The question I have been asked is: Must one always obey the laws? The first thing to say is that clearly this is not a legal question. By that I mean that you cannot answer the question by saying: but the law says you must. For then your questioner comes back with: and why must I obey that law ? The situation is rather like that of the pilot of a plane or the captain of a ship. The crew and passengers do not obey the pilot or the captain merely because he tells them to. Nor do they do it simply because he is a powerful man and would make them sorry if they didn't. Rather they obey him because they think he has a right to tell them what to do. He has the right because he holds a position of authority. Obeying a government is so like the situation of obeying a pilot, that in fact the word government derives from the Latin word for steering a ship. One obeys a government not simply because of its power, but because of its authority; and it does not get this authority simply by saying that it has it. You do not obey laws simply because the laws say that you must. Why then do you ?

We might ask what gives the captain of a ship his position of authority. There are two answers to this, because there are two questions hidden in it. If we mean, how did it come about that this particular man is filling this position of authority, then the answer would be that he was chosen by the legally approved methods.