Is there any moral obligation to obey the law of the land where you were born.?

Question

Say you were born into the country where you now live, so you have never made any conscious choice to accept its laws. Say there is an issue where you think there is no moral reason not to act in a certain way other than the fact that the law of the land forbids it. Do you have a moral obligation to follow that law?

For example, if you were born in Jonathan Swift's Lilliput, where it was required to always break boiled eggs from the pointed end, would it be immoral to break boiled eggs from the rounded end?

Answer 1

Read Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan - fascinating book.  The minority accepts the will of the majority, in order to ensure the general peace of the whole.  If we ignored the laws, we'd fall into anarchy, and we would rever to a state of war where every man fights every man for the means to live.

We have a moral obligation to avoid that.

Answer 2

You have no say in it, you must abide by the laws of the country you are in or face trouble.

Case in point is the asians who think their sharia laws are more appropriate to them than English law, load of c**p! They must follow our laws or face prosecution. Lets be honest, you wouldn't want stoning for being unfaithful would you?

Answer 3

You are legally and morally obliged

Answer 4

There are occasions when it may be necessary to flout a law.

But:

Never do so just for personal reasons;

If someone is going to get hurt by it, make sure it is you;

Do not complain at the consequences, even if you do use any 'trial' as an opportunity to raise the issue.

Answer 5

Obeying the law of the land is a legal and patriotic issue. It is not a moral one. You might decide not to obey the law out of MORAL imperatives, e.g. not a obey a law that says that you are to report every Jew that is hiding during the n**i occupation. In that case you are breaking a law, but you are following your moral convictions to help fellow human beings.

Answer 6

There are many laws which are stupid, unenforceable and without merit.  In the UK that is probably 95% of the laws as there are tens of thousands if not millions of laws which are out of date and thousands more which should never have been made.  So no is my answer.

Answer 7

no, you are legally obliged, but not morally

Answer 8

The cornerstone of civilization is order, so if you believe that being a civilized culture is important, then yes you have a moral obligation to obey the law.

Answer 9

Interesting question. Assuming that the law of land is generally just and moral, then there are some moral reasons against breaking a single bad law:

1. Consent by taking part in the political process. One argument is that if you vote in elections etc then that involves some sort of implict acceptance of the legal system. Not a very good argument in my view.

2. Setting a bad example. If you are seen breaking one law, which is unjust, it may encourage others to break laws which are just. The problem with this is that is seems to suggest that morality should only stop you from breaking an unjust law in public.

3. The legislator knows best. This assumes that the law exists for a reason. You might not know why it exists, but there is a reason - for example traffic laws. By breaking an apparently nonsensical rule - like failing to stop at a traffic light in the middle of no-where you might endanger others. The problem with this argument is that it assumes the legislator legislated competently (nice if it happened all that often) and that an expert in the area would have less moral obligation to obey the law - if they knew better about the subject than the legislator.

4. You Can't Pick and Choose. It's often said that the law is a set menu, not a buffet. You can't pick and choose laws because doing so is somehow harmful to all the other laws. In my view this is essentially a reprise of 2.

All this, of course, assumes that the general system of law is just and moral, because the arguments are largely about the damage you might do to just laws by disobeying unjust ones.

Answer 10

Depends. Some people make stupid laws that don't hurt people so I personally would ignore those laws. But then you have the laws that could potentially save or harm people. Ex: Killing is a bad thing hence why there is a law so that law I can respect. But the law you mentioned about the egg... That is just down right stupid.

But you should follow what you believe and as long as it doesnt hurt anyone.

Answer 11

No, you are not morally bound to follow the law but you must be willing to face the consequence of following your own laws.  Societies only hang together when the majority follow the rules.