Should You Obey the Law? - Philosophy Tube 

I can feel myself transforming into an anarchist

Anarchism should be its own episode. With special consideration for why "anarhco" capitalists are not anarchists.

you've grown up so much in the last 4 years

I could listen to you all day. Please, make a video about anarchism, that would be cool. (You could make a video about democracy, communism and anarchism in one video but that might be too much). And I'm looking forward to next week :-)

When injustice becomes law resistance becomes duty... People have an obligation to obey moraly just laws and a duty to overturn unjust laws, this is the only way a society can advance ethicality. If people like Martin Luther king obey the laws of there time the hole of society would suffer..

Great episode!! More like it please, especially on the subject of Anarchism.

i was waiting for you to mention anarchism for like 5 episodes lol

If there is a cut-off point for voluntarily foreseen risk, then this argument would also hold true for STDs and unwanted pregnancies

the vaccination question makes me think about the autonomy of children, and if there's a lot of discussion around that from a philosophical angle. If a child knows the risk, to some extent, of not being vaccinated and chooses vaccination, but are denied it by the parent, the parent has violated their child's will as well as their safety. But if the child chooses not to be vaccinated and the parent does anyway, the child has still had their autonomy violated, but in a helpful way, and one that can be written off as them not knowing better. People tell children not to dress in ways they want to in order to not "attract" predators, but the responsibility should be on adults to not be predatory. The child is not only refused their own decision, but is in fact assuming the responsibility of any potential number of adults, which doesn't quite line up with children not being knowledgeable or responsible enough for full autonomy of their own. But parents who choose to pierce their daughters' ears or enter them in beauty pageants - in one case causing unwanted pain and in another exposing their child to predatory gaze, we accept that the child did not make the choice, and in at least one anecdotal case relating to the piercings, accuse the child of being unruly or insubordinate. We have very inconsistent ideas about what kids are capable of or what they aren't ready to process, and it often leads to simultaneously dismissing their knowledge of themselves while blaming them for the consequences of this dismissal. Particularly in untreated mental health and disability. And in the classic Matilda example, you can know something better than an adult and prove them wrong in an argument or expose them as irresponsible but still be subject to their decision simply due to the idea that you can't take care of yourself. It's something that tends to be parodied or discussed in isolated topics rather than questioned broadly. So people are clearly aware of the absurdity, but don't see an issue in addressing it. A child says they're not hungry. Well, that's ungrateful. Somebody provided you this food, and you should respect their effort. Besides, you'll be hungry later if you don't eat now. You must be cranky, or picky, or troubled. But what if the child really just isn't hungry? and can recognize bodily signs that they won't be in any bad shape by the next chance they have to eat? Maybe they notice something wrong with the food but can't explain it or don't feel comfortable making some sort of offending statement against the person who prepared it. Maybe they feel ill and eating the food will cause them to become sick later, and their body is telling them not to eat at the moment. Maybe the food doesn't have to go to waste and can be saved, but the parent is more worried about the child acting according to expected bullet points than they are with accepting practical alternatives like putting the plate in the fridge. However, depending on the age, if a hungry child found money on the ground and decided to try to buy a burger with it - a responsible decision, in a sense - they may be turned away simply for being unsupervised, or criticized for buying cheap, filling food as opposed to something healthier, in the same way adults are, in which case the effort of the cooks and the expected pattern of hungry->have money->buy food is considered irrelevant. This whole thing is a mess of incomplete trains of thought all sort of converging around "hey, people should know more about themselves than others do about them, so where do we draw the line in when and if we trust them to?" and before anyone gross jumps on here, I'm talking about practical decision-making, I don't want any sort of discussion around age of consent, because there's more important things there than just "do you know what you're talking about?"

Well, I think your Hume impression is better than mine :)

You should do a video explaining anarchism. I would be interested in hearing that.

I would love more on the law. If you were to upload a video i'd watch it wether it is a couple seconds long or a over an hour. Thank you for your content!

Someone mentioned rights on your property. I wonder if they realize that even when you pay for land, its not technically yours. At least here in the U.S. While you can with it what you like, ultimately, government owns it. If they wished to force you out, for say building roads, they would win eventually. By either paying you for it, or just pushing you out. It happens.

