We’re better off having a government we all obey than not–and each of us has a moral duty to do what best supports the better‐ off‐ ness of the world. Rousseau has three major objections to what Hobbes and Locke are proposing. People have a general duty to obey the law because it is democratically decided. I’ve looked at consent, gratitude (in two parts), fair play (again in two parts), and associations. Start a New Debate. The natural lawconcept existed long before Locke as a way of expressing the idea thatthere were certain moral truths that applied to all people, regardlessof the particular place where they lived or the agreements they hadmade. Second, Rousseau is extremely pessimistic about a state like the one he’s proposing ever being successfully implemented or, if it is, lasting very long. Such a view of individual rights is completely foreign to the Old Order, where the individual has no existence outside the state (indeed the state provides the individual his identity, his most fundamental sense of who he is)-whatever rights he enjoys (if he has any at all) are conferred by the state or by communal traditions, not by his existence as an independent human being-and he certainly has no authority to challenge the state in the name of certain rights he enjoys just because he’s a human being. By Staff Writer Last Updated Apr 5, 2020 11:35:19 PM ET. It’s important to notice a couple of things about Rousseau’s proposal. Debating Period. The only way they can live peacefully together is if they agree to submit themselves completely to a sovereign power which will have the authority to make laws and enforce them equally on all the citizens. The United States has 120.5 guns per 100 people, or about 393,347,000 guns, which is the highest total and per capita number in the world. Our only obligation as citizens is to the sovereign’s law. The State is Not a Family: Associations and Political Obligation, The Troubling Nature of the Duty to Obey the State, Freedom, Rights, and Political Philosophy, Part 1, Freedom, Rights, and Political Philosophy, Part 3, Freedom, Rights, and Political Philosophy, Part 4. Registered Data Controller No: Z1821391. Hence through obeying the state we guarantee each others right. There’s no time to review this position here; those interested in seeing why one could look at the book in this light might like to read another lecture of mine available through this link-Machiavelli. The most important early contrast was between laws that were bynature, and thus generally applicable, and those that wereconventional and operated only in those places where the … If utilitarianism (or some other form of consequentialism) is right and if obeying the law leads to good consequences, then it necessarily follows that we’re morally bound to obey the law. But a legalistic view that has proponents is the one that states that there is aprima facie legal obligation to obey the law because the law is the law and it ought to be obeyed except in circumstances where the law permits disobedience. Such a communitarian arrangement, Rousseau argues, must be extremely careful not to create a complex bureaucracy of government which will inevitably arrogate power to itself and sabotage the legitimacy of the state, which rests on the fact that all its members are equally important in the decision making. This initially seems pretty persuasive. Post Voting Period. His writing has appeared in Liberty and The Cato Journal. In modern times this attitude is often called Realpolitik. The central question raised in this passage is: Do we have an obligation to obey the law, and if so, why are we obligated? From simple essay plans, through to full dissertations, you can guarantee we have a service perfectly matched to your needs. Adolf Hitler, with the pre-Nazi clergy, used their own perverted interpretation of Using my standard example, murder is a moral wrong, not because it’s against the law, but because it’s morally wrong to commit murder. In other words, the ruler or state (assuming it possesses necessary traits) may demand our obedience and we simply have a duty to comply. So, we are the first one to protect it. Human beings now have to live in society, among other human beings. Such personal freedom is different from the traditional notions of freedom as the liberty of a state to govern itself. We should obey the state, Hobbes argues, not because it’s established by God (it clearly is not), but because it serves our self-interest to do so. We come at last to the final of the five major theories of political obligation. Because if it turns out I’m right about what maximizes utility and the elected ruler isn’t, then following him won’t just harm me and others–it’ll also be morally wrong. Jean Jacques Rousseau, the most powerful, passionate, and paradoxical response to Hobbes came about one hundred years after he published his massive masterpiece, when Jean Jacques Rousseau, a citizen of Geneva in Switzerland, wrote his political discourses-especially the Second Discourse (On Inequality) and his Third Discourse (The Social Contract). The first is that the individual has an identity and certain rights independent of the state. He earned a JD from the University of Denver. Rousseau is particularly sensitive to how people who have a certain political freedom can become economic slaves to the market place and psychological slaves to the images of the materially good life. The individual rights are before than the social contact. Possibly, the real question is not “Why obey?,” but “Who to obey?”