The first part of the previous chapter dealt with the question of the conditions that a political system must meet in order for the duty to obey to apply to its laws. However, as we already know, the fact that a political system meets these conditions and that the duty to obey indeed applies to its laws doesn't mean that this duty dictates obedience every time it applies, or under any circumstances. The duty to obey the law is not, and cannot be, an absolute duty. It is a duty that may sometimes be overriden by other moral considerations. What are these considerations? What weight do they carry relative to that of the duty to obey the law? These are the questions that will occupy the present chapter. My answers to them will form a theory of the limits of the duty to obey.

I cannot offer complete answers to the two questions posed above. A full answer to the first question, i.e. which considerations justify disobedience, depends on the answer to yet another question: which value system should one adopt. An attempt to reply to this last question goes far beyond the scope of this book. Here, I shall point out the considerations that justify disobedience, so far as these follow from the inner logic of the foundations of the duty to obey discussed by the previous chapters.