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[azture]

Help a girl out. My philosophy class is asking me to ask people this question:

Why do you obey the law?

I would love the input of anyone that still reads this silly world of eljay.

(If you don't obey the law, that's fine, tell me why!)

Comments

[danser]

I obey most laws because they make sense to obey-- that is to say, I have some incentive in doing so, or some moral reason that's my own. eg no murdering, seat belts on, &c. Some laws, like petty theft, I am tempted to do for all sorts of institutional reasons, but I don't do so I can reduce the number of possible self-contradictions in my life: the less of those, the more I tend to like myself. Laws that are designed to keep me safe I sometimes break, like speeding, or jaywalking. In those situations I privilege my knowledge of what is safe over the general flat-rule approach that the law must take in order to be useful... Which is a point of danger and arrogance sometimes, but I don't lose a lot of sleep over it. I like to pretend that as long as I feel in control things are okay.

And that's my take on the law... The best answer, maybe, is that I recognize that the law, in most cases, is the law-- and when I recognize in some visceral way that what I'm doing could be breaking the law (I do not have this experience, for example, when I drink underage), I tend to not want to break it because I'd like to imagine myself as a law-abiding person who does not believe himself above the law under most or all circumstances.

yay!