. Also, clearly not everything even reasonably beneficent states do makes us better off. Defenders of Machiavelli argue that he is right to see that politics has to be based upon the way people really behave and not how we might like them to be. Socrates obeyed what he regarded as an unjust verdict. Where Hobbes is seeking, at all costs, to limit the ability of citizens to fight each other (especially over religious questions), Locke is more concerned to protect citizens against the tyranny of the government (the difference may reflect the different political climates-by Locke’s time the fear of and experience with civil wars in the name of religion had faded considerably). Check out the online debate Should we obey the Bible. Machiavelli argues that this is, in fact, how successful rulers have always operated, and therefore this is how the modern prince ought to proceed. It’s a system tailor-made for the emerging free-market capitalism of the time. Nor are they concerned with the moral quality of citizens’ lives. They do say, however, that moral reasons to obey the law should go beyond the reason ‘because the law says so’ or ‘because it is the law’. That we have moral obligations is, I hope, uncontroversial. (See my Grove booklet How to Interpret the Bible for a longer exploration of these principles.) First off, Scripture tells us that we are not to despise government (2 Pet 2:10). For a more detailed discussion of this aspect of Rousseau’s thinking, you might want to explore this link: Rousseau. It is, however, difficult to find successful large-scale examples of such communitarian political structures. Thus such for we to be protected and enjoy equal rights we must obey the state not necessarily the fear of punishment if don’t obey the state. This would be disastrous if we came under the rule of a dictator. Hobbes believes that this new liberty, what has come to be called Negative Liberty, will enable people to concentrate on what they really want to do, which is to make money and to construct their own secure middle-class lives in isolation from and competition with each other. In anycase, there was nothing novel about the problem Green addressed in hislectures: “to discover the true ground or justification forobedience to law” (Green … In this paper, a third option in response to the state, i.e. We obey the Nanaimo City Council’s rules not because of the people who sit around the Council table or because of old traditions, but because of the positions they occupy, which are established and backed up and can be changed by the authority of the Sovereign. Those theorists who find there is no general moral obligation to obey the law do not argue we should never obey the law, nor that there is never any moral reason to do as the law tells us. Hobbes doesn’t define a particular version of the sovereign-he prefers monarchy, but what he has to offer works equally well with an assembly of delegates, like a parliament, or any other form of governing authority on which people can agree. In an all-important sentence, Hobbes lays down one of most important liberal principles: What is not forbidden by the sovereign’s law is allowed. Why does whoever happens to claim power right now get to override my judgment about utility maximization with his own? Few have liked his thesis, that the problems of political life mean that a society should accept an unaccountable sovereign as its sole political authority. First, how do we know what laws, when obeyed, will create the best consequences? Of course we should not always obey our leaders. ...regulations that should obey.There is a list of factors that influence the decisions why some obey the law and why some do not: background, financial stability, education; they all affect the decisions that people make such as talking on the phone while driving or get in a car knowingly that there is alcohol in the system. Where Hobbes and Locke settle for people as they are, warts and all, and seek to channel their natural vices into useful economic activity, Rousseau wants people to be better than they typically are, to develop more fully as happy, independent, free, rational moralists, and they will have to be educated to do that if his system is to work. Libertarianism.org presents introductory material as well as new scholarship related to libertarian philosophy, theory, and history. One can stand against the Government but not the STATE and the Institutions that is responsible to protect the STATE-System. The latter document enables a citizen to do something which in Hobbes’ state is not possible (except when the state comes for one’s life)-to challenge the government’s authority to enact and enforce a particular law and thus to limit that citizen’s ability to do as she likes (like carrying guns, or expressing her opinions, or organizing a meeting of fellow citizens, or worshipping at a church of her choice, and so on). Another vital new principle Hobbes’ liberal vision introduces is the legal nature of political obligations. The Liberalism of Hobbes and Locke is designed to promote individual economic activity in a spirit of competition, within the boundaries established by laws binding on everyone, an arrangement that virtually guarantees that some citizens will be very much richer than others and will be free to spend their money as they see fit and that some