On the Moral Obligation to Obey the Law

Abstract

The principal arguments used by skeptics to establish that there is no general moral obligation to obey the law-not even a prima facie obligation--can also be used to establish that there is no general moral obligation to obey any particular moral norm. Perhaps no such general moral obligations exist-a conclusion I personally am not presently prepared to accept-but this conclusion is not what the skeptics think that they have shown. Indeed, these individuals believe that there are general moral obligations. Their point rather is that, unlike our general moral obligation to obey particular moral norms, we have no such obligation with regard to legal norms, not even a prima facie obligation. I state my thesis starkly, in order to focus the mind of the reader, because it will be necessary to discuss a number of preliminary matters before I can directly address my principal contention. These preliminary matters are sufficiently important to require more attention than would be necessary if their only significance were their contribution to my central thesis.