Legal and Political Obligation: Classic and Contemporary Texts and Commentary

by George R. Wright

Overview

This book focuses upon the perennial question of the existence and nature of an obligation to obey the law. Leading writers have, at one time or another, emphasized considerations such as gratitude, 'divine ordering,' prudence, contract, autonomy, and utility in seeking to justify, or to deny any justification for, some sort of obligation to obey the positive law. The book provides relevant selections from a sampling of the historical approaches to legal obligation taken by writers such as Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Thoreau, Bentham, Marx and Engels, and Martin Luther King, Jr. These classical discussions are augmented by critical questions and commentary, by independent discussions of the question of legal obligation by a wide range of contemporary writers, and by relevant judicial cases discussing matters such as conscientious objection and civil disobedience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780819185969
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	05/04/1992
Series:	Literature and Culture
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

R. George Wright is Professor at the Cumberland School of Law, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama.

Editorial Reviews

Professor Wright combines a disciplined use of original sources with compact intelligible commentary in a source book of great practical value. His questions are provocative and his style is clean and readable.

Charles E. Rice

With this book, the teacher and student have at hand everything they need for a thoughtful study of one of the central issues of political theory.

Christopher Wolfe

A splendid set of readings covering the field from Plato onwards, with very helpful notes from an editor expert both in legal and in moral philosophy.

John Leslie