Would you disobey a law that you thought was immoral?

It depends on the situation.

If the law required that I act positively in a manner that is contrary to a deeply held moral belief, I would hope so.

If the belief was less deeply held – it really depends on context.

If the law meant that I was prohibited from acting in a manner that I believed was moral, then the same results as above – although the situation has to arise where I would have to act.

Finally, there are plenty of laws that are due to a moral belief that I think is valid, but that I find it immoral to bring into the legal context. Drug laws are the best example. I think it’s appropriate to say that drug use is generally immoral as there aren’t many real positive benefits of it – at best, it’s a base form of recreation that might be dangerous. However, making it criminal causes profound harm across all levels of society. Therefore, I think that the law is immoral, but the behavior isn’t something that I need to participate in to fight the law – I’ll fight it in the public and political arena.

Yes, but in a democracy, you also have to accept the conequences of that civil disobedience.

@iamthemob, I prosecuted drug crimes for 18 years. You’re right. The criminalization of drugs is much more immoral than the self harm of taking them. It’s a huge welfare program for police, prosecutors, probation agents and courts.

Of course I would. Laws are just laws, they’re not set by God, you know?

My tax money gets used for many things I consider immoral in the extreme. The law requires that I pay taxes, so I do. In this situation, my responsibility as an individual gets watered down by the collective responsibility, but I can’t really argue that it goes away entirely. That degree of separation enables me to rationalize my way into a moral comfort zone, provided I don’t think too hard about it.

I’ve read about people who take this seriously enough to avoid ever making above the minimum income required to pay taxes. I find that kind of integrity admirable, but aparantly not enough to follow their example.

That was what the people did when they tried to assassinate Hitler.

But today’s laws in Europe and the US are vastly different. And today we can vote for another party to change the laws we disagree with.

I don’t follow laws that I find ridiculous or annoying. Of course I wouldn’t follow a law I found immoral.

I can, with quite a bit of certainty, say that I would.

I’ll play a bit of devil’s advocate here.

For those who do say they would disobey, do you think that your punishment should be less, should you be caught?

If so, where do you draw the line? If anyone who thinks that a law is immoral can disobey it without consequences, there is little use for law.

@crisw If I think the law is immoral, then I believe the punishment for that law is doubly-so. Therefore I wouldn’t care how much of the punishment I should get because I wouldn’t deserve any of it, to begin with.

It depends mainly on who else my disobedience affects. If it affects other people—particularly people in a democratic society who have some control over what laws are made—I would not, even if I thought I was right and society is wrong. If it affects nobody but myself, then maybe.

Civil disobedience would be an exception under certain extreme circumstances.

@crisw – If I were to disobey, and get caught, then I should receive the punishment allocated for the crime.

An act of civil disobedience would mean very little if it wasn’t done without knowledge of the potential risk to the actor.

I have a friend who is a pacifist. His grandfather and father before him were Conscientious Objectors in WWI, WWII and he in Vietnam, respectively. He went so far as to not pay a tax on his monthly telephone bill because it went to finance the Department of Defense.

I have a friends who are Jehovah Witnesses and they don’t believe in certain medical practices such as blood transfusions. Their children could be forced to partake of certain medical practices they find immoral.

I have friends who don’t believe in immunizations for their children. The children cannot attend public schools. They must therefore homeschool their children. There are lots of examples of this type of conflict. I agree with @thorninmud to a degree on the manner my tax dollars are spent.

By law I have to pay for nuclear weapons that I oppose but I am not brave enough to do anything about it.

Fluther already knows I don’t like traffic laws when safety isn’t an issue. Why stop at a stop sign where you can clearly see no one is around? I’ll tell you why: Because of extortion.

”..immoral..” laws tend to be enacted by the few, in support of the few, at the expense of the many. Usually after the few have wormed their way into legislative positions on the back of false promises or staged pretexts. Welcome to Representative Democracy folks.
Still, you will have a chance to do something with your disapproval after the term of election elapses. Providing that you don’t fall for the promises of the next crop of the few allover again.