I'm pretty far in the philosophical anarchists camp. My problem with the other positions is that they mainly act as if a state was a singular thing. While I am citizen of my country, this does not mean that I partake in its Nation. I may speak another language, have different values and may ignore or oppose the local traditions. However, if we take the Nation from the equation, the only thing that remains is power. Every government in human history was an institution which served to impose the will of some on others. The fact that the will of the majority is imposed on the minority isn't different in that regard to the will of royalty and nobility imposed on peasants. Furthermore, we can't conclude that this power is inherently legitimate since tyrannical governments also weren't different in that regard. Every nation has norms on how a person seizes legitimate political power and on how much the government may impose on its subjects. However, I don't necessarily share this part of my Nation. Let's look at this from a more general level: in Soviet Russia, it was part of the soviet nation that the government can impose very much on the individual for the common good. Today, we tend to call this unjust and judge those who acted on that belief harshly. However, if I get to the example of taxes, I can argue that one should comply to them because they allow services which we enjoy ourselves or may enjoy if we are down on our luck. So if we don't prefer to live without these services to taking the necessary effort to ensure their upkeep, we are morally obliged to do our part if we can. Based on this perspective, I would argue that someone who smokes weed doesn't act morally wrong even though they break the law. However, someone who drives recklessly would act morally wrong even if they didn't endanger others because their own safety directly depends on the obedience of traffic rules. Thís would also be true if no government were involved: obeying the laws of a game is a small moral obligation because cheating ruins the game.

Well done video! I would've loved if you'd touched more on the subject of obeying the law in self interest. It is really interesting if you think about what happens when you don't follow the law. The law (let's just take USA in this example) clearly states that violence is an offense. Punching, stabbing, shooting, even threatening to do any of these things without actually performing them, are against the law. This, as you said in the video, is supposed to be universally applicable to everyone within the region (I find it odd to call something universally and then define it as regional, but let's go with it for now). This means that everyone has to follow these laws, normal citizens, police and the political leaders too. Even though, breaking those laws against violence that is what the state does constantly. Just to mention one example of the state breaking it's own laws: if you do not pay your taxes, you will be told to pay a fine. If you do not pay, you will be summoned to court. If you do not show up, police will come to your home. If you do not open the door, they will break in to your home and try to bring you off to jail. If you resist, in your own home (self defense), the police have the right to shoot you. Behind every law there is the implicit threat of murder. I understand that taxes bring about good things, but it is not important. If I ask you for money, while telling you that I will bring that money to that poor beggar over there on the other side of the street, you might give me money to do so. But if you do not, and I take out my gun and threaten you with death unless you give me your money, the fact that your money could be used for good isn't really that interesting anymore. This duality of "murder is bad, but also good" is very interesting and I wish you'd mention it in the video!

I really like the anarchistic approach. As I understood Edmundson I agree with the idea that no Government is legitimated apart from it's use as a functional (and most likely highly needed) administration. I imagine, that ideally everybody should do what they think is right and are able to defend in an argument. Considering, that human thoughts can be highly incomplete in the brain, I recommend to always spell your argument out at least to your self. This would crucially reduce flaws and missing parts in arguments of such importance. In this model the law fits in as kind of a default position. As long as you haven't thought of anything better you stick to laws. The authority of the law lies in the fact, that several intelligent and broadly acknowledged people did come up with it's content after long lasting disputes. Hence one should always be aware of the probable complex justification behind such kind of well-tried set of rules, when thinking about alternatives. In my view this is a pretty strong argument for existing laws, but should in no case discourage people from thinking about alternatives. I think, there is never a higher justification which can not be expressed as a comprehensible argument.

Found your channel a few months ago and finally caught up, but want to say thanks, always very interesting and thought provoking. Im a little late but just wanted to say re: the allocation for medical resources, while pregnancy is "optional" condition individually, it is necessary from the perspective of the survival of the species, whereas things like smoking are not.

Anarchist philosophy holds up in our current system as other reasons are given for laws (such as moral obligation), a system in which the government asserts the citizenry must obey the law 'because we say so' and gives no other reasoning, would be akin to a dictatorship.

So many An-Caps in the comment section....

Thank you for making this! As a lawyer, we've been taught that law obedience comes from democracy. In a democracy, the people elect their government. It's not a coincidence we call them "representatives" - they represent our common interest. The tools for this are laws. The government creates laws in our common interest and we obey them because we have elected these people and therefor agree with their political thinking and want to be govern in that particular way. Some might say "okay, but I have voted for the other guy, why should I obey the laws these people make". The answer to that is written in the constitution. Each country ofc has a different version of a constitution but generally in each constitution there's a rule that representatives represent the interest of everyone not just of the people who have voted for them. And a constitution is considered the highest of all laws because it has been drafted in a special procedure indirectly by all the people via special representatives.

