Is There a Moral Obligation to Obey the Law?

Are we morally obliged to obey even unjust laws? This moral question addresses what we commonly know as civil disobedience. In order to properly discuss civil disobedience and whether or not it is moral to disobey laws, we must first characterize civil disobedience. In Peter Singer's book, Practical Ethics he begins to characterize civil disobedience as arising from "ethical disagreement" and raising the question of whether "to uphold the law, even if the law protects and sanctions things we hold utterly wrong?" (Singer 292).

King categorizes law into two types: just and unjust. He describes a just law as a “man-made code” that falls in line with moral law while an unjust law is one that deviates from moral law. King claims that just laws can uplift people while unjust ones degrade them. In stating these ideas, King provides his audience with his own definition of what laws are and what they can do. The reader can now apply this definition to attain a better understanding of King’s ideology and better connect with King’s larger purpose of the letter. King also examines laws that in method are fair but in practice are oppressive. This helps make his definition be more complete by presenting a multitude of ways a law can be unjust. He shows that laws can be unjust in writing and in application. King explains his criteria for just and unjust laws in order to move his argument forward in answering the criticisms of his fellow clergymen.

There are also cases where law breaking becomes a compulsion, which is when it comes to life and death. The hierarchy of law should be taken into account. Saving somebody’s life is always of more importance than obeying civil laws. For example, if a person is severely injured and the closest hospital is across the border in another country, then illegally crossing the border should not be the main concern, saving the person’s life should and in such cases law breaking is most definitely justifiable.

An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.? The Clergymen express great concern over King is willingness to break laws. King replies that this is an understandable concern since everyone follows the Supreme Court Decision of 1954 that states; public schools are not to be segregated. In other words King is saying the Supreme Court can hand down a just law and yet people do not obey it but yet they expect me to obey an unjust law. In Germany under Adolf Hitler every thing he did was ?legal? and the freedom fighters in Hungry did everything ?illegally?. Aiding a Jew under Hitler was considered ?illegal?. Because these things were legal did that make it right? No. Should people have obeyed these laws? No. These laws were made to suppress a group of people simple because of there religion. This is much like the segregation in the United States is it right because it is the law? No. Should these laws be followed? No.

Justification of the violation of laws depends on the situation, not on the rules and regulations: in certain places of the world there are

Why we do obey the law? According to philosopher Peter Singer, there are good reasons for obeying the law. But, he also argues, there are times when it acceptable to disobey law. Law are made to be obey, but in some cases people beliefs that there are exception where unjust laws sometimes can be disobey. Singer gives two arguments in favor of obeying laws.

A society of men who follow blindly the laws with no kind of reflection about their righteousness is a society of lambs. Law should not be obeyed because they have been established by a majority in a popular election or because they have been instated by some kind of authority. Henry David Thoreau, in this essay we are discussing, tell us that the only obligation we have is to follow what our conscience indicates as morally correct, and this does not emanate from any extern authority. This may be the reason why Saint Augustine said, “An unjust law is not law at all”, a quote that we can compare with the one that we have read in Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience: “The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right”. Nevertheless, it is also true that laws are made to be respected in order to maintain a necessary public order and the desired social convivence. How do we approach this dilemma?

Rawls believes that in a situation where a society is established of people who are self-interested, rational, and equal, the rules of justice are established by what is mutually acceptable and agreed upon by all the people. This scenario of negotiating the laws of that society that will be commonly agreed upon and beneficial to

According to Britannica.com, consent is defined as, “an act of permitting something to be done or of recognizing some authority.” This definition is a fact that almost all political theorists can agree on, however, the boundaries surrounding this definition leaves us asking many questions; how did we consent, to whom do we consent to, and when did we consent? Most importantly is the question: did we consent at all? When we go back to the fundamentals of defining how, when, and if we consented, we will derive that we never consented at all. In the following essay, I will define the boundaries of consent, give a summary of the various philosophical arguments given for political obligation, and disseminate these arguments.

Before addressing the claim of a natural duty to obey the law under recent democratic society,  I will differentiate the category a natural duty will fall under: general,  special,  non-voluntary,  and voluntary duty.  The main difference between general and special is whom the duty applies to. In a general duty, this is duty that everyone as human beings should perform. Whereas, a special duty is when one has a relationship with another through  promise to carry out a specific task.  On the other hand, involuntary and voluntary differs in one’s willingness.  In chapter 7 of the Duty to Obey,  Simmons defines the natural theories of duty to obey includes that law advances an impartial moral good or moral duty that everyone shares (121).

To conclude The Laws of Peoples, Rawls invokes Kant’s sentiment towards justice such that a world in which humanity acts in a simply rational manner without regard for their role as members in a society is a world not worth having. Likely, this perspective simultaneously understands the logical possibility for mankind to enact a reasonable, unselfish society and the behavioral refusal to do so. Undermining agential capacities to craft a more just society would relegate these societies to morally questionable, if not damnable entities in which morality is dictated more greatly by what can be done, rather than what should be done; in which basic securities for the vulnerable and the social contract from which they stem have dissolved.

The two words just and legal have been used interchangeably in today's society and we have forgotten the extreme amount of separation between the two words' meanings. I am going to reflect on the different meanings of what is just verses what is legal and why it is dangerous to define them as one and the same. Many similarities can be made between the two words' meanings stemming from the fact that both pertain to the justice system and to the upholding of morality. The two separate in their definitions because legal does not show evenness on an issue and the legality of something takes no account of its fairness and equality. Whereas, if something is just, it is not because it is legal but because it

When we are born their isn't an official or someone working for the government at the hospital with documents for you to sign saying you're going to follow all the laws and if you don't there shall be consequences. When we are born we are fully protected within the United States under all its all laws making it basically not an option that your either going to follow them or not. In general there is no documents that we need to sign saying we are going to follow every law. Basically we are just born into it and we

Rawls goes on to expand on the principles of justice that he proposes. In general he says that these two principles apply to the basic structure of society and are meant to regulate the distribution of advantages and disadvantages. They are meant to make sure that rights and duties are equally distributed. He says, “the basic liberties of citizens are, roughly speaking, political liberty (the right to vote and to be eligible for public office) together with freedom of speech and assembly; liberty of conscience and freedom of thought, freedom of the person along with the right to hold (personal) property; and freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as defined by the concept of the rule of law.” He says that everyone should have the same amount of these liberties, “since citizens of a just society are to have the same basic rights.”

John Rawls in his ‘A Theory of Justice’ (Rawls , Revised edition 2009) aims to work out a theory of social justice that is a viable alternative to other doctrines, which have long dominated our philosophical tradition.  While the author acknowledges that most citizens and institutions recognize the principle of social justice, he also underlines that their conceptions on the distribution of basic rights and duties are influenced by their interests and hence are not always to the advantage of all citizens.  In fact, Rawls argues that the prevailing Utilitarian and Intuitive theories, work on the principle of maximum benefits for the greatest amount of people, or the assumption that men born into different positions have different expectations