On The Citizen's Law - Abiding Reason

The reasons of civil obligation to obey the law are one of important and complicated theories in law philosophy. It takes the basic position in entire basic theory of law. From the judgment to Socrates and the tragedy of Antigone, the long history of the thought of law in western has prepared very rich and detailed materials for the research of this theory, and established abundant base to the further research. And on the base, came many theories of civil obligation to obey the law, such as "social contract", "justness of law", "utilitarianism", "force", "equal treatment". The spirit of citizens to obey the law is established on the base of subjective, while "civil disobedience" is the supplement to this theory. Although there are some inevitable defects in these theories, no one can deny the truth of them.The "social contract" considers that citizen has the normal obligation to obey the law, because they are the party of the social contract. As the party of this contract, they should obey the content of the contract, the government and the law they agreed. After all, the "social contract" is a transcendental supposed theory, and no historical experiential materials show that citizen actually established the society and country in the form of contract. Such theory cannot explain those who don't agree with the government and its law, those who refuse to vote, but obey the law.The "justness of law" considers that citizen obey the law because the law is legal in the form and content. The law is constituted through the legal procedure by the state department or the official who has the legal authority. And the law is just the same as the value or morality supported by the society. So the citizen has the obligation to obey such good law. But the "justness of law" is not able to explain the phenomenon of obeying or disobeying the law, whose value not be agreed with.The "utilitarianism" considers that when the law is anticipated more beneficial to the people, and can prevent risk and reduce the possible loss much more, people will obey the law. The reason of civil obligation to obey the law is decided by comparing the results of obeying and disobeys the law. But the "utilitarianism" hasn't solved the problem that whether citizen should obey the law when the individual benefits conflict with the collective benefits.The "force" considers that citizen obey the law because they are in dread of the force of the state, which ensure the effect of the law. To avoid the punishment or economical loss, they obey the law. But considering the potential determent as the reason of citizen obeying the law, absolutely take the citizen's legal action passive, and deny the activity of the civil obeying the law.The "equal treatment" considers that the members in basically just society benefit of the state that the other members obey the law, and based on fair, they should be universal to obey the law to let the others enjoy the state. But a behavior obeying the law may not always bring benefits to others. Sometimes a legal behavior can bring misfortune to others on the contrary. Under the circumstances, we don't think a person should obey the law even if he will bring misfortune to others.The author has discussed the spirit of obeying the law of the citizens in modern society in the next problem. The author considers that the spirit of obeying the law is a voluntary, positive and active psychological state that stays in the course of obeying the law. It is the outcome of the subject's consciousness and the subjective concept of conscious morals coming from the awakening law consciousness. The spirit of obeying the law generates on the conditions that the citizens have the consciousness of subject and the law is good on moral. The consciousness of subject including that the person is for the positive view of self right and respects the qualification of subject of others. It means that the subject fitting to the modern law is "intersubjectivity". The following are the conditions that a calle...