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Is There a Duty to Obey the Law?

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The central question in political philosophy is whether political states have the right to coerce their constituents and whether citizens have a moral duty to obey the commands of their state. In this 2005 book, Christopher Heath Wellman and A. John Simmons defend opposing answers to this question. Wellman bases his argument on samaritan obligations to perform easy rescues, arguing that each of us has a moral duty to obey the law as his or her fair share of the communal samaritan chore of rescuing our compatriots from the perils of the state of nature. Simmons counters that this, and all other attempts to explain our duty to obey the law, fail. He defends a position of philosophical anarchism, the view that no existing state is legitimate and that there is no strong moral presumption in favor of obedience to, or compliance with, any existing state.

Author(s): Christopher Heath Wellman; A. John Simmons
Series: For and Against
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2005

Language: English
Pages: xiii, 200 p.
City: Cambridge; New York

Copyright
Contents
General Editor’s Preface
Acknowledgments
I Samaritanism and the Duty to Obey the Law (Christopher Heath Wellman)
1 Why I Am Not an Anarchist
A Defense of Statism
The Anarchist’s Rejoinder
Samaritanism and Voluntarism
2 Doing One’s Fair Share
Samaritan Duties and Fairness
The Particularity Requirement
Particularity and Citizenship
Conclusion
3 Just and Unjust Laws
The Duty to Vote
Military Service
Conclusion
4 Confronting Injustice
Illegitimate Regimes
Unjust Laws
Civil Disobedience
Conclusion
II The Duty to Obey and Our Natural Moral Duties (A. John Simmons)
5 The Problem and Its Significance
6 The Theories
Three Families
Associative Theories
Transactional Theories
7 Natural Duties and the Duty to Obey the Law
The Basic Argument
The Argument
Consequentialism
Necessity
Respect and Deference
The Natural Duty of Justice
Doing Justice
The Rawlsian Natural Duty of Justice
Particularity and the Effects of Noncompliance
Particularity and Salience
Obedience and Rescue
8 Conclusions
Index