Law in itself does indeed impose a duty under both moral and civil doctrines. — Mww

Do you say that "duty" is only in principle, or do you say that a law should never be broken?

I'm not answering for Mww, but what is a duty-in-principle?

A moral duty as opposed to a legally enforced duty. It could be argued that in principle laws should never be broken, because in principle laws are moral, and I have no problem with that in its abstract context. But in practice all laws are not moral, which means it is not in practice immoral to break an immoral law.

Law in itself does indeed impose a duty under both moral and civil doctrines. — Mww

Just to be clear, on your explanation, a duty-in-principle is just another name for a moral duty. Usually saying that something is "in principle" means that in fact it is not. You can see it makes a difference which you mean. A moral duty, then, is a real duty.

But in practice all laws are not moral, which means it is not in practice immoral to break an immoral law. — Janus

What all laws have in common is that they are laws. I do not see you distinguishing between what a law is and what that same law says. Is that a distinction you're making?

If one accepts the will as a moral determinant, than duty may serve as the notion that justifies those determinations. It is useless to authorize the will to formulate our moral laws if we don’t have the means integrated within us to regard those laws as such. But I don’t think duty is a principle, per se, but perhaps closer to a feeling, or perhaps an innate predisposition, because there are moral doctrines that do not rely on deontological predicates.

Nevertheless, if one does abide by the deontological moral doctrine, which presupposes his ability to formulate his own choice of moral law, than he is morally obligated to conform his judgements to them, not AS duty requires it, but BECAUSE duty requires it. Otherwise, he has no warrant for deeming himself morally worthy. Very much a closed, self-contained, moral system.

This obligation does not hold in kind for civil law because we do not formulate civil law with respect to our a priori moral attitude, but with regard to empirical community order. Besides, I can break a civil law without necessarily disrespecting it and without considering myself immoral, whereas my non-conformity to a moral law is automatically disrespectful and carries explicit immorality with it.

As I see it, anyway.

A moral duty, then, is a real duty. — tim wood

Yes and it is a duty in principle. There is no duty in actuality where no no duty in principle is adhered to, except where a duty is enforced. Morals are all about principles to be freely followed, not enforced, otherwise they would be laws.

What all laws have in common is that they are laws. I do not see you distinguishing between what a law is and what that same law says. Is that a distinction you're making? — tim wood

You first sentence is merely a tautology. Why would I not distinguish between what a law in general is, i.e. an enforced prescriptive or proscriptive principle, and what a law says, i.e. the particular principle that is to be enforced?

If one accepts the will as a moral determinant, than duty may serve as the notion that justifies those determinations. — Mww

I can't see why that could not be paraphrased as " than duty may serve as the principle that justifies those determinations."

I do agree that duty can also be a feeling; the sense of duty. But I would say the sense of duty, if it is held subsequent to being examined, just is the acceptance of the principle of duty. An unexamined sense of duty may just be an introjected principle.

I have not been able to parse your distinction between deontological moral obligation being not "as duty requires it, but because duty requires it".

Principles are usually grounds or necessary conditions for law, or at least some form of rule. If duty is considered a principle, than it follows laws or rules should be derivable from it. I don’t think duty gives rules.

Duty is called a notion because there is no examination needed for it. I can never prove even to myself I do this or that because it is my duty, but I certainly can use the concept of duty to represent my own best interests in respecting the very moral laws I make for myself.

*As* duty requires implies duty is contingent on circumstance; *because* duty requires implies duty is antecedent to circumstance.

I don't understand why you say that if duty is a principle then laws or rules should be derivable from it. I cannot see what else it could be but a principle that we are subject to duty, but from the principle that we are subject to duty, no particular laws or rules should be expected to follow, other than the general rule that we should do our duty, however that might be conceived or whatever that might be understood to consist in.

