Law's Authority Comes from Its Ability to Create a Moral Obligation to Follow It
Law’s Authority comes from its ability to create a moral obligation to follow it.
The question of whether or not Law’s authority results from the fact that it has a moral obligation is one which has been heavily debated for centuries. It seems that the biggest proportion of this debate has been sparked by the emergence of legal positivism and utilitarianism from writers such as Hobbes, John Austin, and H.L.A Hart. Before this train of thought, morality in law was seen as a key necessity and was left to a great extent unopposed; arguably until Hobbes revolutionised the field of jurisprudence with his theories of legal positivism and utilitarianism. This way of thinking was further bolstered by the writings of Austin, Hart and later Joseph Raz. Yet it would be safe to say that this debate took centre stage as a result of the Hart-Dworkin debate. After Hart’s response to Austin’s theory of legal positivism, it was consequently fiercely rebutted by Dworkin and Hart replied in a post script of a second addition of his book ‘The Concept of Law’. Two theories of law and the concept of its ‘moral obligations’ were at loggerheads and became a big talking point in the world of jurisprudence. However this was not the only time this has been debated, there have been several natural lawyer theorists in the past to have analysed whether or not law derives authority from a moral obligation. For instance, as we have already mentioned, Ronald Dworkin, Professor Finnis, John Locke, with his ‘consent’ theory, and even as early as Socrates who developed the idea of being ‘gratuitous’ towards the state. Although it seems that the idea of there being a moral obligation to follow the law is flawed in certain respects, this essay will attempt to critically analyse both sides of the argument and hopefully develop an understanding of which of the theories seems most appealing, and why it is so.
To agree with the title of this essay would be safe to assume that this would be taking
The question of whether or not Law’s authority results from the fact that it has a moral obligation is one which has been heavily debated for centuries. It seems that the biggest proportion of this debate has been sparked by the emergence of legal positivism and utilitarianism from writers such as Hobbes, John Austin, and H.L.A Hart. Before this train of thought, morality in law was seen as a key necessity and was left to a great extent unopposed; arguably until Hobbes revolutionised the field of jurisprudence with his theories of legal positivism and utilitarianism. This way of thinking was further bolstered by the writings of Austin, Hart and later Joseph Raz. Yet it would be safe to say that this debate took centre stage as a result of the Hart-Dworkin debate. After Hart’s response to Austin’s theory of legal positivism, it was consequently fiercely rebutted by Dworkin and Hart replied in a post script of a second addition of his book ‘The Concept of Law’. Two theories of law and the concept of its ‘moral obligations’ were at loggerheads and became a big talking point in the world of jurisprudence. However this was not the only time this has been debated, there have been several natural lawyer theorists in the past to have analysed whether or not law derives authority from a moral obligation. For instance, as we have already mentioned, Ronald Dworkin, Professor Finnis, John Locke, with his ‘consent’ theory, and even as early as Socrates who developed the idea of being ‘gratuitous’ towards the state. Although it seems that the idea of there being a moral obligation to follow the law is flawed in certain respects, this essay will attempt to critically analyse both sides of the argument and hopefully develop an understanding of which of the theories seems most appealing, and why it is so.
To agree with the title of this essay would be safe to assume that this would be taking