If the obligation to obey is established in each case only after considering the merits and demerits of obedience, it is difficult to imagine how the law qua law contributes to an obligation to obey. This is the core of discussion whether there is a general moral obligation to obey the law. ‘Well then, since you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you? Only if one knows what it is can one know whether an argument for it succeeds. It seems to be a restriction on consent that it only generates obligation if one is able to withhold consent. DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198253457.003.0012, Part II The Nature of Law and Natural Law, 3 Legal Positivism and the Sources of Law^*, 4 Legal Reasons, Sources, and Gaps^*, 5 The Identity of Legal Systems^*, 6 The Institutional Nature of Law^*, 7 Kelsen’s Theory of The Basic Norm^*, 10 Law and Value in Adjudication^*, 11 The Rule of Law and its Virtue^*, The authority of law: Essays on law and morality, 3 Legal Positivism and the Sources of Law. moral obligation to obey the law, or, at the very least, the participants in the debate have been prepared to assume that this is so.2 To simplify the discussion, I shall adopt John Simmons' practice of speaking of a moral obligation to obey the law, rather than of a prima facie moral obligation to obey the law.3 Following this practice, to say In leaving the prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any? For a more thorough discussion, Dr. Gregory Sadler has several videos on the Crito. And because we think right to destroy you, do you think that you have any right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies? ESSAY ON THE MORAL OBLIGATION TO OBEY THE LAW GEORGE C. … The two can come apart. Your father married your mother by our aid and begat you. organized collection of 400+ articles, podcasts, and videos. The theory of fairplay creates another link by which an obligation to obey the law is created. To learn more about the ideas of Socrates and Plato, please see the following links: The Daily Idea aims to make learning about philosophy as easy as possible by bringing together the best philosophy resources from across the internet. (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2020. The following reading is from the Crito by Plato, translation by Benjamin Jowett. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content. Conclusion The way in which we interpret what the law is, has a large influence on whether we feel we have a sense of duty to obey it. It appears to be quite obvious then that the status of law adds no moral force in a just legal system and would indeed be redundant in Raz’s own terms. Rule of law: In democratic societies, governments and those in power are subject to the law of the land. AUTHORITY, LEGITIMACY, AND THE OBLIGATION TO OBEY THE LAW - Volume 24 Issue 2 - Richard Dagger The chapter also examines the case for the existence of such obligation arising from moral and prudential considerations. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. In this passage, Socrates argues that he has an obligation to obey the law and remain in his cell, even if he was unjustly sentenced to death. date: 08 December 2020. Do we have an obligation to obey the law, and if so, why are we obligated? a prima facie obligation to obey particular laws (e.g., when disobedi-ence has seriously untoward consequences or involves an act that is mala in se), they have no prima facie obligation to obey all its laws. He has already bribed the guards and made all necessary arrangements to allow Socrates to escape. It's the obligation to obey the law that is central here to our investigation of the problem of political obligation. In this Wireless Philosophy video, Matthew Chrisman (University of Edinburgh) explores the nature of our obligations to obey the law. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Would you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to your father or your master, if you had one, because you have been struck or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands? Three possible bases for an ethical obligation to obey the law are examined. This one gives a general introduction to the dialogue, while this one focuses specifically on this section of the dialogue. A History of Western Philosophy in 500 Essential Quotations is a collection of the greatest thoughts from history’s greatest thinkers. THE OBLIGATION TO OBEY THE LAWt Richard A. Wasserstrom* The question of what is the nature and extent of one's obliga- tion to obey the law is one of those relatively rare philosophic questions which can never produce doubts about the importance of theory for practice. Some even argued that theexistence of political obligations could be established by conceptualanalysis alone — a point we return to in §3. Traditionally, this has been viewed as a requirement of a certain kind, to obey the law for the “content-independent” reason that it is the law, as opposed to the content of particular laws. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter. D'Amato}, year={2010} } A. SOCRATES: Ought a man to do what he admits to be right, or ought he to betray the right? Similarly, without laws around marriage his parents would never have come together to have a child, without educational laws he wouldn’t have received a proper education. Anyone, and especially a rhetorician, will have a good deal to say on behalf of the law which requires a sentence to be carried out. Before one can know whether there is a moral obligation to obey the law, one must know what a moral obligation to obey the law is. Thinks there is SOMETIMES an obligation to obey the law. Human beings' inherent epistemic limitations mean that they must rely on the trial and error learning built into the common law process to discover rules that facilitate peaceful social interaction. Normative and instrumental perspectives were important sources of Guangzhou citizens' perceived obligation to obey the law. The obligation to obey the law looks to only apply to a limited range of people, if we go with the consents account examined so far. Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding? This naïve legalistic notion of the duty to obey the law has few, if any, takers. Speaker: Dr Kevin Walton (Sydney Law School) Chair: Paul Troop (UCL Laws) About the talk. This essay argues that there can be a duty to obey the law when it is produced by the evolutionary forces at work in the customary and common law. A second argument for a general moral obligation to obey the law is the argument of consent. View On the Moral Obligation to Obey the Law.pdf from POLI 2107 at The University of Hong Kong. SOCRATES: Then consider the matter in this way:—Imagine that I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me: ‘Tell us, Socrates,’ they say; ‘what are you about? Is it through birth, or through consent? D'Amato}, year={2010} } A. This chapter does not provide general argument showing there is no such obligation to obey the law; rather, it hopes that a more indirect approach may suggest that the duty does not exist. I do not hope to prove this contention beyond a reasonable doubt: or rather do I not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong? The central question raised in this passage is: Do we have an obligation to obey the law, and if so, why are we obligated? establish that we have a specific prima facie obligation to obey the law when doing so would in fact be optimific. Do the laws speak truly, or do they not? Will you, O professor of true virtue, pretend that you are justified in this? In his philosophical text, Plato’s Socrates argued that when one was raised and educated in a society, one had already received the benefits of the society’s laws. Do you imagine that a state can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and trampled upon by individuals?’ What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words? This is a topic that Plato will (partially) address in the next reading: On Consenting to Laws – another short reading from the Crito. This discussion started in … This is not a purely academic concern, meriting the interest only of management scholars. It is never fully content independent - depends In terms of non-instrumental (consent or social contract theory) - this never fully amounts to an obligation in terms of mandatory comply So doesn't go as far to answer whether there is an 'obligation' to obey the law. 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