Law and Obedience*

Max A. Shepard

American Political Science Review, 1939, vol. 33, issue 5, 783-810

Abstract: He who hungers for an easy formula, resolving all doubts as to “What is law?,” is advised to lay aside this article. I deal in no such magic. For law, even though it is the great principle of order in life, must inevitably share in the uncertainties and paradoxes of the fluid reality it partially canalizes. Indeed—and perhaps better stated—law is merely a specially differentiated phase of life, a type of group activity. The problem of law's nature is tremendously complex, and if a few categories and definitions are here hesitatingly advanced, that is because no analysis is possible otherwise. They are not improvised to avoid examination of the tangled tissue of relationships they attempt to describe. Law I define as those rules of conduct which are generally obeyed. General obedience is a consensus within a given community in support of its rules. In Bentley's terms, the phrase “general obedience” looks at the phenomena as group activity, the phrase “consensus” as opinion activity. Despite the obvious ambiguity of these terms, the reader is requested to quiet his impatience. I may succeed in partially elucidating their meaning.

Date: 1939
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