When one lives in a society, s/he has to be subject to the law. Society denotes social and political structures which are considered to curb the evils and protect the individuals’ lives equally. In other words, “the bonds of words are too weak to bridle men’s ambition, avarice, anger, and other passions, without the fear of some coercive power; which in the condition of mere nature, where all men are equal, and judges of the justness of their own fears, cannot possibly be supposed.” If the law and order, which are revealed through culture and modernity, do not exist, that territory will not be called a human society. A multitude of reasons and arguments are expressed, throughout the history, by great philosophers, thinkers, sociologist, lawyers, etc. to prove the force behind the laws. Therefore, executive powers impose laws on citizens. It is aptly said, “The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no justice. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.”
An idea suggests that morality is the very motivating force behind obeying the law and no other reasons can be superior. However, the next idea considers self-preservation a reason behind it. Based on this idea, men obey the law to be protected from harm and danger and their properties and lives be secured. Naturally, men do good to gain benefits if not in the world, maybe in the hereafter. In short, men pursue their benefits, they obey law either to avoid punishment or to gain a high social status. One more idea, which is highly significant and controversial, is the social contract – that will be explained shortly.
When Socrates was offered to escape from prison, he said that he could not ethically do anything harmful to any entity. In his view, the laws demonstrate that for any citizen to break the law is to do harm to an entity that deserves special respect and gratitude. Crito offers Socrates a way to escape his impending execution. Socrates refuses, explaining that when a citizen chooses to live in a state, he has entered into an implied contract that he will do as the laws command him. Socrates believed that the most important reason why escape from prison would be wrong was that it would be a breach of a “just agreement” he had with Athens. He considered his obligations under the implied agreement as analogous to the duties of a son toward his father. The state, like a father, begat Socrates, nurtured, educated and protected him and told him when he reached the age of maturity that he could either leave and escape, be obedient to all the city’s law.
When Socrates had been found guilty, he made it clear that the legitimate legal authorities had spoken and that he must obey their command. He may have been falsely accused; nevertheless, the Athenian legal system was the backbone of the Athenian state and had to be respected. Socrates believed that he had been found guilty by “the laws”, and that the sentence should be carried out, even though the lawmakers had acted immorally in his case.
Socrates was the first who implied the social contract. The social contract argued against the idea that monarchs were divinely empowered to legislate. Rousseau asserts that only the people, who are sovereign, have that all-powerful right. The stated aim of the social contract is to determine whether there can be a legitimate political authority even though living in isolation.
Thomas Hobbes famously said that in the “state of nature”, human life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. In the absence of political order and law, everyone would have unlimited natural freedoms, including the “right to all things”. Thus, the freedom to plunder, rape, and murder; there would be an endless “war of all against all”. To avoid this, free men contract with each other to establish political community namely civil society through a social contract in which they all gain security in return for subjecting themselves to an absolute sovereign, one man or an assembly of men.
Hobbes saw absolute government as the only alternative to the terrifying anarchy of a state of nature. Alternatively, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, have argued that we gain civil rights in return for accepting the obligation to respect and defend the rights of others, giving up some freedoms to do so.
According to Hobbes, citizens are not obligated to submit to the government when it is too weak to act effectively to suppress civil unrest. According to other social contract theorists, citizens can withdraw their obligation to obey or change the leadership, through elections or other means when the government fails to secure their natural rights or satisfy the best interest of society.
Unlike Hobbes, Locke believed that individuals in a state of nature would be bound morally, by the law of nature, not to harm each other in their lives or possession. However, without government to defend them against those seeking to injure or enslave them, people would have no security in their rights and would live in fear. Locke argued that individuals would agree to form a state that would to protect the lives, liberty, and property of those who lived within it.
So, we are subject to the law for one reason or the other. Since governments provide security and facilities for citizens, they are responsible to obey the law in return for all they get from the governments. One, who breaks the law, has to be punished for hurting the others’ feelings or causing a disorder in the society.