"As duty requires" doesn't imply that the fact of duty per se is contingent on circumstance, but that the particular duties I have will vary in different circumstances. I think that the fact that duty is antecedent is implied in both expressions.

prior to that is the presupposition of respect for the law as law. Not as law-in-principle or as abstract, but as law. — tim wood

No, not by necessity. If you want to argue that respect for the law 'as law' is prior to the creation of laws individually, then you'd have to again provide a mechanism by which that is ensured. As it stands, were I an influential politician, I could propose a law for whatever reason I like and if Parliament accepts it (for whatever reason they like), it becomes law. This is, on the face of it, no different for the very first law. So if you're arguing that respect for the law necessarily precedes the making of a law, you'd have to explain how that is enforced.

the argument that it is not immoral to take illegal drugs is founded on the idea that it is the taker of the drugs who gets to decide for himself personally whether the law in question is one he should obey, and the as well his reasons. That is, the decision is his. and being his, his decision cannot be immoral. Is that about right? — tim wood

Not quite, no.

You just need to add "to him" at the end. Relativistically, we cannot talk about what is moral or immoral without context. You can presume that all my statements of morality are relative to me (so I don't see the need to add "to me" at the end of each one), but when making a moral claim with which you don't agree (ie presenting the opponent's position), it's important to adhere to this principle otherwise you are misrepresenting your opponent, and it's pointless arguing with you if you're arguing against a misrepresentation.

Do you see any obligation to obey the law as law? Not to say that you cannot break a law on moral grounds, but that at the outset the law must be respected as law, before it is broken as immoral law. My view is that law imposes a duty. Whether it's observed is decided after. — tim wood

Not sure what you are getting at here. The distinction and its consequences seem obvious to me.
A law abiding person follows the law. A moral person, their moral standards. Sometimes these come into conflict, and a person must decide which has a higher priority to them. Where lies the mystery?

What you say here ignores the fact that the Jews had been a more or less tolerated religious subculture in Europe for well over a thousand years...

...The more or less hostile attitude toward the Jews was always a matter of community sentiment, not the arbitrary decision of lone individuals (which would not be tolerated by the community if their attitude was favorable towards Jews) so, no, the moral situation was not subjective in the way that you are trying to depict it. — Janus

I have a problem with the racist implications of this. Not that I suppose for a moment that you intended them, let me make that abundantly clear first. The trouble is I can only see three ways of understanding what you're saying here (the first of which troubles me)

In a 1930s German Town, there are 1000 people, 950 ethnic Germans, 50 Jews. Among the 950 ethic Germans, there will be at least one who considers the Jews to be part of his comminity so either...

1. He is objectively wrong, the Jews are not part of his community. This is the one that worries me, for reasons that are hopefully obvious.

2. He is objectively right. The Jews are a member of his community. But this leads to the conclusion that the remaining members of the community (who, in this story colluded with the gestapo to have the Jews executed, something we know for a fact happened) were all lying when they say what they are doing is morally correct.

3. He is objectively neither right, nor wrong, because the question of who is and is not a member of your community is a subjective one.

You've already dismissed 3. If you accept 2 we have to also accept that vast quantities of people both act immoraly, and lie about their moral feelings when asked (which undermines the evidence base for universality). But that leaves us only with 1, which is the racist option.

Do you see the problem?

I can't see why that could not be paraphrased as " than duty may serve as the principle that justifies those determinations. — Janus

I cannot see what else it could be but a principle that we are subject to duty — Janus

In a dialogue where the context has to do with the consideration of duty as a notion or as a principle, these two statements don’t say the same thing. If you wish to say a deontological moral agent operates under the principle of subjecting himself to duty, I wouldn’t argue against it. That, however, doesn’t say anything to qualify duty itself as a principle; there just isn’t any good reason why it should be considered a principle, a quite powerful conception, if notion, a not-so-powerful conception, is entirely sufficient.
———————————

but that the particular duties I have will vary in different circumstances. — Janus

That reflects the point, actually, and FAPP says exactly the same as *as duty requires*. There are no particular duties from a moral perspective. There is only one sense of duty, and adherence to it is volunteered by the moral doctrine to which it belongs. The particular volitions you have will vary in different circumstances, solely dependent on the judgement you make to authorize what those volitions ought to be. This also explains why duty in and of itself cannot be a principle, if you think of duty as variable, because variable principles stand on good ground for contradicting themselves.

