Should You Obey the Law? - Philosophy Tube

What laws do you have to follow, and why should you follow them?

Twitter: @PhilosophyTube

Suggested Reading:
General Overviews:
William Edmundson, “State of the Art,” in Legal Theory, 2004.
Jonathan Wolff, “Political Obligation, Fairness and Independence,” in Ratio, 1995

Anarchist:
Matthew Smith, “Political Obligation and the Self,” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2011.

Others:
Richard Dagger, “Membership, Fair Play and Political Obligation,” in Political Studies, 2000.

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‘Amazing Grace’ on Bagpipes, by the Air Force Bands Program - Public Domain

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David Cameron and Nick Clegg by ‘Nick Clegg’ – license:
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[oniuqasaile]

I can feel myself transforming into an anarchist

[charlescox]

Anarchism should be its own episode. With special consideration for why "anarhco" capitalists are not anarchists.

[jesse_eg]

you've grown up so much in the last 4 years

[imaginareality]

I could listen to you all day. Please, make a video about anarchism, that would be cool. (You could make a video about democracy, communism and anarchism in one video but that might be too much). And I'm looking forward to next week :-)

[dangereagleofficial]

When injustice becomes law resistance becomes duty...
People have an obligation to obey moraly just laws and a duty to overturn unjust laws, this is the only way a society can advance ethicality. If people like Martin Luther king obey the laws of there time the hole of society would suffer..

[minmax]

i was waiting for you to mention anarchism for like 5 episodes lol

[bokito]

So many An-Caps in the comment section....

[QuikVidGuy]

the vaccination question makes me think about the autonomy of children, and if there's a lot of discussion around that from a philosophical angle. If a child knows the risk, to some extent, of not being vaccinated and chooses vaccination, but are denied it by the parent, the parent has violated their child's will as well as their safety. But if the child chooses not to be vaccinated and the parent does anyway, the child has still had their autonomy violated, but in a helpful way, and one that can be written off as them not knowing better.

People tell children not to dress in ways they want to in order to not "attract" predators, but the responsibility should be on adults to not be predatory. The child is not only refused their own decision, but is in fact assuming the responsibility of any potential number of adults, which doesn't quite line up with children not being knowledgeable or responsible enough for full autonomy of their own. But parents who choose to pierce their daughters' ears or enter them in beauty pageants - in one case causing unwanted pain and in another exposing their child to predatory gaze, we accept that the child did not make the choice, and in at least one anecdotal case relating to the piercings, accuse the child of being unruly or insubordinate.

We have very inconsistent ideas about what kids are capable of or what they aren't ready to process, and it often leads to simultaneously dismissing their knowledge of themselves while blaming them for the consequences of this dismissal. Particularly in untreated mental health and disability. And in the classic Matilda example, you can know something better than an adult and prove them wrong in an argument or expose them as irresponsible but still be subject to their decision simply due to the idea that you can't take care of yourself. It's something that tends to be parodied or discussed in isolated topics rather than questioned broadly. So people are clearly aware of the absurdity, but don't see an issue in addressing it.

A child says they're not hungry. Well, that's ungrateful. Somebody provided you this food, and you should respect their effort. Besides, you'll be hungry later if you don't eat now. You must be cranky, or picky, or troubled. But what if the child really just isn't hungry? and can recognize bodily signs that they won't be in any bad shape by the next chance they have to eat? Maybe they notice something wrong with the food but can't explain it or don't feel comfortable making some sort of offending statement against the person who prepared it. Maybe they feel ill and eating the food will cause them to become sick later, and their body is telling them not to eat at the moment. Maybe the food doesn't have to go to waste and can be saved, but the parent is more worried about the child acting according to expected bullet points than they are with accepting practical alternatives like putting the plate in the fridge. However, depending on the age, if a hungry child found money on the ground and decided to try to buy a burger with it - a responsible decision, in a sense - they may be turned away simply for being unsupervised, or criticized for buying cheap, filling food as opposed to something healthier, in the same way adults are, in which case the effort of the cooks and the expected pattern of hungry->have money->buy food is considered irrelevant.

This whole thing is a mess of incomplete trains of thought all sort of converging around "hey, people should know more about themselves than others do about them, so where do we draw the line in when and if we trust them to?"

and before anyone gross jumps on here, I'm talking about practical decision-making, I don't want any sort of discussion around age of consent, because there's more important things there than just "do you know what you're talking about?"

[THUNKShow]

Considering that governance has been justified using everything from the will of the citizenry to invisible contracts that nobody knows about to divine mandate, I'd make an argument from relativity a la Mackie that no such justification actually exists - any supposedly objective measure of governmental legitimacy bears a striking resemblance to whatever a ruling body would have to say to a particular society to continue ruling. The resemblance isn't a proof unto itself, but it's certainly suggestive.

