DO WE HAVE TO OBEY THE LAW?

Aleksandre Avalishvili S6EN

Our one aim in life has always been to find balance and tranquility in our lives. A utopian
society envisions a scenario where people govern themselves, where everybody is happy and
can trust each other blindly. People set their goals, lead disciplined lives and achieve anything
they set their sights on. They are able to live their lives to the fullest and all the time feeling
secure about it. This vision, unfortunately, exists in an ideal world which frankly is almost the
opposite of today’s real world. Our realistic society is heterogeneous mixture of all kinds of
people, people who look to disturb the balance of the natural society. It is here that law plays a
very important role in restoring that ‘delicate balance’ back to the society and making the lives
of the people living together cohesive. Laws are here to help us to maintain the morality of the
people as individuals as well as the society as a whole. In this essay I will be discussing the
importance of law and whether we carry an obligation to always be obedient.
First and foremost, I think it’s important that we know how laws originated.
The evolution of law began before history was recorded with laws built up one by one as
disputes were settled. In fact, the development of rules in society predates both courts and the
written law. For thousands of years, customary and private legal systems alone ordered human
activities.
The idea of law includes fundamental rules of behavior, as well as institutions and devices for
changing, clarifying, refining, and applying the rules. Law is a natural outcome of people living
and working together. If people are to live among others, there must be a way to resolve the
inevitable disputes. Law can be seen as the activity of subjecting human conduct to the
governance of rules.
Let’s imagine you and 99 other people were transported to a remote island where you would
live isolated for the rest of your lives. Now let's say one of the people on the island started
killing; The rest of you would band together and punish him, because if killing is tolerated then
no one could feel safe in your new community, someone could easily kill you, take your food
and clothes or shelter. By making this decision, we have just created a law: the ‘no killing law’
and set a precedent that anyone who breaks it will be punished. As the society grows, we might
find it helpful to create more laws regarding things which the majority are concerned about
such as stealing, assault, rape, distribution of excess food etc. It might also be more efficient to
choose certain people to be in charge of making laws, so the rest of you could focus on other
tasks. As the civilization advances, you end up with a complex, detailed set of rules for how
people are to live their lives which is not dissimilar to the code of laws, we know today.
Law is essentially a fundamental result of what happens when a group of humans try and co-
exist. Without law, human existence as we know it would not be possible.
Rousseau’s Social contract theory states that persons’ moral and/or political obligations are
dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live.
For Hobbes, social contract theory established the authority of anyone who was able to wield
and hold power. He argued that if we imagine ourselves in a state of nature with no
government and no law to guide us but the law of nature, we will recognize that everyone is
naturally equal and independent. Consequences are that this state of nature will also be a state
of war, where everybody will fight for authority because of “restless desire for power after
power” that drives us all - “Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins.”
To escape such a dreadful condition, people surrender their independence by entering into a
contract to obey a sovereign power that will have the authority to make, enforce, and interpret
laws. This form of the social contract Hobbes called “sovereignty by institution.” But he also
insisted that conquerors acquire authority over those they subject to their rule — “sovereignty
by acquisition” — when they allow those subjects to go about their business. In either case,
Hobbes said, the subject's consent to obey those who have effective power over them, whether
the subject has a choice in who holds power or not. Because they consent, they therefore have
an obligation to obey the sovereign, whether sovereignty be instituted or acquired.
Although the Declaration of Independence states that the Americans believe all men to be
created equal, the African Americans were considered subhuman. European Americans
abducted these people, brought them to America and forced them into slavery. They were
working in harsh conditions every day for 15-16 hours. Since they weren’t considered human,
they had no rights and couldn’t speak up for themselves. Later, they were segregated and
treated unfairly.
Martin Luther King states that there are two types of laws - “There are just and there are unjust
laws.” … but "An unjust law is no law at all."
“What is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or
unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An
unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint
Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any
law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

MLK thought it's inevitable that someone in a democratic society will eventually find
themselves opposed to the majority on some issue. At that point they must ask themselves
whether he/she values democracy enough to submit to the will of the majority by obeying the
law while continuing to advocate against it. The alternative is to rebel against the democracy by
intentionally breaking the laws but doing so means giving up the protections that democracy
provides. The people of that democracy may imprison or even execute the person who
demonstrates that he doesn't respect democracy enough to follow its laws.
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,”
implying that individuals who are the members of privileged groups in the society rarely want
to give up their privilege willingly. Thus, breaking the law isn’t a choice, but a necessity and
can be justified because one cannot simply endure such unjust law.
This is indirectly stated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence too:
"...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...,".

It should be noted however, that if you are breaking the law in the name of justice, you should
be ready for the consequences, and should accept the penalty willingly and lovingly. By this the
individual is expressing that they respect the law, but they have no other choice because of
how absurd and unjust they consider that one law to be.
Another interesting way of looking at this matter is Existentialism - a philosophy that
emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define their
own meaning in life and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe.
As Camus put it, when an individual's longing for order collides with the real world's lack of
order, the result is absurdity.
Human beings are therefore subjects in an indifferent, ambiguous and absurd universe, in
which meaning is not provided by the natural order, but rather can be created (however
provisionally and unstable) by human actions and interpretations.
“What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all
exists, encounters himself, and defines himself afterwards … Man is nothing else but what he
makes of himself”
We are free to do whatever we desire. We have a free to choose if we want to obey or disobey
the rule. It’s all indifferent so as long as we think it’s good, it’ll be morally and ethically
righteous.
In conclusion, I believe that some laws are destined to be perceived faulty by people, and to
bring about a change or correct the incorrect, laws must be broken in order for justice to be
served. For example, during the late 18th century African-American citizens were discriminated
and neglected from civil rights and voting rights. For this reason, to bring about change, Martin
Luther king initiated the 1950s civil rights movement and thereby breaking the law he ended
the legal segregation of the African American citizens. Breaking law here also led to the creation
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I think the morally wrong thing
about this isn’t that they’re breaking the law by trying to fight for their basic humanitarian
rights, but the fact that they were such circumstances in the first place!
The notion of existentialism also sounds compelling; however, I don’t think anybody would
want to live their likes like that, knowing that they might spend their whole lives in jail or get
punished severely because you’re trying to live life ‘your way’. You'd just be wasting your life.