Hey first off, love your videos! I was so excited to find a youtube channel that talks about philosophy on a regular basis! Quick suggestion for a video that maybe you're interested in: A video about Kanye West. It sounds kind of silly, yes, but personally i find Kanye West to be a fascinating person. I would love to hear your thoughts on public opinion, and if you think people should really take the time to learn more about the people they hate for no reason i.e. Kanye/Bieber. Just a suggestion, but once again great videos keep it up :)

Hey Olly, first time commenter, long time subscriber. I just wanted to tell you, good job on the channel & video! This videos' subject is something I've always thought about but never really considered seriously. So thank you for this video it was enlightening! I didn't know of certain terms within this particular subject matter but I always knew of anarchism and "you should obey the law because it's the law" or "obeying the law for moral reasons" were arguments or sides. Now I know that there are terms and schools of thought backing those terms up. Thanks again, Olly! (And I've always seen my self as a philosophical anarchist. I'd have to look more into the a priori and a posteriori schools of thought). Love your channel! And love philosophy!

I don't know if I understand political obligation well enough. Say my reasoning for following the law, regardless of it's content, was because I felt that each person had a duty to maintain order and a safe society. Essentially unless there was an overriding reason, the law should be obeyed because people as a collective need to be able to guarantee to the best of our ability to each other that some standard of social order is going to be followed. I feel like this is consistent with the 4 criteria you laid out at the beginning, but I'm still not sure if it qualifies.

some more suggested reading materials : Michael Huemer's "The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey" & Larken Rose's "The Most Dangerous Superstition"

I'm studying Ethics and Morals at the moment, so the timing of this video is just right! I'm impressed by how much there is to this subject. The video is very enlightening, and your Hume representation was awesome! I *wish* I could switch accents like that lol I'm looking forward to next week's video, thanks for everything! :)

Others have said it, and I'm going to join them. I would really enjoy seeing an Olly Productions video on anarchism.

Considering that governance has been justified using everything from the will of the citizenry to invisible contracts that nobody knows about to divine mandate, I'd make an argument from relativity a la Mackie that no such justification actually exists - any supposedly objective measure of governmental legitimacy bears a striking resemblance to whatever a ruling body would have to say to a particular society to continue ruling. The resemblance isn't a proof unto itself, but it's certainly suggestive. It seems like moral anti-realism would necessitate some form of philosophical anarchism, or am I wrong? (Also, dat bagpipe fanfare. HUME! HUME! HUME!)

To add to the list I would include the book Plato to Nato which is a book of essays about different philosophers political theories complied by Brian Redhead. I had to read it in my Political Philosophy class where we covered such people as Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes and many others. Each essay is in some way focused on the question "why should I obey the state?"

What exactly do you mean by "overriding reasons for disobeying the law"? If you just mean "reasons in general", you could say that the "pro tanto" and "content-independent" qualifiers contradict each other sometimes. For example, say the law tells you to do something you find morally reprehensible, and you decide to disobey this law because of this reason. That wouldn't necessarily be evidence of a lack of political obligation, because there's an overriding reason for your actions: your morals. To take it to an extreme example, you could say that the "overriding reason" for stealing something is that "I wanted to". Under that position, though, the argument ends up being "you do stuff because of reasons" which tells you absolutely nothing. What I would argue, then, is that "pro tanto", the way you explained it here at least, is too vague of a term to be able to define things correctly. What are acceptable and non-acceptable overriding reasons?

I would really love to see an episode all about Anarchism.

I do not know if your Irish accent is authentic in ANY way, but I do know that I love it very much and would like to hear more of it 😊

You've earned a new subscriber today! I'm hooked on your vids!

That's a pretty ethical sponsorship deal Olly. Well done. :) Good discussion this time too.

I think that law and government serve very good practical purposes, though, like many powerful tools, they can also be abused. So, while I would not consider myself an "anarchist" in the typical sense of the word, I suppose I _would_ consider myself a "philosophical anarchist" because I can imagine plenty of scenarios where not only is compliance with the law not morally obligatory, but actual _defiance_ of the law may, in fact, be morally obligatory. For example, I think most people might agree that, day to day, in typical situations, it is better to comply with the law than not to. Even in small cases where I might personally prefer to do something prohibited by law (speeding, jaywalking, driving while uninsured), it is better for me to comply anyway, either for totally practical reasons or out of deference to the spirit of democracy and the rule of law. Then, however, we can get into totally different territory, such as if the law requires me to follow an order to harm someone, if I am legally ordered to harm innocent people, or something of that nature. I think most of us agree that a little civil disobedience, when judiciously applied, can be a very good thing for a society. American history, in particular, is rife with examples in the Revolutionary War, the Civil Rights Movement, and others.

since you broached the topic could you possibly do a video on anarchism?

Your sense of humour is getting better and better, Olly. You should totally team up with Thug Notes and the gang over at Wisecrack. I think you'd be a perfect fit.

