Obedience to Laws

Achieving Justice Requires Obedience to Laws

We obey the law and those legally appointed for its enforcement for various reasons. When the police order us to stop or to move back, we almost always do as the police order. The police are armed. Moreover, even if we were armed as well, we are morally constrained not to initiate the use of force. None of that, however, explains why we are obligated to obey. Neither the officer's gun nor our fear of it can explain it. We may obey laws for fear of loss of reputation or out of a desire for order. They only explain the fact that we obeyed, not why obedience to a law is obligatory.

While there might be a moral obligation to obey a particular law because of its moral content (e.g., laws prohibiting murder) or because it solves a coordination problem (e.g., laws requiring people to drive on the right side of the road and other rather benign rules that hardly anyone would quarrel with), the mere fact that a rule is law does not provide a moral reason for doing what the law requires. Establishing a law implies a demand for obedience, but does not prove why it must be obeyed.

A System of Law Relies on Morality

The moral reason for obeying a law depends on many things, including how the law was enacted, what problem it was intended to relieve, who instituted the law, how it is applied, what behavior it restricts and what rights it protects or violates.