Part of an ongoing discussion:
Any man who stops at a red light at midnight, and, even though no traffic is near and no cops are around, thinks it better to wait for the light to change acknowledges that some laws are prudent and just. A law that is prudent and just deserves our obedience even when it cannot compel that obedience.
We can start to construct what makes legitimate authority different from illegitimate. One of the factors is justice of the law. I suggest another is fairplay in execution. I regard it as legitimate to strike down a good law if the enforcement of that law is unfair: to this day we call a law “Draconian” if there no proportion between the severity of the breach and the severity of the punishment.
The case of the redlight is one where you are even will to obey a law because it is in general just, and you, and I assume all honest men, are unwilling to make an exception merely because no one is looking and no one is likely to be harmed. The case here is one where we have attempted to develop in ourselves a habit of obedience.
Again, I know of no man who would not run a red light if some valid emergency pressed him (rushing his wife to the maternity ward, for example) and the danger to others were small. The Draconian enforcement of the traffic laws in such cases would undermine the authority of the traffic laws.
Again, in real life, I was the only man I knew who always drove the speed limit. When I moved to DC, I realized that such obedience put my family in danger, because the people around me were routinely driving 40 miles over the speed limit. You see, the town decided to lower the speed limit not to serve a legitimate aim of traffic safety, but as a money making scheme. As is natural, the people lost respect for a law made for reasons that were not legitimate: and it was quite painful for me to break faith with the law, and I resent being put into the position where I am required to make a choice between family safety and legality. Were I ever to earn a speeding ticket, however, I would not flourish my Gadsden flag and exchange gunfire with the traffic cop: for HE is still legitimate in my eyes, even if the law he enforces is less than legitimate. But it is a bad law, because it encourages disrespect for law, and decreases rather than increases traffic safety (because cars going 70 have no real reason not to go 80).
So another factor in our contemplation of what makes for legitimate authority is whether or not that authority habituates us to virtue. An authority who, either because of bad laws or bad enforcement, encourages and urges and rewards me to develop bad habits, or makes me craven, selfish, vicious or treacherous in order to prosper, can be dismissed as an illegitimate authority.
Allow me to suggest a radical thought: we obey the authorities set over us for several reasons. First, because we love the authorities and we trust that our good is their aim. This certainly describes my relationship with my own father. I can of more than one teacher or professor whom I still love decades later.
Second, there are causes we love, and even if we mistrust the authorities, we love the cause the exercise of authority is a prudent necessity to serve. For example, no recruit loves his drill sergeant, and military discipline does not aim at the good of the serviceman, but of the kingdom of whom he is a subject or republic of which he is a citizen. He obeys at least on the whole because he loves his king or kingdom, or loves his republic and home.
Third, there are authorities that we trust, even if we do not love them, and we see obedience as prudent. If I am staying in a hotel, and there are rules about making noises or walking on the grass or which hour to check out, I obey these rules in part because I consent to the terms of the rental of the room, but also in part because I trust that the hotel maitre d’ and manager knows more about how to run a hotel than I do, and that some of these rules benefit me.
Fourth, some obedience seems provisionally prudent, that is, we obey traffic laws (or even rules of grammar) in part because everyone else is obeying them, and the unity of obedience is efficient, and the efficiency helps the common good.
Fifth, there are commands issued by enemies because and only because we fear them, as when a highwayman flourishes a pistol and demands our money, or a conqueror demand we worship him as a god, and we call the folk destroyed for their disobedience heroes and martyrs even if we call them fools. In this case, the obedience is only a matter of prudence for the sake of self preservation, and not for the sake of whatever cause or motive the enemy serves.
Any given circumstances can be found where one or more of these motives is in play, and even reasonable men do not know where prudence and loyalty rests. Even a criminal surrendering to a policeman, or a tax evader hauled before the IRS acknowledges some legitimacy to the authority punishing him, and even a rebel admits that the tyrant against whom he mutinies serves some legitimate good, even if the evil outweighs the good.
Sixth, and not to be overlooked, sometimes we obey the law because it is beautiful. As a lawyer who has deeply studied in common law, I am constantly amazed as how beautiful they are, and by this I mean the aesthetic appeal of their symmetry and fitness for their use; and consequently I am disgusted, like a nature lover disgusted with a factory, at the clumsiness of administrative regulation, which has none of the elegance and beauty of well made law.
