Should we abide by unjust laws?

[tolbiny]

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Why is my moral code so superior to our legal system?

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Why is a piece of paper with some ink on it superior to a human being?

[JuntMonkey]

"Trial and Death of Socrates" by Plato covers this (Socrates is wrong, but his point was far more legitimate in his time than it is in ours).

Anyway, government itself is unjust so do whatever the [censored] you want, cost-benefit in mind. "The system" is nonsense.

[ShakeZula06]

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Why is my moral code so superior to our legal system?

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You can just as well ask yourself why is the legal system superior to your moral code?

In the case of victimless crimes you need to only worry about your own moral code. The legal system hasn't shown me to be a legitimate force in deciding when I can and can't drink alcohol on mine or a consenting person's property, so I see no need to care what it says (except as someone else mentioned, when considering the cost/benefit of breaking the law).

[bkholdem]

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Why is my moral code so superior to our legal system? I didn't really have any good response to that

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Part of the beauty of my moral code is that I do not feel the necessity to justify its legitimacy or superiority to some tool who needs jackasses in washington d.c. to tell him how to live his life, to tell him what right and wrong is.

If some idiot needs or wants others to tell him what is right and what is wrong that is fine with me, but I don't need that.

[BCPVP]

No talking to girls? That's the best doomsday scenario you could come up with for a hardcore Christian? Why not ask him what he'd do if he were required by law to perform an abortion every day? Or to publicly reject God and worship an idol? Or if he had to vote Democrat for the rest of his life? Your hypothetical law just wasn't offensive enough to his own morals. I think most legal positivists like this guy have a point where they wouldn't follow "the Law".

[Taraz]

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No talking to girls? That's the best doomsday scenario you could come up with for a hardcore Christian? Why not ask him what he'd do if he were required by law to perform an abortion every day? Or to publicly reject God and worship an idol? Or if he had to vote Democrat for the rest of his life? Your hypothetical law just wasn't offensive enough to his own morals. I think most legal positivists like this guy have a point where they wouldn't follow "the Law".

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He's actually a pretty liberal guy and is pro-choice. That's why I was kind of shocked by his answer. The reason I didn't want to make a more extreme law is because I wanted it to be something that is manageable but still ridiculous. It's not insane to think that we shouldn't drink alcohol until we're 21, but it's very arbitrary and senseless.

I take your point though. I would imagine that he would say that he would try not to break the law in public or something like that. But then he would just say that our laws aren't that unjust and it is reasonable to follow them.

I dunno, the basic problem I have is he needs a moral authority. That could be his pastor, the state, or God. How do I explain to him why I don't think an outside moral authority has any more validity than my own moral code?

[chezlaw]

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I dunno, the basic problem I have is he needs a moral authority. That could be his pastor, the state, or God. How do I explain to him why I don't think an outside moral authority has any more validity than my own moral code?

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Everyone follows their own moral code including him. His moral code just happens to be that he should obey the law, presumably he considers that its better to obey bad laws then to break them.

chez

[TomTom]

Geeze, this has all been covered long long ago:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

[Taraz]

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I dunno, the basic problem I have is he needs a moral authority. That could be his pastor, the state, or God. How do I explain to him why I don't think an outside moral authority has any more validity than my own moral code?

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Everyone follows their own moral code including him. His moral code just happens to be that he should obey the law, presumably he considers that its better to obey bad laws then to break them.

chez

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That's a brilliant way of putting it.

[bkholdem]

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I dunno, the basic problem I have is he needs a moral authority. That could be his pastor, the state, or God. How do I explain to him why I don't think an outside moral authority has any more validity than my own moral code?

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Everyone follows their own moral code including him. His moral code just happens to be that he should obey the law, presumably he considers that its better to obey bad laws then to break them.

chez

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That's a brilliant way of putting it.

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Out of curiousity, How does he deal with the paradox when laws from God conflict with laws from man? It seems to me that it would be hyppoctritical to obey almost all laws except for a select few that his religion tell him are wrong, and not use his religious beliefs to determine right from wrong otherwise.

What are so special about man made laws in which no one is harmed (or only consenting adults are involved) when they are broken? Does he have a well thought out philosophy in how he submits to man made laws or is he following beliefs that were indoctrinated into him?