SOCRATES ARGUES THAT WE SHOULD NEVER DISOBEY THE LAW BECAUSE DOING SO WILL HARM THE SOCIETY: HOW RIGHT IS IT TO SOMETIMES DISOBEY UNJUST LAWS USING THE JUST DECEASED ZONING SYSTEM OF THE PEOPLES DEMOCRATIC PARTY (PDP) AS A PARADIGM SHIFT FROM SOCRATES ARGUMENT?

SOCRATES ARGUES THAT WE SHOULD NEVER DISOBEY THE LAW BECAUSE DOING SO WILL HARM THE SOCIETY: HOW RIGHT IS IT TO SOMETIMES DISOBEY UNJUST LAWS USING THE JUST DECEASED ZONING SYSTEM OF THE PEOPLES DEMOCRATIC PARTY (PDP) AS A PARADIGM SHIFT FROM SOCRATES ARGUMENT?

Chijioke Akusoronwa

Socrates argues that we should never disobey the law because doing so will harm the society. Arising from Socrates argument, it becomes imperative to ask some questions and define some concepts in the questions. How come that law became a part of human life? What is law? Why do we need to obey law? How is it true that the law we obey is just or unjust? Man originally lived in a state of nature which was characterised by absolute anarchy. But, as time went by, people became fed up with the state of nature and surrendered their right to a state which guides every individual citizen by its laws. Thus, why must man be guided by law, but before further steps the meaning of law must be known.

Law can be defined as a body of rules and regulation that guides human conduct and accepted as binding by the society, enforced by the state and breach of which will result in punishment or sanction. This also implies that although laws are made to guide human conduct, it could be just and sometimes unjust. A just law is exactly a law for the fair treatment of people. This is based on the principle of equal right and justice. For instance, Sola’s phone was stolen in his room and while looking for it, he discovered it was stolen by Segun. Sola went and reported to the porter. The porter came and saw the exact phone with Sola’s name written at the phone back case. In the end, Segun was punished for it while Sola was given back his phone. This is a typical example of a just law i.e. fair justice on the part of the owner and doer of the evil act. An unjust law is a law which is exactly not deserved or fair. A typical example is the act of punishing Sola and allowing Segun to go free.

Socrates argues further that we should never disobey the law because doing so will harm the society. My questions are as follow:

What is obedient to the law?

Why must we be obedient to the law?

Why is it just that we should never disobey the law?

An act of complying with the law is obedient to the law. Disobedient, means that we are going against the law. Disobeying the law teaches the coming generation a culture which can also lead to decadence in that generation and affect the future generation. It also limits the constitution that guides the society and thereby harming the society.

I argued that laws must never be disobeyed because we ought to fulfill our agreement or promises. This agreement must be adhered to ensuring peace and stability in the society. Even if you argue that, why must we fulfil our agreement to obey the law? I will simply answer by saying that if we don’t fulfil our agreement, it means that we are unjust and breaking an agreement wrongs the law and will harm the society. I will also posit that by disobeying the law, we are unlawful but by obeying it shows that we are keeping to our promises which will not harm the society.

The other argument is that, it is sometimes right to disobey laws especially unjust laws because doing so will better the society. In the early paragraph of this work, unjust laws were explained to its criticism to be unjust laws. Then,

What is disobedience to the law?

Why must we sometimes disobey some laws?

Disobedient to the law means an act of a group, individual refusal to obey the law. It is sometimes seen that some laws are unpleasant. These laws are made to favour some particular class of people in the society. These kinds of laws are called obnoxious laws. An obnoxious law is a law extremely unpleasant and offend mostly those unprivileged groups or individuals in the society, thereby subjecting those laws to be disobeyed. So, such kind of obnoxious laws must be disobeyed, if not, it can affect and harm the society by destroying the existing norms, beliefs and values of the society.

How is it sometimes right to disobey laws?

It is because, it opens the room for proper consideration of societal values, ideologies and customs before further laws are enacted. It allows future laws to be made by critical thinkers, professionals after considering many factors to ensuring that the laws made by them are not easily prone to disobedient by the society.

Why is it sometimes right to disobey just law?

Remember that a law is not just even if it is just, it will never be just for all members of the society. So, this brings us to agree that not all laws are right to be obeyed. You may want to argue against it, that, it is just a few people that beliefs a just law is unjust? I would also refute the argument by lucidly showing that a law is just only when all members of the society agree that that law is absolutely right or just, not a few learned but learned and unlearned. So, I will argue further that all laws are unjust because it will never be absolutely just or unjust i.e exactly fair or exactly obnoxious by all members of the society in every condition.

How is it right to disobey unjust laws?

This brings us to the ideal question which you may wish to ask me. According to Kelvin Chappel he said, ‘Negativity attracts negativity, positivity attracts positivity’. This is to say that a law is unjust because it had been subject to a lot of disobedience by the society and that makes the law negative.

But you will also want to say that some still obey unjust laws?

My position is that those who obey unjust laws are just a few and larger in society where the few makes laws and dictate for the larger number who are poor thus at the mercy of the rich who rule them. In some situation, i.e like on gun point, some individual obey unjust laws but we must at this point understand that obeying laws for individual benefit is unjust. This means that the individual is unjust or unfair to the society and this simply shows that it is right to disobey unjust laws

I want to support my précis and the opinion that we should never disobey the law because doing so will harm the society. I want to argue this be saying that a citizen is free and equal, capable of entering into an agreement or contract with the intention he/she has with the state. If the state likes the intention he could stay but if the state doesn’t like it, he has the liberty to leave the city but if he stays, the city is expected to believe that the citizen has chosen freely to remain in the state and abide by its norm regardless of what he/she thinks of the form. It would be unjust for the citizen not to uphold the agreement with the society.

Also, I believe that the citizen has the right to persuade the city to his opinion, if the state does not hold that doing evil is unjust and that it is unjust to do evil with evil, I will agree but most society has already laid down principles and punishment for anyone who does it, in order to avoid the society from been in total anarchy.

Furthermore, I believe that justice in most case is not equal; what the parent or master may do is not something the child or slave is equally entitled to do. Even, if the society is wrong, it is wrong to avenge yourself that wrong by inflating wrong doing on the wrong deed.

Finally, I judge that it is never good to disobey the law because if the individuals or groups make decisions on whether to obey the laws of the society based solely on their private or individual circumstances, there can be no law or society at all. There can’t be law or society unless their rulings are authoritatively obeyed thus excluding other competing considerations.

Therefore, all laws must be obeyed when good while bad laws should be obeyed in a way that seeking redress and change does not cause harm to the society unless if such laws causes harm to the largest number of citizens.

CHIJIOKE, holds a professional certification in Management and a first degree in Political Science and one of the best graduating student in the said discipline from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. He is passionate about providing the leading platform for bearing the burden for his clients’ zenith successes which is hinged at providing exceptional Consulting Services in the areas of paper writing, biographies, training, political advisory, public speaking, business development, product marketing and advert production all in a practical solution driven and goal oriented perspectives. As the Principal/Head Consultant, HeroesPlus Consultant based in Lagos, his interest in research and development made him a social blogger and a prolific biographer. Among his works includes: Nigeria Sixth Republic: 50 Years Of Unfinished Leadership; Challenging Your Dreams; A Conscious Africa People Of Change Long Desired: Critical Look At African Today’s Politics In The Year 2011; Our Security And Our Nigeria: The Problems And The Solutions among others. He is a member of Civil Liberty Organization, Rotaract Club to mention a few.

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