I was excited to see this video because, i know I'm only 13, but I think really deeply about whether we should obey or even comply the law. I believe that we shouldn't be made to follow a guideline as we, as humans, have rights to do what we want. Morally, it is wrong to intentionally hurt or negetively effect another being but (let's use drugs as an example) if we do it in our own houses then the only being we are hurting is ourselves. What we do is not in the interest of anyone else unless that person is being physically or emotionally hurt by our actions...you could also argue that we should not have any authorative figures other than the people brave enough to express themselves. I know I've said probably alot of incorrect things but I guess this kind of topic is up to personal judgement and I haven't studied in philosophy.

I think laws are simply the agreed upon moral code for a particular group of people. The way you exercise your morality is in a way collaborative with how strictly you obey the law. It’s more or less an updated moral compass. This is why it’s very important. If you know the laws of the land, then you know the ways in which way you can and cannot conduct yourself, in very astute terms. To assume there are very strict moral codes for all human beings would be a great assumption indeed.

I've always thought that there ought to be a decently sized fertile extraterritorial part of land that countries set aside for the specific reason of warranting their own legitimacy. The deal would be that you are free to move there and make a living by whatever means you want _or_ you implicitly agree to be held accountable by your country's law. Without any such extraterritorial non-country, the legitimacy of nation states is indeed questionable.

Could you discuss individualist-anarchism, perhaps how Stirner influenced egoism and precipitated existentialism. Could also tie in Nietzsche and his criticism of herd morality.

I'd be interested in seeing the idea of anarchism expanded upon in another episode.

3:02 A better question is: Under what circumstances does the state GET its legitimacy? My answer would be: only when it's _your_ state, meaning the state of _your_ class or of the class _you_ consciously support.

Thanks for your videos! As an individual, I may acknowledge that my understanding of the consequences of my actions isn't as good as the understanding of those who made the law (wether they represent society as a whole, or just "experts" of the field the law applies to). Therefore, I could consider the law as morally better than my own moral judgement, and obey it. Can't this be an argument against anarchism? Hope I've made myself clear as english isn't my mother tongue.

It would be really freaking cool to make a video on anarchism. Or if you could, recommend some books or things to read on them? I'm trying to gain as much knowledge on political philosophy as I can before I'm off to a high school program for college.

I'm super surprised you didn't mention Huemer, Problem of Political Authority (2013). That's probably the hottest political philosophical book right now in academia. And it's brilliant and remarkably persuasive. Some have said it is literally a series of knockdown arguments against political authority.

Finally. Amazing. Outstanding.

Great channel. Just found this and I have to say I really enjoy your videos :)

Friday, new vid... Happy.

I'm pretty on the side of anarchism where there is no obligation nor even sound groundings of political obligation (I'm a nihilist in cases like that) but I believe that humans do make it "real", as in they create the construct and make it seem real while in no ways are they actually there or possible. I'm like this with religion, nation states, and civil rights to (not that those are bad or anything).