Duty is like truth. Any particular truth is just an example of truth; any particular duty is just an example of duty. Reductionism from the particulars in each gives the ideal of each. The ideal duty is the moral duty, and is itself irreducible.

And counter question: let's suppose you-all are right: that breaking the law is not immoral in any way in itself, then what happens to the law? — tim wood

Yet another poorly formed question.

Yet another poorly formed question. — S

Fuck off, mere S. You contribute nothing and you're a waste of time and energy. And I suspect you enjoy replies like this. Get used to it because you will see a lot of it when you contribute nothing. And I'm going to enjoy making them because my heart will be light with the justice of having finally learned the correct response to your destructive non-sense.

A law abiding person follows the law. A moral person, their moral standards. Sometimes these come into conflict, and a person must decide which has a higher priority to them. Where lies the mystery? — DingoJones

Egg-zack-ly! All that's lacking here is the acknowledgement that a moral person recognizes a moral obligation a priori to obey the law as law - an overlap of duties to comply with both. I argue it never disappears, and that consequently disobeying any law carries that increment of immorality.

Or another way, there is no free lunch when it comes to breaking any law; there is always a cost. Not always paid, and whether it is worth it a whole other question!

Relativistically, we cannot talk about what is moral or immoral without context. — Isaac

Thank you for this, helped me to clarify (maybe) some of my own thinking.

Morality is all about the other, even the other within ourselves, perhaps understood as our own well-being. Morality imposes obligation, and duty is the general expression of that obligation. The relativist reserves for himself decision about morality, obligation, and duty. Thus, the relativist, or the man who calls himself a relativist to the degree he is being a relativist, cannot be moral, because he denies the other.

Not-so-simple because the relativist at any given time can conform his or her actions to the moral view, and even espouse the moral viewpoint and the moral arguments. But the center, with respect to morality, is false. His - the relativist's - is always solipsistic.

Nor can this be confused with Kantian self-legislation: the Kantian conforms his morality to reason in service to the other as he can best understand it - not to himself, or self-interest, or by his own standards as opposed to those of reason. That is, the Kantian, in a strict sense, denies relativism.

Your post helped me realize the relativist as relativist as non-moral. I'll extend that to immoral and amoral.

Its not missing, I didnt include it because I do not acknowledge it. Its just the convoluted way you are thinking about it. You are making it more complicated than it is, and only end up making a conflation that is making it confusing for people to discuss the matter with you.

f you want to argue that respect for the law 'as law' is prior to the creation of laws individually, then you'd have to again provide a mechanism by which that is ensured. — Isaac

Really? And what exactly does, "is ensured" mean? Are you confusing a priori with temporal priority? I doubt you are, but it seems you might be. The mechanism is the law itself as law.

I speculate that law originated in the first communities that could recognize security in combination - of each with their others - and of making and enforcing rules in service of that security. But it's likely you can develop this argument for yourself, and better than I can. Please then break your question down a little bit so I can understand it better.

Maybe think of it as represented in a kind of Venn diagram. One circle is moral obligation, another circle is obeying law. It seems you have them separate, no overlap. That is, it seems in your argument there is no moral component to obeying law. Am I misreading?

I hold they overlap. With respect to particular law, maybe not completely. With respect to law-as-law, completely. And this moral obligation to obey the condition of being in a community (whether as a member or not).

Mww has used the term "respect" where I use "obey." His may be the better term.