I suspect that the inter-connected, global members of the few are anxiously watching the (mostly) spontaneous goings on in the Middle East at the moment.

It is a truism that the many have more weight than the few.

If a law is immoral it is your duty to disobey it. Some of the greatest atrocities in history have been committed by people just following orders and obeying the law. To my way of thinking, that’s no excuse.

Just because I am offered no protection under the law (and can actually be found guilty of several luscious crimes depending on the state), I haven’t stopped being gay.

@Kayak8 Haha

Of course. I disagree with many laws. I speak up about them, and don’t feel morally bound by them. But I do note the legal threat of consequences if I break them.

“Piaget studied many aspects of moral judgment, but most of his findings fit into a two-stage theory. Children younger than 10 or 11 years think about moral dilemmas one way; older children consider them differently. As we have seen, younger children regard rules as fixed and absolute. They believe that rules are handed down by adults or by God and that one cannot change them. The older child’s view is more relativistic. He or she understands that it is permissible to change rules if everyone agrees. Rules are not sacred and absolute but are devices which humans use to get along cooperatively.” citation

I would absolutely disobey a law that I thought was immoral, and I also have no problem disobeying laws that I simply find unwise. I don’t go out of my way to disobey such laws, but I also don’t let them get in my way.

I completely agree with @Chris_In_Minn, however, that people who disobey such laws can’t expect their beliefs to hold up as legal defenses when they are caught. I accept the consequences of my disobedience, civil or uncivil as it may be.

And while some people may feel scandalized by the above comment, I rather think that most people’s actions are much like mine. Indeed, they are probably worse. Most people disobey the law merely because it is inconvenient, as when they drive over the speed limit. Not much room here for high horses, I’d wager.

My philosophy is: “If you don’t like the law, use every avenue you have to change it.” To simply disobey it is not as effective.

wow….it was not my intent to scandalize….I lead a group with first time criminal offenders (petty theft, that kind of stuff) in which we present moral reasoning scenarios and discuss. Often times the people we assess to have a higher level of moral reasoning, according to Kholberg’s stages, are not necessarily choosing the lawful answer.

I think your intent or reason behind following or not following the law is more important when considering morality.

@KhiaKarma I was talking about my own comment. People I know have reacted poorly to my having non-moral reasons for disobeying the law.

What exactly is your definition of immoral, as applied to your question?

@SavoirFaire that makes sense….doh! :)

I would obey it, but passive-aggressively go against it.

The main reason for my above answer is because of the subjective nature of what “immoral” is for each individual. Some of the people posting here are going under the assumption that they know what “immoral” is in its most basic nature when applied to abstract concepts. There’s always the off-chance you’re the one that’s mistaken, in a sense.

Compare it to a child’s understanding of the world. If a child were to hypothetically come across a website about the culling of animals, they would most likely label it as “bad” and leave it as that. An adult would read into it further and find out the reasons for the culling (most-likely classifying it as bad, but necessary). In this scenario, the child would be ignorant of facts that would prove them wrong in their assessment of the website and “animal-culling” in general. And I mean “wrong” in a general sense.

Basically, I’m just going for the best worst-case scenario (preparing for the fact that i’m wrong, but still going against it in some way).

In some cases, the things you find immoral are the things that are necessary when looking at the context. (E.g. An anti-deforestation protestor would be against the cutting down of trees in an area, but the local rural community would need the wood to build houses and shelters, etc.)

There are also times when both parties are right and wrong, so it all boils down to which side is more right, which is something that is debatable in itself (thesis>antithesis>synthesis>thesis, etc.).

Honestly, it’s for this reason that I avoid arguing—there’s always so much uncertainty.