On this topic I think it's fairly difficult to come down on any other side than that of the philosophical Anarchists. Locke's thought-experiment of the State of Nature and the explicit signing-up to the Social Contract by those living within it (from which point on they'd have to follow certain laws) as they move to a State of Government is flawed for the obvious reason you mentioned that, well, that's great for them but *we* didn't sign up to it. If people did in fact explicitly sign up to it all those years ago (and that's highly unlikely - leadership and subjection most likely originated through blood and war, not legal administration), that still doesn't bind us, their descendants, to it, not without our explicit consent. Similarly, while the Hume's criticism of tacit consent goes against the idea of consent being given just by living peacefully in a state, it also goes against Plato's idea about social obligation where he says that we consent to the State we live in because it provides us specific benefits. From that, he says that if you don't like Greece (or your other native land), you should just sod off to Crete or something which, as Hume says, would be pretty tricky for just about everyone at that time, or even now - there simply aren't any places one could realistically go where there isn't a form of government that would expect you to abide by laws almost exactly the same as the ones of the country you just left. Also, the idea of tacit consent is a bit problematic in and of itself - it is of course incredibly difficult to act as social creatures without occasionally acting upon tacit-, as opposed to explicit-, consent to things, but the idea, for example, that a woman "giving me the eye" as a form of some sort of tacit green-light for advancement is a bit worrying. With regard to laws, things which affect our very day-to-day lives, I don't think anything short of explicit consent can justify them. One nice argument I've heard for obeying the laws of the state, however, also ties into what you were saying about our independent-of-politics (moral) motivations and is from another Mr. Wolff (Robert Paul, however). He gives the example of a sinking ship where the captain gives the order for everyone to make for the lifeboats. There, the philosophical anarchist might "obey" that order, but only insofar as it is what they would do even if they *weren't* ordered to do it; he says we should act the same way with our laws - that we should obey them, but never kid ourselves into thinking that we follow them because of some sort of inherent authority within those giving the "orders." This, however, is very selective as to which laws are followed and vary on a person-to-person basis, so overall isn't particularly viable. There's also Hobbes reasoning that we should always obey the law, even unjust laws, because a State with bad laws is still always going to be better than a State of Nature, which he saw as synonymous with a State of War. Though I think he was probably just upset about all the destruction from the Civil War (and maybe fair enough). Don't think his argument applies today with the relative stability of nations. There's also the idea of Rousseau's General Will. If we live in a participatory democracy with a large enough electorate, then Concordet's Jury Theorem (that given enough peoples' guesses, the right answer(/The Truth) to any question/issue will be reached) would hold. In that case, people who *think* they don't want to do x (whether that be obeying a law or passing one), actually *do* want to do x, they just don't know it. This means that there could be a unanimous agreement (in a rather stretched sense) to sign up to a Social Contract where we all collectively agree to obey the State's laws. I guess it's basically saying that if we were all acting 100% rationally and if there were the option to sign a Social Contract that binds us to obeying the laws, we would *all* choose to sign it, and so everyone actually physically signing a sheet of paper committing ourselves to it isn't even necessary. It's a bit flimsy but also a bit paternalistic and/or tyrannical to tell people what it is that they *really* want though, and so this reasoning seems generally rather avoidable. (Or I might have just misremembered/misapplied Rousseau's theory, it's been a while since I've read him.) To wrap up though, it's all quite annoying this lack of justification for the laws of the state (that we aren't already morally-bound to). I think States can be vehicles for great things, they're just not really theoretically justifiable. Similarly, a State of pure Anarchy would be the only justifiable system, but wouldn't be at all viable or even that pleasant.

I certainly believe in the idea of having a government. I want it to do a lot, not to be a minimalist vestigial thing.. That said, I am very much a philosophical anarchist. I think philosophical anarchism is the really the only morally responsible position. I don't care what the law is, I am bound by what is morally right. And I'd prefer if most people were likewise. State sponsored slavery would have gone away a lot faster if people felt no automatic legal obligation and instead felt a moral demand. I can't assume a position as a totally responsible morally blameworthy member of society as long as I'm willing to give the state a strange power to be able to override an individuals will or moral sense. I am not saying that anyone is always allowed to deviate from the agreed upon societal contract, but if I feel I should, if it's morally required of me on some level, citing, 'well it was the law,' is not an adequate defense.. A lot of institutions, the military for one, value highly instant, unthinking obedience. And while tactically, that is a strength, undoubtedly, morally, that is a weakness.. The number of examples of where things would have been better by having someone say, "Um, no, this is jut wrong," is longer than I can imagine..

i would like to comment on the heath care. i bet the best person to be most concerned & responsible for one's well-being is the owner of the body himself.. who else should really care?

I appreciate the way you cleared up anarchism. people tend to think that anarchism is like the purge but forget than gandhi was an archaist.

Episode on Anarchism PLEASE!!!

More accents, pls. Just. All the accents.

... I have to say that this video has some odd "suggested videos" along the side. I suppose one quick explanation/example you can give to people about whether they "obey the law" according to these philosophical outlines would be to ask if they report every instance of crime they ever see, including people possessing marijuana, underage smoking, or parking violations. If you obey the law you are also conscientiously obliged to report infractions. If you obey the law because you morally believe that the laws set by your government are all there to protect the people, aren't you also morally obliged to report all violations of the law in order to protect people? I think Kant would agree if he could have found the law to be completely and objectively moral. Anyway, I can't wait for next week's episode and I'm so excited that you're thinking of doing one on vaccinating children at some point! Oh, and is Hume ever anything but a philosophical rockstar?

What about a Rawlsian conception of the social contract and his veil of ignorance?

