Self-study
P1
Most people acknowledge that not all governments have a moral right to govern and that there are sometimes morally legitimate reasons for disobeying the law, as when a particular law prescribes behavior that is clearly immoral. ██ ██ ████ ████████ ████████ ████ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ██████████ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ███ ████ ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ██████ ██████ ███ ███ █████ ███ █████ ██ █████████ ████ █ █████ ████ ██ ████ █ ███ ██████ ███████ ██ ██ ███ ████ ███
Most people's perspective ·
Moral duty to obey law because it's law; some rare exceptions
Philosophical anarchism (PA) ·
No moral duty to obey law just because it's law
Commentators' perspective ·
Reject PA because PA has 2 implications that are absurd
PA allegedly implies (1) all governments are morally equal, and (2) people are morally allowed to do whatever they want (kill people, commit fraud, etc.)
Rejection of commentator's perspective ·
PA does not have those 2 implications
P2
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Deny implication 1 ·
PA can hold that some governments are morally better than others
We can still evaluate morality of government policies/actions based on how much good and harm those policies/actions lead to.
P3
Deny implication 2 ·
PA doesn't have to think people can do whatever they want
People still have moral duties not to harm others (a duty that doesn't stem from law). Also, There's a moral duty to help others, which might justify supporting government policies/actions. And, there's a moral duty to follow laws if failing to follow them leads to harm.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
25.
It can be inferred that ███ ██████ █████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ████
a
people are subject ██ ████ █████ ███████████ ████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ██ ███ ████
Unsupported. The author agrees that people are subject to certain moral obligations. But we don’t know what is “generally held to be the case” regarding moral obligations, so we can’t assume that the author thinks people are subject to more moral obligations than is generally held to be the case.
b
governments that are ███████ ████████ █████████ ████ █████ ████████ ███ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ████ █████ ████
Unsupported. The author is likely to agree that some governments are morally superior to others, since
c
one may have ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ██████████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ██ █████ ████ ██ ████ ███ ████
Supported. PAs think that people have a moral obligation to care for one another. The author says
d
there are some █████ █████████ ███ ████████ ████ ████ ███████████ ████ █ █████ █████ ██ ███████ █████████ ██ █████ ████
Unsupported. The author defends PA, an argument claiming that citizens are not morally obligated to obey the law just because it’s the law. But he doesn’t mention any arguments about governments’ right to require obedience to the law.
e
the theory of █████████████ █████████ ███████ ███████ ███████████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████
Unsupported. The author doesn’t address how governments should enact or enforce laws. Instead, he addresses the PAs’ belief about how citizens should follow the law— we have no moral obligation to follow the law just because it’s the law, but sometimes we should follow laws if failing to follow them leads to harm.