Must we always obey the law?
Obedience, conscience, revolt, and the state itself
Must we always obey the law? Philosophers give 4 main answers: obey, conscience first, the right to revolt and no master. AskPhilosophy presents 17 arguments, from Sophocle to Alexandre Soljenitsyne, reconstructed step by step, logic-checked and verified word for word against their original texts.
The 4 possible answers
Each column is one way of answering the question: what it holds and the philosophers who defend it. Click a column to see only its arguments.
Even when imperfect, the law must be respected: without it comes disorder or the rule of the strongest.
Socrate, Kant, Hume
An unjust law does not bind: we may, or must, refuse to obey it, openly.
Thomas d'Aquin, Sophocle, Henry David Thoreau, Hannah Arendt…
When a power becomes tyrannical, the people have the right to overthrow it.
Locke, Étienne de La Boétie, Juan de Mariana, Mencius
No state has legitimate authority over us: a society can organise itself without government.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhaïl Bakounine, Léon Tolstoï
The arguments
Click an argument to see it step by step, with the objections and replies.
Obey
Even when imperfect, the law must be respected: without it comes disorder or the rule of the strongest.
3 argumentsThe Laws of the Crito: do not escape, even when wrongly condemned
Staying in the city means committing to obey or convince it; escaping would be one more injustice, and wrong is not answered with wrong.
No right of resistance against the legislative power
A right to resist the supreme law would need a law authorising it, so a supreme law that is no longer supreme: that is a contradiction.
We obey from utility and habit, not from a contract
Governments come from force, and living in a country is not consenting: we obey because society could not otherwise subsist.
Conscience first
An unjust law does not bind: we may, or must, refuse to obey it, openly.
7 argumentsAn unjust law is not truly a law
A law that departs from reason and the common good is more an act of violence than a law: it does not bind the conscience.
Antigone: the unwritten laws against the king's edict
The unwritten laws of the gods are for all time, and a mortal's edict is not strong enough to override them.
Breaking the law when it makes me the agent of an injustice
If the law requires me to be the agent of injustice toward another, obeying makes me complicit: so I must break it.
'I obeyed' is no excuse: Eichmann and responsibility
Obeying a criminal power is supporting it: someone who could judge for himself cannot say he only obeyed.
Helvidius Priscus: "You will do your part, and I will do mine"
The emperor can expel or kill me, but while I am a senator my part is to say what I think right, and I keep it without trembling.
Before the emperor: "My conscience is bound to the Word of God"
His conscience is bound to God's Word, and acting against conscience is neither safe nor right: he will not recant without proof.
Live not by lies: refusing to take part
If we cannot overthrow violence, we can refuse to say, write or sign what we know is false: the lie holds only through us.
The right to revolt
When a power becomes tyrannical, the people have the right to overthrow it.
4 argumentsPower is a trust: the people may take it back and appeal to heaven
Power is a trust given to protect the people: if it enslaves them, the trust is lost and the people are released from obedience.
The tyrant is strong only through our obedience: let us support him no more
A tyrant has only two eyes and two hands like anyone: his strength is what the people lend him, so it is enough to stop giving it.
The tyrant may be deposed by the community, and as a last resort killed: Mariana's De rege
The king's power comes from the community: if he turns against it, it may depose him and, as a last resort, kill him.
The tyrant is no longer a king: killing him is not killing a sovereign
A ruler who destroys benevolence and righteousness is only a mere fellow: one punishes a man, one does not kill a king.
No master
No state has legitimate authority over us: a society can organise itself without government.
3 arguments'To be governed is…': government replaced by free contract
To be governed is to be commanded and exploited by people without title: free people can bind themselves by contract, with no master.
The bootmaker's authority: we accept an authority we choose, not one imposed on us
We rely on the bootmaker because we choose him and can check him; a fixed, imposed authority such as the state has no such basis.
To rule is to do to others what we would not have done to us: refuse to take part rather than overthrow
To rule is to use force, so to do to others what we would not want done to us: the only remedy is to refuse to take part.
Other philosophers' positions arrive as profiles are completed. No position is presented as the winner.