@Haustere I suspect you know very little about what each of thinks of as moral or immoral. Indeed, why assume that those who have already answered don’t also have a subjective view of morality in mind? Or perhaps an even more radical view than that?

@SavoirFaire i’m not outright saying that the people posting here are wrong, i’m just trying to present another way of looking at the topic at hand. If anything I said was offensive, I’d like so say that it was unintentional. I’m also fully aware of the hypocritical nature of my logic, but I prefer keeping it as it is. Synthesising my argument would mean a loss of information on both ends of the argument.

I’m just trying to support the for and against since, in topics like these, there usually isn’t an absolute answer. This way, I can give a solid answer (or as solid as I can possibly manage).

@Haustere, @SavoirFaire

I believe part of the miscommunication here is that, of course, calling something moral or immoral may or may not suggest a rigid system, a flexible system, or a completely ad-hoc analysis of the “moral” nature of an act.

Personally, I don’t believe it’s possible to really know whether most of what we do is moral or immoral, and begrudgingly have to go on instinct. The discussion on taxes is quite illuminating on this, though, as everyone has diverse political beliefs and more than likely finds one thing that the government is doing morally reprehensible – and yet is passively obeying a law funding that action. My attempt to place the answer in a more situational light falls short of getting into the complexity that I think is inherent in these decisions, but speaks to that issue as well (paying my taxes).

@iamthemob To add yet another layer of meta, how do you know your instincts will lead you to what is “right”? I mean, following one’s instincts may be the best solution, but you’ll be doing it blindly. Not a lot of people are going to put their trust in that sort of decision, hence the very existence of this argument.

There’s also the issue of differentiating your instincts from your consciousness (or subconsciousness). How would you do such a thing successfully? Doing it the right way matters a lot if you’re going to be using your instincts at all. (Especially for important decisions and whatnot.)

@Haustere – I’m not suggesting that, in considering acts related to laws in a moral context, reacting solely based on instinct – but in the end, after a certain amount of reasoning, I think instinct is the only thing to go on – as otherwise, we’re coming to an objective answer regarding morality.

Without deciding to act or not based on that feeling, one is inevitably trapped in a loop of processing and reprocessing new information and considerations – as nearly all of our acts and failures to act have pretty much global consequences.

@iamthemob In that case, I’ll agree with your answer. Just keep in mind that there will always be opposition to those kinds of decisions due to its very nature.

If you were to use your instincts on an unofficial level, that would be fine, but I doubt it would go over very well if you were to use it “officially” because of the lack of reason to back it up. (“Officially” referring to using your instincts while a position of power. It would most-likely come across as an arbitrary and “unreasonable” abuse of power in the eyes of the media, and, by extension, the eyes of the populace.)

Feel free to disregard the above paragraph. Running around in circles is a habit of mine. And props to you for calling me out on my indecisiveness. I think i’ve gotten something out of this argument.

@Haustere – Indecisiveness is one of the problems in moral reasoning, unfortunately. I wouldn’t say, further, that any decision of the above type if official would be disagreed with based on a lack of reason – part of reason is also deciding when the time to stop considering the factors really is.

@Haustere Some of the people posting here are going under the assumption that they know what “immoral” is in its most basic nature when applied to abstract concepts. There’s always the off-chance you’re the one that’s mistaken, in a sense.

There is, it seems to me, no way that one could be mistaken about one’s notion of morality. That is all I am asking about. I have no interest in developing some hypothetical shared notion of morality. I only care whether you would violate a law that you think is immoral.

@wundayatta – I don’t know if that’s even certain. When comparing the acts of others to ourselves, we often succumb to the attribution bias – thinking that what they’re doing is because of who they are, where what we’re doing is because of the situation.

The fact that we can accurately assess our own morality is undermined by how often we look back on things we’ve done in the past and think “Lord, how could I have thought that was okay?”

All right, let me condition that with your own morality at the time you made that choice.

I know that people are sometimes not the best observers of themselves, but that’s what I’m interested it.