The obligation to obey the law and the acts of political dissent in the thought of Joseph Raz
Keywords:
Exclusive Legal Positivism. Joseph Raz. Political Authority. General duty of obedience to the Law. Observance of the Law. Civil Disobedience.Abstract
Justification of the authority of Law and the duty of obedience has long been a central problem for theorists of political philosophy and law. In view thereof, this work is intended to analyze the underlying philosophical elements of Razian thought that justify the nonexistence of a moral right to civil disobedience and its consistency in the face of the impossibility to justify a general duty of obedience to the Law. Therefore, its investigation focuses on the reconstruction and evaluation of arguments brought in the works Practical Reason and Norms, The Morality of Freedom and The Authority of Law, in comparison and contrast with the specific objections of other authors, as Ronald Dworkin’s and Kimberley Brownlee’s. To do so, one firstly presents the main aspects of the idea of law as reasons for acting in Razian exclusivist positivism. Then, elementary aspects for the legitimating of political authority are recalled. Finally, one evaluates consistency of his arguments on the general duty of obedience to the Law and the admissibility of acts of political dissent.
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