Keywords; authority, reasons, obligation to obey, Joseph Raz, philosophy of Law, compliance, the service conception. I shall suggest that there is not even a prima facie obligation to obey it.1 Such a view may derive the prima facie obligation to obey the law as such. In a law, there is a necessary reason to obey the law of the country. In essence, he says that the fact that a law exists is not morally significant on its own and that no moral obligation to obey the law is grounded simply in the fact that a law exists. Because it is almost certainly true that there is a legal obligation to obey the law, however, and But Mackie implies we could not, for this derived obligation would not be distinct from the duty of fair play; it would not be the obliga-tion to obey the law as such, therefore, but the obligation to obey the law as the duty of fair play. The thesis ends in a summary of the results and outlines some concluding reflections which have arisen throughout the process of writing the thesis. The moral obligation to obey the law, or as it is generally called, political obligation, is a moral requirement to obey the laws of one’s country. 52. Traditionally, this has been viewed as a requirement of a certain kind, to obey the law for the “content-independent” reason that it is the law, as opposed to the content of particular laws. This work demonstrates that Raz’s infusion of reason as the basis for enforcing legal demands creates a viable alternative to the previous understanding that coercion is an essential element of law as a normative system. Raz finds the connection of necessary obligation to obey and use of systemic law valid. J. Raz, The Authority of Law, Chapter 12 THE OBLIGATION TO OBEY THE LAW I shall argue that there is no obligation to obey the law. Raz, Joseph, The Problem of Authority: Revisiting the Service Conception, in Raz, Joseph, Between Authority and Interpretation: On the Theory of Law and Practical Reason (2009), at 136. In The Authority of Law, Raz examines prudential reasons that people may have for adopting an obligation to obey the law.4 To assess in each case whether a law should be obeyed would incur great prudential reasons to obey the law, for it is this type of reason wherein I believe a rational justification of an obligation to obey the law lies. ,1 Raz's claim actually is somewhat broader than this. ABSTRACT. Raz, however, denies that the subjects of any existing state or indeed anything remotely like it have a general duty to obey the law; rather, law's authority is piecemeal, both with respect to who has a moral duty to obey a particular law and with respect to the number of laws within a given legal system that enjoy authority over anyone. Joseph Raz’s objections to the idea of a general moral obligation to obey the law have been scattered through the discussion above. “His respect,” says Raz, “is the source of obligation,” leading one to conclude that for Raz the authority of law is the individual. It is generally agreed that there is no absolute or conclusive obligation to obey the law. Analysis of the Structure and Components of Joseph Raz’s Idea of Normative Systems. Rather, for Raz he individual must obey the law only if he respects it. legitimate authority is based on an obligation to obey, which then is denied. at 233, and does not restrict this claim to the moral one. R az , supra note 5, at 47 (emphasis in original). He says that the necessary conditions of obligation to obey are – In a law, it is necessarily the duty of the citizens to obey the law of the country. He argues "that there is no obli-gation to obey the law," id. 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