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The question, "Why should I obey the law?" introduces a contemporary puzzle that is as old as philosophy itself. The puzzle is especially troublesome if we think of cases in which breaking the law is not otherwise wrongful, and in which the chances of getting caught are negligible. Philosophers from Socrates to H.L.A. Hart have struggled to give reasoned support to the idea that we do have a general moral duty to obey the law but, more recently, the greater number of learned voices has expressed doubt that there is any such duty, at least as traditionally conceived.The thought that there is no such duty poses a challenge to our ordinary understanding of political authority and its legitimacy. In what sense can political officials have a right to rule us if there is no duty to obey the laws they lay down? Some thinkers, concluding that a general duty to obey the law cannot be defended, have gone so far as to embrace philosophical anarchism, the view that the state is necessarily illegitimate. Others argue that the duty to obey the law can be grounded on the idea of consent, or on fairness, or on other ideas, such as community.
William A. Edmundson is professor at Georgia State University College of Law. He is the author of Three Anarchical Fallacies: An Essay on Political Authority (1998, Cambridge University Press).
Part 1 AcknowledgmentsPart 2 IntroductionChapter 3 1 The Obligation to Obey the LawChapter 4 2 The Justification of Civil DisobedienceChapter 5 3 The Conflict between Authority and AutonomyChapter 6 4 Is There a Prima Facie Obligation to Obey the Law?Chapter 7 5 The Principle of Fair PlayChapter 8 6 Political Authority and Political ObligationChapter 9 7 The Obligation to Obey: Revision and TraditionChapter 10 8 Legitimate Authority and the Duty to ObeyChapter 11 9 Presumptive Benefit, Fairness, and Political ObligationChapter 12 10 Legal Theory and the Claim of AuthorityChapter 13 11 Freedom, Recognition, and Obligation: A Feminist Approach to Political TheoryChapter 14 12 Special Ties and Natural DutiesChapter 15 13 Who Believes in Political Obligation?Chapter 16 14 Surrender of Judgment and the Consent Theory of Political AuthorityPart 17 Index
This volume brings together the most important recent work on the question of political obligation. It is an excellent collection of the central work in the field...