A first-class introduction to a common jurisprudence question: Is the injustice of a law a sufficient reason to release a citizen from an obligation to obey it?

This essay will argue that the injustice of a law can be a sufficient reason to release a citizen from an obligation to obey it. In working toward that conclusion, this essay will make a number of related arguments. It will argue that one's view as to the situations in which injustice will prove a sufficient reason to release citizens from their obligations to obey the law depends on i) the view one takes of the ways in which a law can be said to be valid, ii) the view one takes of the grounds for law's legitimate authority, iii) the conception of justice one adopts, and iv) the overall justice of the legal system to which the law belongs. Answers to the question of the effects of injustice are important because, in exploring the implications of our beliefs, they help us chart the logical space around us. This, in turn, allows us to understand where we can go—and how to get there.

In its first part, this essay will show why an answer to the question of the effects of injustice on the obligations of citizens to obey laws is conceptually downstream from one's understanding of legal validity and of law's legitimate authority, thereby situating the question within broader debates in jurisprudence. In the second part, this essay will consider how law's authority can be said to be legitimate, endorsing a particular framework for the justification of most citizens' obligations to obey most laws. It will then, in the third part, show how adopting a wider or a narrower conception of justice affects one's view as to the effects of a law's injustice on obligations to obey it. In the fourth and final part, this essay will bring all these factors together and analyse how the demands of justice can sometimes be sufficient to defeat the different reasons for citizens' obligations to obey a law.

Throughout this essay, the thesis that the injustice of a law can be a sufficient reason to release a citizen from an obligation to obey it will be referred to as the 'Sufficient Injustice Thesis' ('SIT').