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36 Law & Phil. 1 (2017)

handle is hein.journals/lwphil36 and id is 1 raw text is: Law and Philosophy (2017) 36: 1-23 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 DOI 10.1007/s10982-016-9278-9 CrossMark HARRISON FRYE, GEORGE KLOSKO DEMOCRATIC AUTHORITY AND RESPECT FOR THE LAW (Accepted 5 October 2016) ABSTRACT. In recent years, scholars have argued that democratic provenance of law establishes moral requirements to obey it. We argue against this view, claiming that, rather than establishing moral requirements to obey the law, democratic provenance grounds only requirements to respect it. Establishing what we view as this more plausible account makes clear not only exactly what democracy itself contributes to requirements to obey the law but also important difficulties proponents of democratic authority must overcome in order success- fully to make their case. To establish our claims, we focus on Thomas Christiano's book, The Constitution of Equality, and a recent article by Daniel Viehoff. In recent years, a number of scholars have argued that democratic provenance of law establishes moral requirements to obey it. These arguments are especially important at the present time, as over the last few decades, philosophical anarchists and other scholars have criticized the traditional grounds for political obligation. Positions based on consent, fair play, a natural duty of justice, and others have been subjected to severe scrutiny, leading many scholars to believe there is no successful theory of political obligation, which is probably now the dominant view in the literature. If a democratic argument could fill this gap, its contribution would be obvious. But before accepting such a claim, it should be carefully examined. In this paper, we argue that democratic approaches do not establish moral requirements to obey the law. Although we believe that democratic provenance is necessary for the authority of law,' rather than establishing moral requirements to obey it, we believe it grounds only requirements to respect it. What respect entails will be discussed below. But for now, we should note that it extends beyond 1 As we use the term, a law has authority if those subject to it have a correlative obligation to obey it.

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