2 ms·

Now, if we only had a test to distinguish between just and unjust laws.

• krapp 2y ago
  Is your argument that we must obey all laws at all times, because a definition of "justice" cannot be given with the rigor of a mathematical proof? How then can law itself exist, without a means of objective interpretation? And why obey laws at all if no test exists by which any law can be determined to be either just or unjust? You can find thousands of years of scholarship, philosophy, religion and legal doctrine on the matter, and most people seem capable of coming to at least a subjective conclusion on what is and isn't just, apart from what is and isn't legal.
  • GeoAtreides 2y ago
    For people protesting desegregation, the laws promoting desegregation were unjust. For me, personally, punishments like death penalty (and adjacent, maximum security prisons, like ADX Florence) are abhorrent. If I had superpowers, I would violently oppose them. I would literally dismantle ADX Florence brick by brick, if I could. I imagine some people reading this would be equally horrified, and, would also violently oppose me. The problem with protesting unjust laws is that these laws are just for other people. Coming to a personal conclusion on what laws are unjust is easy. Achieving consensus is impossible. Sometimes, even achieving majority is impossible (see, for reference, the Just Stop Oil guys who got 5 years in prison). I'm not saying not to resist unjust laws; far from it. I am saying that determining what is moral and what is not is one of the hardest philosophical problems there is. And that opposing can, in some cases, lead to violence and civil war.