citizens will fail in their economic activities. Clearly having just any state doesn’t maximize utility. There is not one law for the rich or the righteous and another law for the poor or the profane. Is it through birth, or through consent? Hobbes begins by picturing what human beings are like without political organizations-in what he calls a state of nature. Moreover, their Machiavellian tactics may have seriously weakened the power of both leaders and, of course, diverted resources away from the war against terrorism). Having, in effect, lied to justify a war they wanted to fight, the political leaders of those countries are now in a position of having to beg for help from those who refused to believe them and of having, with increasing desperation, to tell their own citizens that the enormous and continuing cost in lives and dollars is worth it. If the state gives them a chance to channel their natural greed and competitiveness into profitable activity, they will be peaceful and law abiding, and the wealth they generate will keep the state strong. Hence, there are no strings attached to its power. If the leader is just however and it is a democratic system, it is not as simple as obeying the "leader". WHY SHOULD WE OBEY AND RESPECT THE STATE? POLLS. In effect, they would be obeying themselves (“You should obey the state because you are the state”). - For Locke the power that has the sovereign, only can be justified if ensures freedom and propriety for the individuals. It may well be the case that many of us would be much happier and productive in such a state than in what we have available around us. To begin with, Rousseau rejects any form of government other than a majoritarian democracy in which all citizens participate equally at all times in the decision making (hence the state must be relatively small). Hobbes is the founding father of modern political philosophy. Thus the prohibition on murder isn’t, strictly speaking, a political obligation–even if by following it I’m “obeying” the law. Rousseau argues that an arrangement like this would enable people to obey the state without any sense of a loss of freedom, because they would be following what their reason told them was the right thing to do, and self-imposed rules do not register as a loss of freedom. I’ve spent some time on Hobbes because he, in effect, sets down the blueprint for modern liberal political thinking, and, even if he was frequently vilified for his hostility to traditions and religion, the thinkers who come after him are very much responding, in various ways, to what he proposed (for a more detailed look at Hobbes, you might like to consult this link-Hobbes). What he’s demanding, of course, is a very tall order-a utopian arrangement in which the individual lives in civil society without losing any sense of independence and freedom and without any feelings of psychological inadequacy or inferiority. - Debate: whether it should be handled on a state or national level • Immigration - National government handles this, should it be moved to the state government, it affects some states more than others - Should we make illegal immigrants legal now? That means we are prone to obey authority, but also affected by the behavior of our peers. His answer is complex, and I have time here (again) to provide only a very rough preliminary sketch of his argument (in The Social Contract). guido612/CC-BY-2.0. Cite Unit 2 Written Assignment As an immigrant to this country, I have been given the opportunity to compare both legal systems. Rousseau begins by adopting Hobbes’ basic metaphor: human beings originally existed in a state of nature; this ended with a social contract which established civil society. Our academic experts are ready and waiting to assist with any writing project you may have. Disclaimer: This work has been submitted by a university student. A third group sees Machiavelli’s political vision as a satire, a work ridiculing those very things for which defenders of Machiavelli as a serious political thinker applaud him. The state has the characteristic of maximizing utility, in other words. For instance, you may have read the exciting story of baby Moses in Exodus 1–2. It creates a regulatory framework for our behavior which intend helps the citizenry to enjoy an appreciable level of satisfaction. Add to My Favorites Report this Debate Share with My Friends. A person who disagrees with the General Will in any particular decision will understand that the mistake belongs to her and not the community. What should the Christian’s relationship be toward government? But God says that the only time we shouldn’t obey the government is when the government tells us to do something against God’s Word. Second, as mentioned above, he sees in the inequality produced by liberal competition a source of material and psychological oppression (something Hobbes and Locke do not concern themselves with). Aaron Ross Powell is Director and Editor of Libertarianism.org, a project of the Cato Institute. It’s almost impossible to overestimate the importance of this concept in modern politics, for it introduces a number of ideas absolutely fundamental to our modern political arguments. State is to the sovereign, only can be justified if ensures freedom and propriety for rich... Main reason of the Cato Journal is here to help adhering to virtue Answers Ltd, a company registered England! 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