even though a law is unjust it has just purposes, and therefore obey. Another practical reason is that if all people would only obey 'just' laws we would live in anarchy.

Everyone has different perceptions of what is just and therefore not a single law would be followed by all. The consequences of this are obvious: the judiciary system would crumble. It is clear that for the sake of achieving uniform practice in society, something many find desirable, people only obeying what they perceive as 'just' laws is unpractical. Unjust laws can therefore also be followed because of practical, not moral reasons. In conclusion, my answer to the question 'Should we obey a law because it is just to do so?' is 'no'. I think there is not enough ground to establish there is a general moral obligation to obey the law because the statement is too broad and too general.

Answering it positively would mean all citizens in all countries under all governments have such a general obligation and looking at the different governments in the world today, such a thought seems ridiculous. To the question whether we should only obey a just law, my answer is also 'no'. The judicial system would crumble if everyone only obeyed to what they saw as 'just' laws. Furthermore, it is hard to be sure what is 'just'.

This does not mean we 'cannot obey at all'. Citizens can be motivated by respect for law or by practical reasons. It is therefore possible to obey law without recognizing a general moral obligation to do so. Sources Various handouts and articles in study pack: J. Raz: o The obligation to obey the law, o The obligation to obey: revision and tradition M.B.E. Smith: o The duty to obey the law Is there a prima facie obligation to obey the law? T. Honor'e: o N'e cessit'e Obliged. Bix: o The obligation to obey the law. M Finnis: o Natural law and natural right so The authority of law in the predicament of contemporary social theory.