Title: Positivism, Naturalism and the Obligation to Obey Law
Abstract:It is commonly thought that the existence of moral obligation to obey law qua law is inconsistent with legal positivism: [a] positivist answer to the question of makes the claim that law is, in even t...It is commonly thought that the existence of moral obligation to obey law qua law is inconsistent with legal positivism: [a] positivist answer to the question of makes the claim that law is, in even the weakest sense, morally obligatory untrue. It is also commonly thought that classical naturalism implies the existence of moral obligation to obey law qua law: a theory that takes the law's being morally binding to be condition of its provides plausible theory of obligation [but] at the expense of theory of legality (Coleman, 66). In this essay, I will argue that both of these commonly held views are false. In particular, I will argue that the question of whether there is moral obligation to obey law is logically independent of the question of whether there are necessary moral constraints on the content of law. Otherwise put, neither the separability thesis nor its negation logically implies either the claim that there is moral obligation to obey law qua law in every possible legal system or the claim that it is not the case that there is moral obligation to obey law qua law in every possible legal system.Read More
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-09-11
Language: en
Type: article
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