Like the vid! Puzzled by prioritizing due to self neglect. That health care waiting list should be down to the urgency to relieve a condition based on life extension then the easing of pain (regardless how that latter is measured). As for smokers and drinkers: that is a redundant argument due to the tax levied on such goods of consumption. VAT is paid on most goods. These taxes should have already been calculated to accommodate the administration cost of indulgence. Raising taxes to benefit a third party consideration is (or: should be) illegal - i.e.: parking fines to compensate for shortfalls in local authority budgets. Sorry: any act that is not voluntary should be made illegal where a lawsuit should be pending to compensate that aggrieved party (be it state or private). Similar to that argument to umbrella the defense budget to protect the people (on a superficial level: it probably is seen that way): so too the health service and its many branches need to prolong the lives of those tax payers funding it (it belongs to them: not to the state; or, those hoping to pay less taxes if the sick - voluntary or not - were allowed to just die). The young and able have no moral compass to guide them. That's why their mortality rate in activities is so much higher than any other group - excluding the elderly and their lack of protection (back to infancy with no caregiver to watch over them).

still waiting on that video on anarchism

I was dying when you recited the Hume quote 😂

4:43 The answer to Hume: yes we can say a peasant has a free choice to leave. Freedom is the lack of coercion. The fact that he thinks it's in his own best interests to stay, or that he's unwilling to undergo the hardship required of a poor peasant leaving his own country doesn't mean he's being coerced to stay. It just means he's weighed his options and made the choice to stay. The vessel analogy doesn't fit: being carried aboard while asleep implies your freedom was infringed to begin with. Being born somewhere can't sensibly be compared to being kidnapped and placed on a ship while you sleep.

PLEASE MAKE A SECOND VIDEO ON ANARCHISM

You got to move to Massachusetts!!!

The argument that existence of political obligations is the same as government legitimacy seems really really iffy to me. Of course the first implies the second, but the opposite does not seem to be true. In fact, it seems rather intuitive that effective law making and enforcing is always content-dependent, and one thing a government must do to be legitimate is to be effective at making laws and enforcing them.

What skills do you develop when you major in philosophy? What kind of careers does it prepare you for ? Strongly considering majoring in Philosophy

Completely off topic. Your images of Locke and Hobbs immediately made me think of Adrian Brody (locke) and Louis C.K. (hobbs)

you really should do an anarchism video! I want to learn more

This might seem a bit fence-sitty but I would air on the side of you do have political obligations but only in so far as those obligations could clearly be shown to be beneficial to and maintaining a system from which everyone benefits. There are a whole heap of problems with this though. Not least that it's almost impossible to determine accurately what's a benefit and what isn't. Many laws exist to protect personal autonomy or to safeguard against undesirable situations. Generally even if it isn't personal interest that causes people to obey the law it's respect for the system as a whole which seems to more or less work and provide them a benefit.

I'm not sure Hobbes thought that we had an obligation to obey the law. He certainly worked with social contracts, but said that forming a Leviathan would both be a good bet and would after that make one obey the law. I can only draw a confused face when people say 'You should obey the law because it is the law'. It's like saying 'You should obey the tautology rules because they are tautology rules'. The only reason I can imagine for these people's motives is that they're naturally cowed and impressed by authority and, quite frankly, use authorities' mandates where others might use critical thinking skills.

Can you please do an episode on Anarchism?

You are very articulate. sharing

I have 3 video suggestions: 1. What is the limit with physical discipline? Children were more obedient when parents used the belt to punish them. They acted the way their parents wanted in fear of the belt. Today, when most people are against using any physical discipline, most kids do not obey their parents. You can see this when kids have meltdowns in stores when they don't get their toys, kids using drugs and alcohol more, etc. If any physical discipline is too much, then are there alternatives? Forcing the child to do a number of push ups when he does something bad, for example. This can be painful for the kid, but only slightly, and it will only make him stronger. 2. Why am I not God? Now just assume God is real for this one, if you don't want to, then don't start a fight about it. For the sake of this comment, I will use the word soul for consciousness. Why is my soul inside of my body? Why is it not in my friend's body? Why did it come into my body at this time, why not 1000 years ago. Why is my soul not in control of God? Did my soul have an equal chance of all other souls out there to be in control of God? 3. If there was a computer program, that recreated the universe exactly, from beginning to the current time, so that you could browse through it, see historical events happen as they actually happened in the past, see how the earth was formed, etc, would it be moral to release this program to the public? I would say no, you could stalk people, invade privacy, etc. But, just say you could only look into the future with this program, and see it as it would happen in real life, then would it be moral to release this to the public? By releasing it, you could depress many people, or make many happy. Now you might say that if someone sees that they die a painful and long death in the future, they could commit suicide before the death happens. So let's just say that you would seem to have full control over your body, but the things predicted in the program would still happen.

Just a thought I had with regards to the defense of the tacet agreement position. If a nation offered emigration subsidies, whereby if you do not wish to obey the law and therefore want to leave the country, you would be assisted and provided with resources to start you on your way to living elsewhere, and after a certain number of years (say 30) you were not eligible to leave the country, would that be an adequate reply to Hume's criticism of this tacet defense? Obviously the education system would have to be good enough to teach people a foreign language and culture, preventing the 'no foreign language or manners' problem. This gives enough time to leave if you wish and ensures you don't just 'leap into the ocean and perish' like Hume suggests you would.