But we've been through all this and you're just not adapting your argument, or acknowledging counter arguments. I've just spent time explaining why it is not the case that...

a moral person recognizes a moral obligation a priori to obey the law as law — tim wood

...because you've not linked the law as law to anything necessarily moral. We've established that law is not necessarily to the benefit of the community, it is not necessarily in their interests, and it is not constructed with the consent of the community.

Also, you've described 'moral' as "the community's view of what should/ should not be done". Should be done, singular. So...

I argue it never disappears, and that consequently disobeying any law carries that increment of immorality. — tim wood

...doesn't seem to make sense to me. If moral is the thing which should be done, it can't be two opposing things. If it were, how would you choose between them morally. Morality is simply the community's view of what should be done, it does not then tell you which of it's two 'shoulds' one should choose.

Lets just say the community has a view that x should be done, and y should not be done. You find yourself needing to do y in order to achieve x. On what basis do you choose? I can only see three alternatives...

1. You choose based on your own internal feelings. Fine, but you've become a moral relativist, so why not just start out that way?

2. You choose by referring to some other moral law which tells you what to do (say "y is always worse than x so never get x via y"). But now this needs to be always true, otherwise this does not function as a means to enable the choice to be made morally (you'd still have to have a law to tell you when it applies and when it does not, else we're back to square one). But if its always the case, then x is not a moral law, because there are circumstances where it is not the thing which "should be done". The moral law is "x except when y", which is not how laws are written.

3. You choose without morals. Obviously this renders the whole moral decision pointless.

Morality imposes obligation, and duty is the general expression of that obligation. — tim wood

I don't believe it does. I think the obligation exists already as a desire.

the relativist, or the man who calls himself a relativist to the degree he is being a relativist, cannot be moral, because he denies the other. — tim wood

Not seeing the jump there. That the relativist refers only to his own feelings does not mean he denies the other. He has feelings about the other.

Really? And what exactly does, "is ensured" mean? Are you confusing a priori with temporal priority? I doubt you are, but it seems you might be. The mechanism is the law itself as law. — tim wood

It refers to the means by which law becomes, or earns its status as something that must be respected. If said that the Bible must be respected you would ask me why, what is it about the Bible which entitles it to membership of the set {things we must respect}?

Fuck off, mere S. You contribute nothing and you're a waste of time and energy. And I suspect you enjoy replies like this. Get used to it because you will see a lot of it when you contribute nothing. And I'm going to enjoy making them because my heart will be light with the justice of having finally learned the correct response to your destructive non-sense. — tim wood

That's nice, but it's a poorly formed question nevertheless.

Correct, I do not hold that there is overlap. They are separate, with different basis and priority.

We've established that law is not necessarily to the benefit of the community, it is not necessarily in their interests, and it is not constructed with the consent of the community. — Isaac

Absolutely not. You are confusing a law with law-in-general, that first. Second, as to the interests and consent of the community -- I'll give you this as a correction to my thinking pushed by this discussion: that the 20th century provides us with many examples of persons in a community so marginalized as to have been rendered non-members, not even in the physical community. By these I mean victims of the Nazis, victims of Soviet communism, victims of Chinese communism, and all other such victims by reference. These derived no benefit from the community, no support, no security.

They, then, are relieved of the burden of any moral obligation to obey the laws that oppress them, meaning those laws that destroyed their membership in their community.

Let's confine our interest to persons in the community. In fact, let's consider the words of the US Declaration of Independence to see if they're authoritative:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Is this enough?

So how do you think it works? If it's not immoral to break the law, Is it immoral to enforce it? Do you explain to the policeman or the judge that you're sorry, but "their" law is simply too immoral not to break it, or, lacking that, you do no wrong by breaking it? How does that play out? — tim wood

Well if we use Rosa Parks as a nice clear example (in case you are not American, she refused to sit in the back of the bus despite the law saying she had to), then the result is that she went to jail. Police and judges simply enforce the laws. They do not create them and certainly do not question the morality of the laws (well they are not supposed to anyway). They just carry them out. The act of civil disobedience is intended to reach a wider audience who may recognize their action of breaking the law as justified, and therefor take efforts to change the laws so future generations are not subject to immoral laws.

