November 14, 2011
Hannah Grill
Why would a rational being obey an unjust law? One cannot argue that unjust laws have not been implemented or that such laws are never obeyed. In fact, numerous examples of the opposite exist. For example, slavery existed as a legal institution in the United States from the 1600s until 1865 and the passing of the thirteenth amendment. It was also illegal for women to vote in the United States prior to the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Rape was not technically illegal until the 20th century. It is obvious now how wrong or lacking these laws were, but they were most often obeyed. Why were these laws obeyed? Is it ever moral not to obey the law?
The question to be addressed here is: why should one obey the law, even sometimes in cases where the law is unjust? What responsibility does a person have to uphold the law? I do not want to pay tax on the income I make, yet I do it, and will continue to do so because it is an obligation. John Rawls argues that “the moral obligation to obey the law is a special case of the prima facie duty of fair play” (Shauer and Sinnott-Armstrong, 231). Rawls assumes that a moral obligation to obey the law exists in societies such as our own, but that this obligation can be overridden when greater “all-things-considered” factors arise. Rawls also works under the assumption that this obligation must offer some sort of benefit to participants and incur a sacrifice from every person in order for that benefit to exist. The principle of fair play works within the framework of a just system in which advantages are “only obtained if everyone, or nearly everyone cooperates” (235). According to this principle of fair play, if one accepts the benefits of the justice system and plans to continue to accept the benefits, he or she becomes bound to the system and therefore has a prima facie moral obligation to obey the laws of this system. Rawls explains this moral obligation as the duty of fair play: since one accepts the benefits of a just system, one has to obey all of the laws under that system and avoid free-riding.
Do you think this is why, morally, one should obey the law? Or are there alternative, moral, prima facie duties to uphold the law, even under unjust legislation?
Further Reading:
Schauer, Frederick F., and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. The Philosophy of Law: Classic and Contemporary Readings with Commentary. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1996. Print.
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