It seems like moral anti-realism would necessitate some form of philosophical anarchism, or am I wrong?

(Also, dat bagpipe fanfare. HUME! HUME! HUME!)

[AlexBermann]

I'm pretty far in the philosophical anarchists camp. My problem with the other positions is that they mainly act as if a state was a singular thing.

While I am citizen of my country, this does not mean that I partake in its Nation. I may speak another language, have different values and may ignore or oppose the local traditions. However, if we take the Nation from the equation, the only thing that remains is power.

Every government in human history was an institution which served to impose the will of some on others. The fact that the will of the majority is imposed on the minority isn't different in that regard to the will of royalty and nobility imposed on peasants. Furthermore, we can't conclude that this power is inherently legitimate since tyrannical governments also weren't different in that regard. Every nation has norms on how a person seizes legitimate political power and on how much the government may impose on its subjects. However, I don't necessarily share this part of my Nation. Let's look at this from a more general level: in Soviet Russia, it was part of the soviet nation that the government can impose very much on the individual for the common good. Today, we tend to call this unjust and judge those who acted on that belief harshly.

However, if I get to the example of taxes, I can argue that one should comply to them because they allow services which we enjoy ourselves or may enjoy if we are down on our luck. So if we don't prefer to live without these services to taking the necessary effort to ensure their upkeep, we are morally obliged to do our part if we can.

Based on this perspective, I would argue that someone who smokes weed doesn't act morally wrong even though they break the law. However, someone who drives recklessly would act morally wrong even if they didn't endanger others because their own safety directly depends on the obedience of traffic rules. Thís would also be true if no government were involved: obeying the laws of a game is a small moral obligation because cheating ruins the game.

[MiniClown]

Well done video!

I would've loved if you'd touched more on the subject of obeying the law in self interest. It is really interesting if you think about what happens when you don't follow the law. The law (let's just take USA in this example) clearly states that violence is an offense. Punching, stabbing, shooting, even threatening to do any of these things without actually performing them, are against the law. This, as you said in the video, is supposed to be universally applicable to everyone within the region (I find it odd to call something universally and then define it as regional, but let's go with it for now). This means that everyone has to follow these laws, normal citizens, police and the political leaders too. Even though, breaking those laws against violence that is what the state does constantly.

Just to mention one example of the state breaking it's own laws: if you do not pay your taxes, you will be told to pay a fine. If you do not pay, you will be summoned to court. If you do not show up, police will come to your home. If you do not open the door, they will break in to your home and try to bring you off to jail. If you resist, in your own home (self defense), the police have the right to shoot you. Behind every law there is the implicit threat of murder.

I understand that taxes bring about good things, but it is not important. If I ask you for money, while telling you that I will bring that money to that poor beggar over there on the other side of the street, you might give me money to do so. But if you do not, and I take out my gun and threaten you with death unless you give me your money, the fact that your money could be used for good isn't really that interesting anymore.

This duality of "murder is bad, but also good" is very interesting and I wish you'd mention it in the video!

[GEdwardsPhilosophy]

Well, I think your Hume impression is better than mine :)

[JamaalLV]

Hey Olly, first time commenter, long time subscriber. I just wanted to tell you, good job on the channel & video! This videos' subject is something I've always thought about but never really considered seriously. So thank you for this video it was enlightening! I didn't know of certain terms within this particular subject matter but I always knew of anarchism and "you should obey the law because it's the law" or "obeying the law for moral reasons" were arguments or sides. Now I know that there are terms and schools of thought backing those terms up. Thanks again, Olly! (And I've always seen my self as a philosophical anarchist. I'd have to look more into the a priori and a posteriori schools of thought). Love your channel! And love philosophy!

[SuperSpamcan]

You should do a video explaining anarchism. I would be interested in hearing that.

[zeroclout]

Great episode!! More like it please, especially on the subject of Anarchism.

[BlahBlahUsername]

Someone mentioned rights on your property. I wonder if they realize that even when you pay for land, its not technically yours. At least here in the U.S.

While you can with it what you like, ultimately, government owns it. If they wished to force you out, for say building roads, they would win eventually. By either paying you for it, or just pushing you out. It happens.

[awsomeabacus]

If there is a cut-off point for voluntarily foreseen risk, then this argument would also hold true for STDs and unwanted pregnancies

[bertrandlecerf]

I would really love to see an episode all about Anarchism.

[margothutton]

More accents, pls.  Just.  All the accents.

[ultramango]

OH MY GOD YOUNG OLLIE IS SO DAMN CUTE IM GONNA DIE