Police and judges have the job of enforcing the law, so arresting Rosa Parks would not be immediately immoral. However, the excessive use of attack dogs and fire hoses to enforce the law during the Civil Rights movement could more easily be seen as immoral. To go farther, I would view torturing and killing people during the holocaust, as obviously immoral despite having the law on their side.

Also if it helps, and this is probably sacrilege in philosophy, I view morality as truly only mattering at the extremes. Whether someone smokes some marijuana seems meaningless in any direction (no more immoral than say driving a car, using plastic, or voting for Trump, hehe). A meth addict who stabs people as part of supporting their habit, seems to have a moral shortcoming that is a good deal more significant.

If moral is the thing which should be done, it can't be two opposing things. — Isaac

Again, you're not making the distinction that I am making. As such, every argument that you make misses the mark. You are under law. As a member of a community, you are always under law, even while sleeping. As such, I hold, you are under a moral obligation with respect to the law - which is to say that you acknowledge the other in the law and his or her right to your compliance as supporting and maintaining your community. Stop here and either agree or disagree.

Next step the particular law itself. If the law itself is self-destructive of itself and its community, than that's a problem. Arguably it's not itself a law, although existing as a law. The remedy in the law is to repeal it - a process itself that both itself takes care and requires care to preserve the community it's in. Does that absolve you of the moral duty to obey the law? How could it? Disobedience (as observed before) is revolution writ small - or large!

Final question: does your moral obligation to obey the law absolutely stop you from breaking the law? It does not. Clearly it does not. What follows then if you break it? A likely-hood of real harm to you and real harm to your community. And who authorized that other than you? And we're back to the solipsistic relative view that says, I'm right, period!

That's nice, but it's a poorly formed question nevertheless. — S

Fuck off, mere-S. How are you contributing to this discussion? Either everyone recognizes it as a poorly formed question, in which case move on and improve. Or they don't, but you have not enlightened them. That's why the "fuck off," and that's why I mean it.

Police and judges simply enforce the laws. They do not create them and certainly do not question the morality of the laws (well they are not supposed to anyway). — ZhouBoTong

No, they don't; and indeed they are supposed to! Police and judges are entrusted with discretion and are held liable for the correct application of their respective discretion. Nuremberg affirmed that as principle, and more recently mandatory sentencing has proved to be a disaster and a mistake and is generally recognized as such.

To my way of thinking the entire civil rights movement is an exercise in higher morality. As such it - the exercise - comes at a cost. In a business/accounting metaphor, the reward, the revenue, is greater than the expense - it had better be! - and adjudged worth it; but the simple plain facts of the matter do not make the expense disappear - and they had better not! Among those are the moral and other expenses - costs - of breaking the law.

I view morality as truly only mattering at the extremes. — ZhouBoTong

This is just existence v. degree. Slight degree shouldn't be confused with non-existence. With respect to what is moral, such confusion is the ground slippery slopes are built on.

You are confusing a law with law-in-general, that first. — tim wood

I'm not confusing the two. I'm claiming that things like 'law' as law do not exist. Law, as a concept is not coherent. It is 'some laws'. 'Law' is the collection of these individual laws. Not only is this the definition given in my dictionary, but using the well-agreed Occam's razor, if you wanted to argue that 'law' was something other than the sum of its parts, it is your burden to show what that something is and how it is acquired as a property. This is something you've not yet done. Perhaps this should be cleared up first, perhaps you could give us a positive definition of 'the law' (by which I mean what it is, not what it isn't).

They, then, are relieved of the burden of any moral obligation to obey the laws that oppress them, meaning those laws that destroyed their membership in their community. — tim wood

So, importantly, how are you judging this, and why? Anyone could make a claim to be oppressed and excluded. How would you judge whose claim was accepted?

Is this enough? — tim wood

Enough for what?