The Subsidiarity of Law and the Obligation to Obey (original) (raw)

Respect for the Law

Philosophy Research Archives

The aim of this paper is to try to clarify the nature and justification of respect for the law. In section I, I try to clarify the nature of respect for a legal system and distin guish it from related concepts. In the next section, I consi der problems justifying the attitude of respect toward a legal system. In section III, I discuss the extent to which one has duties to behave respectfully toward and to try to adopt an attitude of respect toward a reasonably just legal system. One consequence is that it is difficult to show that one has a duty to obey the law because it is respect-worthy. In the last sec tion, I sketch further consequences of preceding sections and suggest that respect for the law properly understood is neither the boon of oppression nor the bane of conscientious moral agents. A-5 * An earlier and shorter version of this paper was read at the Eastern Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association held in Atlanta in December 1973. Since then the paper has been rewritten with the guidance of comments by

Law at the Service of Humankind

Scholars in some disciplines (reacting against the Jewish and Christian heritage) have rejected the idea of an externally imposed law. The individual's growth to maturity is inhibited by the regulation of all aspects of life; when maturity is defined in terms of independence and autonomy, laws are seen as shackles that weigh down the human spirit. Such echoes of individualism have been heard widely. But western societies which extol such a view of maturity now face the situation of isolated individuals whose experience of illness, old age or other human limitations leads them to see every loss of independence as a defeat, a sign of failure. A model of interdependence of individuals within the family and larger communities is much more realistic and healthy for both the person and the community.

Law and the Normativity of Obligation

Jurisprudence Annual Lecture 2014 - Jurisprudence, vol 5 (2014) 1–28, 2014

""The paper examines the natural law tradition in ethics and legal theory. This tradition is shown to address two questions. The first question is to do with the nature of law, and the kind of human capacity that is subject to legal direction. Is law directive of the voluntary – of what is subject to the will, or what can be done or refrained from on the basis of a decision so to do? Or is law directive of some other kind of capacity? The second question is about the nature of ethical normativity, and the relation within normativity of its directive and appraisive aspects. Is direction primary, and appraisal to be explained in terms of a theory of direction; or must a theory of ethical direction be based on a theory of ethical appraisal? Both issues are introduced by reference to Hume’s ethical theory, which raises them in a particularly sharp form. The natural law tradition, in the form it reached by the early modern period, is shown to combine giving a primacy to the appraisive in normative theory, with, in legal theory, a detachment of law from any exclusive tie to the direction of the voluntary. At the heart of the theory of natural law is the idea of law as a distinctive form of normativity directive of a capacity not for voluntariness, but for self-determination. Combined with a view of the state not just as a coordinative authority but as a coercive teacher, this led to a distinctive and highly controversial view of the scope of positive law. The paper ends with Hobbes’s sharp opposition to this view of positive law – an opposition that focussed, in particular, on the coercive legal direction of belief. ""

Law and Human Nature: The Social-Adaptive Function of the Normative Behavior

The objective of this article is to offer a critical (re)interpretation of genesis and evolution, object and purpose, as well as useful qualified methods for interpreting, justifying and applying modern practical law, all with the intention of putting philosophic thought and contemporary formal theory of reason at the service of hermeutics and juridical argumentation. Law is no more-no less-than an social-adaptive strategy, evermore complex, but always noticeably deficient, used to articulate argumentatively-in fact, not always with justicethrough the virtue of prudence, elementary relational social ties through which men construct approved styles of interaction and social structure, i.e., to organize and ethically improve political and social life in such a way as to permit that no free citizen-rich or poor-should fear the arbitrary interference of other social actors in his life plan.

In Defense of a Moral Duty to Obey the Law

2013

This paper provides a response to Michael Davis's criticism of Bernard Gert's defense of the thesis that 'obey the law' is a basic moral rule. Davis's argument depends on the fact that an ordered defense of the rules of morality might begin by justifying enough rules that the rule against breaking the law would not provide sufficient additional protection from harm to justifying the risks involved in giving power to fallible lawmakers. My defense of Bernard Gert's view also appeals to fallibility: to the fallibility of individuals who cannot see the point of certain laws, and who -- if they accepted Davis's view -- would feel justified in breaking them whenever they did not see their violation as also violating some other rule.

Law: Natural, Artificial and Unnatural

Law: Natural, Artificial and Unnatural , 2022

There are numerous felt needs, emotional, psychological, economic, equitable treatment in various fora or spheres of common (meaning interpersonal and collective spaces) life, to name the most obvious, that systems of “justice” and consequently of “law” are invoked to address. Demands on such systems, assuming these demands are not intentionally malafide or exploitative or abusive, range from that of vengeance and retribution to restoration, restitution and rehabilitation. The systems upon which such demands are made, with vastly varying degrees of expectation of fulfilment, and perhaps an even vaster array of protocols required to invoke judgement or resolution of some sort, likewise range from supernatural, moral and religious structures and apparatus extant to Global or International Instruments of Conventions and Treaties, with their own apparatus and structures all the way through “national” or “sub-national” systems, to “customary” or “traditional” practice, many of these last as diverse, contradictory, complex, even disguised as extrusions of a larger protocol, such as the “larger” systems of justice or even merely of ordinary, everyday life, the “normalcy” of mundane social interactions and transactions within which they are embedded. All these are of course, constantly mutating whether primarily in response to each other or to experienced situations and few, if any, provide unalloyed satisfaction. Certainly not for any appreciable duration. Rarely, if ever, is there a Permanent Resolution. Indeed, the array of caveats and exceptional or innovative resolutions, morphing into new legal trajectories of society have resulted in most formal bodies of law becoming unwieldy, fragmented, esoteric and inaccessible