Old video buuuut, social contract theory is presented in kinda a bad light here. Social contract theorists don’t believe that people actually agree to a contract, and most that I’m aware of don’t argue against Hume’s point of the problems with that kind of implicit contract. Rawls, building on Kant, argues that we recognise the need for social cooperation, and thereby the need for a theory of justice to underpin it. Rawls sets out this theory of justice, from which we can conclude that so long as a society confirms to this conception of justice, we have an obligation to obey its rules. Our agreement is not during life - either explicitly nor implicitly - but rather it is a fundamental agreement that we must have while we recognise the benefit of social cooperation (as any ‘rational’ person must).

I am struggling to grasp the exact differences between political authority and political obligation. One apparent difference I've read about is that the former concerns the ruler whereas the latter relates to the ruled or the subjected. But here in the video Olly seems to use the terms interchangeably.... Hmmmm

What about am episode on nietzsche ?

'A vote on every single issue is not going to happen' Why? Although it seems like a strenuous task, there are numerous ways of making it feasible, communocation and data-collection technologies today are so good, that it should be possibe, not only to have a vote on every issue, but also to find the largest concesus possible. Furthermore, anarchists do not advocate a society with no rules, we just think that these rules should not be made in an imposing way. I would recomending reading this journal on direct democracy: www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/Beedham.pdf Criticism aside, I would love to see what thoughts you have on anarchism, in anothet vid.

There are no objective moral obligations, morality is subjective

its hard to think of any universal political obligations where obedience to good governments could be obligated, but it would still be acceptable to disobey and protest bad governments

Abigail saying she wants to make an episode about vaccines and talk about Stuart Mill 6 years later: She makes an episode about vaccines and talks about Stuart Mill

I feel, after much thought, that we should follow the law ALWAYS. This of course assumes you live in a system where the majority of humans (or other persons) can vote, and there exists a way to change the laws in place. To preempt others, yes that means follow distasteful laws like slavery laws, racist laws, anti-LGBT laws, etc. For me the main reason behind this is that I can't help but see that everyone seems to view specific laws differently. Some would say that it was right to disobey racist laws in the south during the civil rights movement. Others point out that its right to disobey conscription/draft laws during the Vietnam war. However, as a moral skeptic, it just seems to be people picking and choosing laws based on personal preferences. I could of course pick and choose the laws I followed, much to the distaste of others. The best compromise is that we follow all the laws, regardless of content. BTW regarding the "no agreement problem", I don't see the issue with saying that the person still agreed. Of course I also hold that any decision made at gunpoint is still a "free choice". This is because I don't believe in freedom in some sort of ultimate sense, nor do I believe that humans are ever free to make a commonsensically "free choice ".

I think that a video on Marx or Althusser would have lots of interest and spark a lot of discussions. Would you be so kind? :)

Thus is excellent! And, like everyone says: great accent. Hej hej Hume!

I would almost consider a "no" answer to be axiomatic...

It's a moral question. A moral person would break the law in order to do good. Not forgetting to factor in the harm the law will do to you. ;)

Imagine if we ever reach transcendence we could create our own universe with their own laws or do all universes have laws underpinning them

*LENGTHY COMMENT* Given that philosophical anarchism (PA) is consistent with obeying the law for other reasons, would an "anarchist state" (sorry it sounds oxymoronic), as big as the United States, function properly? What I am imagining is that the United States could separate into small, sustainable anarchic communities, where everyone in their respective communities follows the law not because it is the law, but because of other reasons, namely maximizing utility. Again, this is consistent with PA. Of course, each community would have its own specific sets of laws. There could be a vegan-anarchist community where using animals is strictly prohibited, but in another community, it might be okay to eat meat. Yet, for an "anarchist state" to work, there must be some over-arching, or general rule that applies to all the communities, and it could say something like this: "Interaction with other communities in ways that disrupt and disrespect the way of living in those communities is strictly prohibited." Of course, to preserve an "anarchist state" that is made up of smaller anarchic communities, there should be a rule, for example, that prohibits one community from taking over another. What I'm really trying to get at is this. If every part of the whole does their part, and maximize happiness in their respective parts, then happiness would be maximized (or unhappiness be minimized) on the bigger scale. If, in each community, every driver obeyed the rules of the road, such that it minimizes car accidents and death/injury stemming from reckless driving, then it would maximize utility in that community, in that sense. So, if every community followed the rules of the road, it would maximize utility on a national scale, in that sense. If every person followed every other law, in that way, it would maximize happiness in every other sense. I recognize a big problem with setting up small, anarchic communities, provided that the general rule above, is followed. Such an "anarchic state" seems to tolerate moral relativism. Surely, in a pluralistic society like the U.S., if it ever separated into smaller, sustainable communities, there will be communities that will tolerate some things, and not others. We can imagine an anarchic community that is racially homogenous, and bans people of different races from living in that community, simply because of their race membership. Homophobia can be unanimously accepted in one community, illegitimate medical practices can be completely legal in some communities, and so on. Thus, besides the suggested rule above (that communities cannot disrupt other communities' way of living), there might be other over-arching rules that every community must follow, so as to protect not just whole communities, but the individuals in those communities. I do acknowledge that this scenario happening in the U.S. is, if not impossible, then really, really highly unlikely. My question is then, by creating more over-arching rules, even if obeying them is consistent with PA, could that "anarchist state" still be considered anarchic? My answer is no, but I've yet to find good reasons for it. I can easily be swayed, if convinced otherwise.

