Legal and Political Obligation Classic and Contemporary Texts and Commentary

by Wright, George R.

• ISBN13: 9780819185969
• ISBN10: 0819185965
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-05-04
• Publisher: UPA

Summary

This book focuses upon the perennial question of the existence and nature of an obligation to obey the law. Leading writers have, at one time or another, emphasized considerations such as gratitude, 'divine ordering,' prudence, contract, autonomy, and utility in seeking to justify, or to deny any justification for, some sort of obligation to obey the positive law. The book provides relevant selections from a sampling of the historical approaches to legal obligation taken by writers such as Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Thoreau, Bentham, Marx and Engels, and Martin Luther King, Jr. These classical discussions are augmented by critical questions and commentary, by independent discussions of the question of legal obligation by a wide range of contemporary writers, and by relevant judicial cases discussing matters such as conscientious objection and civil disobedience.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Plato, Crito	p. 1
Notes on the Crito	p. 13
Notes on the Argument from Gratitude	p. 21
Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience	p. 25
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail	p. 41
Cases on Obligation and Obedience	p. 55
Frances Olsen, Socrates on Legal Obligation: Legitimation Theory and Civil Disobedience	p. 69
Notes on Civil Disobedience	p. 101
From Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica	p. 109
Notes on the Summa Theologica	p. 139
From Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan	p. 149
Notes on the Leviathan	p. 161
From John Locke, Second Treatise of Government	p. 169
Notes on the Second Treatise of Government	p. 191
From David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature	p. 199
Notes on the Treatise of Human Nature	p. 211
Notes on Utilitarian, Anarchist, and Conservative Approaches	p. 215
From Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract	p. 223
Notes on The Social Contract	p. 233
Notes on Immanuel Kant	p. 241
Notes on Hegel	p. 245
Notes on Some General Critiques and Defenses of Social Contract and Consent Theory	p. 247
Notes on Marx and Engels	p. 253
From Kai Nielsen, State Authority and Legitimation	p. 257
Notes on Fair Play or Reciprocity Theories	p. 269
Notes on "Necessity" Arguments	p. 273
Notes on the Contemporary Denial of a General Prima Facie Moral Obligation to Obey	p. 275
Index	p. 283
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