Why should you obey the law? A legal philosopher offers a surprising new answer.

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Joseph Raz, a giant of 20th-century jurisprudence, argued that law is only truly authoritative when it helps us do what we ought to do better than we could on our own. This service conception of authority challenges our understanding of why governments hold power and how law functions in society.

Born in 1939 in Mandate Palestine, Joseph Raz became a leading architect of contemporary legal positivism. His intellectual journey began at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he famously corrected a mistake in a paper by the renowned British philosopher H.L.A. Hart. Impressed, Hart invited him to Oxford, where Raz earned his doctorate in 1967 and eventually became a central figure in legal and moral philosophy. Over a career spanning decades at institutions like Oxford, Columbia, and King’s College London, Raz produced influential works such as The Morality of Freedom and The Authority of Law.

At the heart of Raz’s legal theory is the 'sources thesis.' He argued that the existence and content of law must be determined by social facts—such as legislative enactments or royal proclamations—rather than moral arguments. This approach recasts the command tradition of thinkers like Hobbes and Bentham, asserting that law provides 'exclusionary reasons' for action. By establishing authority through social sources, law allows subjects to settle issues without needing to re-evaluate the underlying moral reasons for every directive. If the law’s content depended on controversial moral debates, it could not effectively serve its subjects.

Raz’s 'service conception' of authority posits that law is only genuinely authoritative when it improves our ability to act rightly. While many laws may fail this demanding standard, the framework provides a rigorous way to evaluate political legitimacy. Beyond legal theory, Raz was a champion of perfectionist liberalism, arguing that political institutions are justified by their contribution to human well-being. He believed that well-being depends on the successful pursuit of objectively valuable goals, which requires the autonomy to navigate the 'social forms'—the roles and practices—that define our lives in a liberal society.

Raz’s legacy is defined by his analytical rigor and his ability to find common ground across philosophical divides. Awarded the $1.3 million Tang Prize in 2018, he was celebrated for providing a magisterial framework for legal studies. Whether through his seminar on legal philosophy or his prolific writing, Raz remained a dedicated teacher and thinker until his death in 2022, consistently pushing the boundaries of how we understand authority, autonomy, and the nature of the law itself.

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