This reminds me of how Socrates, upon being sentenced to death, chose not to try and escape (partly) because (from Wikipedia): "Having knowingly agreed to live under the city's laws, he implicitly subjected himself to the possibility of being accused of crimes by its citizens and judged guilty by its jury." I guess an analogy might be that, if you are a guest in someone else's home, you're obligated to follow their house rules (e.g. no shoes on the carpet), even if you think their rules are stupid. Of course, there are valid objections to this line of reasoning, but just thought I'd mention.

Is Liberty what's left over once the Law has had its say?

In France, you also have to KNOW the law, you can't say "oh I didn't know it was illegal". And if you know about our juridical system 'our "codes") in France , you have to admit it's completely impossible for a citizen who didn't study law in college to know about everything about the codes and even understand . It's way too complex . So can you respect the law if you didn't know about it ? Of course, I'm not talking about major crimes.

11:55 Well people are gonna die either way. It's just a question of how many of the dead people are smokers. RE: risky jobs: Someone's gotta do those jobs. (at least a lot of them.) So me not being a firefighter would just mean someone else takes that position (or, if nobody does, even more people get put at risk.) Which means it's kinda irrelevant who individually has the extra risk, we'll just have like 100 firefighters every year with lung problems. So it's Jones isn't competing with "Smith" but instead competing with "Firefighter" who didn't chose their inherent high risk either. (But for sports, yeah. Afaik porfessional sports people have extra insurance?)

I can finally say I'm an anarchist! At least until I investigate further. It's sort of hard to imagine a case in which following the government's orders overrides other morality.

I would like to see some videos on anarchism. I am an anarchist btw, based on the non-aggression principle.

A discussion I had with a friend without coming to a clear consensus was: By law, is the law a choice or an obligation? Any input would be welcome :D

a government loses its legitimacy when it's civilians become too diverse to b effectively described by the situations in which the law proposes, or when society has evolved beyond the point of effectively being described by the scenarios in which the law proposes to prevent

I'm curious if it would add anything to approach this from a slightly more Sociological angle and ask why people obey the law. Specifically I guess i'm thinking back to an argument my old professor liked to talk about which is the Authority of Convenience. So basically people obey the law when it is most convenient for them, some support being the correlation between poverty and crime, although it's difficult to defend the position that this isn't self-fulfilling. But on a practical level, doesn't the Government just need to make it convenient for a certain proportion of the population of the country to obey the law? Granting it an Authority of Convenience, which I would argue is really the position Westminster politics currently finds itself in in the UK. This is why I say people should at least spoil their ballot instead of not voting, because then you can be counted, then you can say, look! at this proportion of the society who don't want to be represented by any one of the choices available to them, or feel their government lacks transparency or legitimacy. And I suppose the Marxist or Russell Brand add on would be that this threshold of legitimacy, or level of population which needs to find the system convenient is decreased via Alienation, by the break up of Community, of Unions, of Collective Organisation. This makes it easy for Governments to ignore the wishes of the many in the favour of the opinions of the few, and (you can all correct me on this) why Plato (?) considered Democracy as a bad system, because it ignored the wishes of minorities. As you can guess i'm a big advocate of Proportional Representation here in Scotland, and around Europe, cause it breeds coalition, and collaboration. But i'm sorry, i'll stop my political advertising, I guess the general election's getting to me now lol

The background music is a nuisance

I'll go one further. There are some possible laws that you have an obligation to violate BECAUSE they are the law.

If you do happen to make a video on anarchism, please make sure to recognize anarchists with adjectives (anarcho-communists, anarcho-capitalists, anarcho-primitivists). I personally identify as an anarcho-capitalist.

After him replying to the comments on the previous video, I want him to talk about Malthusianism.