Is it immoral to break the law?

Oftentimes, I hear or read statements such as the following:

There should be an instinctive, irrational emotion of disgust to breaking the law of the country, even if it is not right.

What can I answer to that? First of all, I sympathize with the sentiment. I was raised believing the same, and it is still possibly the natural, irration, emotional response in me — a response which I believe, nevertheless, is not intellectually justified. I have a similar response of emotional respect to the "ways of the land", i.e., the customs and manners of the particular community. This is something completely different from the law, and I will not address it in the post, but suffice it to say that I am more sympathetic to such a sentiment.


Secondly, I believe that what, for the most part, determines something to be moral or immoral is G-d's Law, Halacha. Therefore, if something is against Halacha, it is considered to be immoral. I believe I can find sufficient sources (such as Tosfos) to back up my opinion that the halachic principle of dina d'malchusa dina ("the law of the land is the law") applies only to monetary issues. (And even then there are nuances, such as in the cases when the law is clearly unjust — as, one could argue, is the case with the majority of taxes.)

The possibility when something is not against Halacha but is conventionally or logically considered to be immoral is interesting to consider, but is outside the scope of this post. In here, I am going to argue, briefly (since I have devoted many posts to the topic already) that not only is going against the law of the land not immoral, but in fact, in most cases, the idea of the law of the land, as practiced today in most countries is by itself logically, naturally immoral.

Here is my response to the above statement:

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Why should there be an immediate instinctive disgust to breaking the law of the country? I really don’t see it. I disrespect the idea of the government and the laws in general, unless they exist as an extension of people’s natural rights (e.g., to protect themselves — from which you get the government, whose function is to protect people, and the laws, whose goal is to protect people).

I naturally, instinctively, rationally, emotionally abhor tyranny and violation of privacy. I am disgusted by someone telling me whom I should do business with. It violates my natural, G-d–given rights (the idea upon which this country was founded, by the way — so, by supporting this idea, one goes against the fabric of this country’s society, as our current president’s goal is, according to one of his radio interviews from earlier days).

What separates me from anarchists is the belief that minimal government and enforcement (internal and external) are necessary to provide universal protection of the citizens of the society (the idea in support of which the Federalists argued in their Papers, defending Constitution; their opponents, by the way, argued that the Constitution would lead to the circus that exists nowadays, when we live under semi-camouflaged totalitarian regime).

In other words: what I personally disrespect is the idea that one adult can tell another adult how to live his life (unless these instructions come from G-d; but, we are operating outside of Halacha here, right?). Now, the only time that can be permissible is if the second adult is infringing upon the first adult’s rights. So, I don’t have a right to tell you how to dress. But I do have a right to tell you not to steal my pencil, please (that right extends from my right to my pencil). And since I have that right, I have a right to hire a guard who will keep an eye on my pencil to make sure you won’t steal it. If you try to steal it, the guard will prevent it. In this case, he is not telling you what to do with your own life, since you’re actually now infringing on my life.

Next step is both of us hiring the same guard and telling him to protect us from each other. That is the only function of the guard. Here be Rollo.

Now, imagine the guard starts suddenly telling us that we can’t wear clothes of the particular color. Or do business with someone? Or he will force us to educate our children certain way. Or, he will (by force) take money from us to give to someone else. What in the world? First of all, what right does he have? The only right he had to begin with to restrict you from stealing my pencil was my right to protect my pencil. I delegated my right to protect my property to the guard. But since neither I nor anyone else ever had a right to rob another person (or force him to do other things), nobody could delegate such a right to the guard. The guard cannot have such a right in principle. So, if he does any of the said activities, he is just a tyrant and a bully. And supporting him is immoral!


Note that I am not just saying: “eh, law, shmoh, who cares?” I am saying that following the law and government blindly is exactly opposite from a moral behavior.

I am hardly the first one to have such ideas*. There are whole schools out there which explain and defend these ideas, from philosophical to ethical to economic to historical points of view. See also this. [End of response.]

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Clicking on the label "libertarianism", one can open up many more posts that discuss this and other similar issues.

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* In fact, apparently, this philosophy can be traced all the way to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. In recent times, it has been presented by a number of philosophers such as John Locke and really became the basis for the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation, as well as the anti-Federalist (which was really federalist) sentiment in the US Constitution.