Unjust Law: A Natural Duty To Obey The Law

In Martin Luther King’s, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” he explains what he thinks is a just law and what makes an unjust law.So what makes a just and an unjust law? A just law, according to King, is a man made code that squares with the moral code. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. In the world we live in today most laws are just, but many issues are caused by prejudice people. Many are afraid to suffer the consequences that come with standing up for what is right. For me, suffering the consequences would be worth it if not everyone is given equal rights, one race is being attacked about a certain law, and if a law forces me to do something I refuse to do.

Do we have an obligation to obey any law, no matter how unjust or evil, provided only that it is in fact a valid rule of the legal system in which we happen to be physically located? In the following composition, I am going to examine the answer to this question in accordance to what Socrates believes. The best way to understand this almost “WWSD” (What Would Socrates Do) approach is by looking at Socrates' actions in the three Platonic dialogues we have read. These dialogues bring forth three possible bases for why Socrates believes one should obey the law. First, that there is a distinction between the the “justness” of a law and how that law is applied. Second, that if one willingly accepts living in a

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).

”Unjust law is no law at all.” In face of unjust laws, merely tolerance and obeying could be detrimental not only to personal rights but also to the well-being of the society. Therefore, it is indeed every people’s responsibility to disobey or even resist them. As we know during the sixties of America a number of citizens decided not to obey the law which itself is unjust and wrong any longer. Without their resistance, there wouldn’t have been the civil rights movement, anti-war

Unjust laws are laws that do not follow the code of higher morality. Most unjust laws degrade human personalities and qualities. Since the 1980s, the American culture has dealt with a huge deal of unjust laws within the Criminal Justice System. One of the current examples that continues to take place is Racism with the “War on Drugs Policy.” King’s criteria of unjust laws deals with the idea of segregation amongst the minority versus the majority. Today and even back then, African American and Hispanic men have consistently been locked up on drug charges while White men deal with the walk of shame in their eyes but in ours the walk of fame, probation,or rehabilitation. King’s criteria closely scopes into the idea behind race, voting rights, and America’s freedom.

The term justice is used in some of America's most treasured and valued documents, from the Pledge of Allegiance, to the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence. Everyone wants to be treated justly whether it's in the courtroom or the local bar. Most people would feel confident giving a definition for justice, but would it be a definition we could universally agree to? Given that justice is a very common term, and something we all want, it's important to have a precise definition. For hundreds of years philosophers have argued, debated, and fought over this topic. Justice can clearly be defined as the intention to conform to truth and fairness. This is true justice.

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.

In 1964, a group of students decided to protest a Cuba travel ban. Some teachers agreed to peacefully join but were denied this right. Doesn’t everyone have the right under the First Amendment to assemble peacefully? Apparently not because some states place laws against public employee protests. Despite this, civil rights leaders start demonstrations to further their cause and are willing to show civil disobedience. According to Charles Frankel of the New York Times, “… a set of principles cannot be proposed that will allow anyone to make… specific acts of disobedience…” Clearly, the issue of civil disobedience and whether or not it is “legal” is a controversial topic. Yet, sometimes rebelling against an unjust law is necessary. Due

As an American citizen, I believe it is the American people’s duty and responsibility to obey the law, pay taxes, and serve in court. The law provided by our system of government allows for optimum function and potential required for a nation to thrive. Obeying the law leads to a safe and protected society which is beneficial to the American people. And remember, the law also makes sure the leaders of our country to do exploit its citizens. Those who break the law, whether it be local, state or nation-wide, are promoting danger and chaos within our borders. Secondly, I consider paying taxes to be another duty the American people must commit to and follow. Taxes keep our society operating and moving. Taxes help pay for health care, infrastructure,

As we see issues around the world, there are people who deal with them very differently than others. This world’s society has lead many people to believe that if any law is unjust, they can disobey it. The people who think this often create protests. Depending on the issue, these protests have not done much damage into the issue they want changed. However, there are many people that have brought the attention of outsiders into this topic. People who simply do not know why they are acting this way, often do when seeing protests. When evaluation if disobeying an unjust law is appropriate, we need to know, the possible reasons why this protest is happening, examples around the world, and even to look at the possible issues

The fine line between obeying the law and not obeying it. Obeying the law kind of makes the world safer. When you don't obey a law and therefore caught doing the crime; you will be charged and possibly sentenced to a place where you are no longer free to do as you please. When you obey the law you get to do as you please with your life as long as you follow the laws. Laws are put into motion to create a safe environment for everyone to live in. No one should have to be worried about their lives everyday; but there are accidents everyday in which lives are lost.

The idea of human dignity has been remarked and articulated in a number of the jurisprudence works of the mid-twentieth American legal philosopher, Lon L. Fuller. The Morality of Law, for instance, provides a valuable snapshot of Fuller’s preliminary sense of what his idea on human dignity might entail. In the core of his argument of legal morality, Fuller proposes that any neglect of eight principles of legality, which constitutes the internal morality of law, is not just only render the rational ground to obey the law and destroy the trusteeship between lawgiver and subject, but it further condemns and humiliates the dignity of person or human being as a free and responsible agent, self-determining center of action, and that they possess inherent dignity. In other important text, Fuller explicitly announces that the value of human dignity, over other extra-legal values, that must embodied within the structure of legal order. After he offers a long discussion of human capacity of action and communication under the forms of order, he writes: “ there is, therefore, in an ordered system of law, formulated and administered conscientiously, a certain built-in respect for human dignity, and I think it is reasonable to suppose that this respect will tend to carry over into the substantive ends of law.” Thirdly, in his draft essay Means and Ends, which can be considered both as an introductory of Fuller’s eunmoics theory of social order and Fuller’s reflection on the

“…No matter how plain a women may be if truth and loyalty are stamped upon her face all will be attracted to her...” Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 2014 in New York City, New York. She was the only the only daughter of Anna Hall and Elliot Roosevelt; she was the middle child in her trio of siblings. Her brothers were Elliot Roosevelt Jr. and Gracie Hall Roosevelt who were the oldest and youngest siblings respectively. The Roosevelt siblings encountered trauma at a young age. Their mother passed away when Eleanor was only eight years old and their father passed away shortly after, when Eleanor just turned

The rule of law is a difficult concept to grasp and proves elusive to substantive definition. However, the following work considers the attempts of various social and legal theorists to define the concept and pertinent authorities are considered. Attitudes and emphasis as to the exact shape, form and content of the rule of law differ quite widely depending on the socio-political perspective and views of respective commentators (Slapper and Kelly, 2009, p16), although there are common themes that are almost universally adopted. The conclusions to this work endeavour to consolidate thinking on the rule of law in order to address the question posed in the title, which is at first sight a deceptively simple one.

In this paper, I will propose that it is better to look at whether a law is legally valid or not through the perspective of natural law theory as opposed to positivist theory. My argument consists mostly of the language of “improvement” which can only exist based on the theory of natural law which states that law is something which has an objective truth behind it. Only when there is an objective mark to hit can there be hits and misses and I believe that positivism disregards the possibility of hits and misses entirely. So, my argument is that it makes more sense to consider legal validity of a law from the perspective of natural law rather than positive law because it includes not only the previously set up legal system when considering validity, but it also considers the general idea of some kind of morality as well. A sub argument is that the starting legal system must have had some basis by which to have been created and accepted which must be some form or notion of morality.