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82 Yale L.J. 950 (1972-1973)
Is There a Prima Facie Obligation to obey the Law

handle is hein.journals/ylr82 and id is 970 raw text is: Is There a Prima Facie Obligation to Obey the Law?' M. B. E. Smitht It isn't a question of whether it was legal or illegal. That isn't enough. The question is, what is morally wrong. -Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech 1952. Many political philosophers have thought it obvious that there is a prima facie obligation to obey the law; and so, in discussing this obli- gation, they have thought their task to be more that of explaining its basis than of arguing for its existence. John Rawls has, for example, written: I shall assume, as requiring no argument, that there is, at least in a society such as ours, a moral obligation to obey the law, al- though it may, of course, be overriden in certain cases by other more stringent obligations.' As against this, I suggest that it is not at all obvious that there is such an obligation, that this is something that must be shown, rather than so blithely assumed. Indeed, were he uninfluenced by conventional wisdom, a reflective man might on first considering the question be inclined to deny any such obligation: As H. A. Prichard once re- marked, the mere receipt of an order backed by force seems, if any- thing, to give rise to the duty of resisting, rather than obeying. I shall argue that, although those subject to a government often have a prima facie obligation to obey particular laws (e.g., when disobedi- ence has seriously untoward consequences or involves an act that is mala in se), they have no prima facie obligation to obey all its laws. I do not hope to prove this contention beyond a reasonable doubt: My goal is rather the more modest one of showing that it is a reason- able position to maintain by first criticizing arguments that purport * Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Smith College. t I wish to thank Judith Jarvis Thomson, Hugo A. Bedau, Gerald Barnes, Murray Kiteley, Robert Ackermann, and Stanley Rothman, for their criticism of earlier drafts of this article. 1. Rawls, Legal Obligation and the Duty of Fair Play, in LAw AND PIIILOSOPIIY 3 (S. Hook ed. 1964). 2. H.A. PRICHARD, Green's Principles of Political Obligation, in MORAL OBLIGATION 54 (1949). 950

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