THE OBLIGATION TO OBEY THE LAW IN THE LIGHT OF THE DEBATE BETWEEN FINNIS AND RAZ

Abstract

The recent debate between John Finnis and Joseph Raz on the existence of a general prima facie moral obligation to obey positive laws is a major contribution to a classical topic in legal and political philosophy. In this paper, I argue that Raz’s normal justification thesis and Finnis’s doctrine of “determinatio,” inherited from Aquinas, complement each other, shedding light on how norms grounded in social facts can give rise to particular moral obligations independently of their content. However, I argue that this on its own does not explain the possibility of a general moral obligation to obey the law, that is, the notion that everyone has a prima facie moral obligation to obey every law that applies to them.