Being Morally Justified in Disobeying Laws We Consider to be Immoral

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Being Morally Justified in Disobeying Laws We Consider to be Immoral

The answer to this question depends very much on our understanding and opinion on the status of the law. On this issue it is likely that everyone falls into one of two broad categories. People falling into the first of these categories would be those who consider that through social contract we are obliged to obey the law, whatever the law states and regardless of our opinion on the moral status of that law and that we are morally obliged to operate within the law. Furthermore by this way of thinking we can conclude that if the law binds us over to commit, what we consider to be an immoral act then we must be exempt from guilt as our morality dictates that we should obey the law regardless. Those who fall outside of this category would therefore believe that we are not bound over to obey the law and that in fact we should be morally obliged to disobey any law that we consider to be immoral. There is however a problem with this situation, in so much as it relies on appealing to a set moral code to justify our actions and such a moral code is merely an abstracted system of laws.

I believe that we can be morally justified in disobeying laws, which we consider to be immoral and there are several reasons for this. I believe that it is only possible to happily live in accordance with our own moral code, it may also be possible to live without too much dissatisfaction within the bounds of laws, which dictate a stricter moral code than our own. However I do not believe that it is possible to happily exist under a system of law whereby we are obliged at times to break our own code of morality. In this situation we are likely to find ourselves in a constant struggle ...

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...cation, after all why would we face both conscience and consequence when there is a choice between the two. Therefore it seems that if there are situations where we are legally justified in breaking the law then at those times we must also have found moral justification to do this as well.

I believe that we must be morally justified in disobeying laws, which we find immoral. If we obey such laws then we simply break our own code of morality and make ourselves immoral by our own standards. Not only this, but it is interesting to note that recent history has shown, in the case of retrospective legislation regarding Nazi war crimes, that our moral justification for breaking the law may later be legally vindicated.

Bibliography:

Rawls, J. (1977) 'A theory of civil disobedience' in R.M. Dworkin (ed.) The philosophy of law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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