display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
20612 | If being subject to the law resembles a promise, we are morally obliged to obey it [Tuckness/Wolf] |
Full Idea: One of the more common reasons people will give for having a moral obligation to obey the law is consent. ...It rests on the intuitively appealing idea of an analogy with a promise. | |
From: Tuckness,A/Wolf,C (This is Political Philosophy [2017], 6 'Consent') | |
A reaction: [They cite Locke and Jefferson] In Locke's case it has to be a 'tacit' promise, which is more realistic. In real life we have problems with people who 'said' they would do something. They are often accused of promising, when they didn't. |
20611 | If others must obey laws that we like, we must obey laws that they like? [Tuckness/Wolf] |
Full Idea: If we expect others to obey the laws we think just, do we have an obligation to obey the laws that other people think just? | |
From: Tuckness,A/Wolf,C (This is Political Philosophy [2017], 6 'What should') | |
A reaction: Depends whether you have to be consistent about everything. I'm picky about which laws I obey, but I'm not going to tell you that, in case you get the same idea. Free riders. |
20610 | Instead of against natural law, we might assess unjust laws against the values of the culture [Tuckness/Wolf] |
Full Idea: Do we need natural law theory in order to make sense of the idea that laws can be unjust? Perhaps not: we might consider whether laws are consistent with the values of the culture or society where they apply. | |
From: Tuckness,A/Wolf,C (This is Political Philosophy [2017], 5 'Unjust') | |
A reaction: So were the wicked laws passed by the Nazis consistent with 1930s German culture? Impossible to say. |
7592 | For positivists law is a matter of form, for naturalists it is a matter of content [Scruton] |
Full Idea: For the positivist, law is law by virtue of its form; for the naturalist, by virtue of its content. | |
From: Roger Scruton (A Dictionary of Political Thought [1982], 'law') | |
A reaction: Clearly a perverse and 'unnatural' social rule (backed by government and implied force) is a 'law' in some sense of the word. It is hard to see how you could gain social consensus for a law if it didn't appear in some way to be 'natural justice'. |
20617 | How should the punishment fit the crime (for stealing chickens?) [Tuckness/Wolf] |
Full Idea: One criticism of the retributive theory of punishment is that it is hard to know how to fit the punishment to the crime. What punishment should correspond to stealing chickens? | |
From: Tuckness,A/Wolf,C (This is Political Philosophy [2017], 7 'Rationales') | |
A reaction: The ancient world was more keen on restitution for such crimes, which makes much better sense. Buy them some chickens, plus twenty percent. |