Is There a Duty to Obey the Law?

For and Against

by Christopher Heath Wellman, A. John Simmons

The central question in political philosophy is whether political states have the right to coerce their constituents and whether citizens have a moral duty to obey the commands of their state. Christopher Heath Wellman and A. John Simmons defend opposing answers to this question. Wellman bases his argument on Samaritan obligations to perform easy rescues. Simmons counters that this, and all other attempts to explain our duty to obey the law, will fail.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2005

Reviews

[syd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is there a moral duty to obey the law? Short answer is no. I was more persuaded by Simmons’ essay over Wellman’s. I read this for my Philosophy of Law class and based on Simmons’ argument I would consider myself more of a philosophical anarchist.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was a decent read and a good introduction to the moral debates about the state and law. The language was at times unclear and unnecessarily awkward making the arguments a bit difficult to follow. I'm not sure if the structure of the book was the best, as the writers had to present the counterargument themselves and then argue against that to illustrate their point. It might have been better with a more loose structure, where the authors debated with each other, one presenting an argument, the other the counterargument and so forth.
I did however get an insight into the present debates of morality of obeying the law, why I still think it a good read.

[Sergei Moska · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book won't give the best knock-down, drag-out arguments on either side, but in making his central argument, each author (Wellman and Simmons, that is) provides a good overview of many of the positions in the literature. This would be a nice, serious first book to decide whether or not you're really into the topic. It is at times incomplete and at others the argument goes too quickly for it to be clearly valid, but it's far from vacuous.

[Monika · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a really good resource for my political philosophy essay. Although this book gives a good for and against, it doesn't cover a lot of different reasons in both sides of the argument.