annica, wow, you've raised an interesting topic which has certainly awoken the ghetto philosopher in me. Here are my thoughts, but first let me clarify a couple of things with some distinctions 1. There's a difference between moral and legal. It seems you agree. 2. Skipping red lights is illegal. You've admitted this. So really the question seems to be one of morality. Is jumping red lights immoral or not. I don't think there's an intrinsic immorality in skipping a red light, so it's not comparable to something like murder. But having said that, just because an act isn't immoral in itself doesn't mean it's not immoral for another reason. Consider the law in certain countries being that one should drive on the right hand side of the road, and in other countries one should drive on the left hand side of the road. Whatever a country chooses is entirely arbitrary and morally irrelevant. One cannot say that countries that prefer to drive on the right are morally wrong and countries that prefer to drive on the left are morally superior in virtue of the side they drive. But there is a moral motivation behind picking a side, and that is to maintain order and to avoid confusion which in turn reduces accidents. So while the specifics of the law (left side or right hand side) is arbitrary and morally empty, the motivation is not arbitrary and is morally good. Now if you decide to drive on the wrong side of the road it's not only illegal but immoral too. It's not immoral because the side is intrinsically moral/immoral but because you're defying the principle behind the law, which is maintaining order. So the second distinction is: 1. Some laws directly address a moral obligation, such as do not murder. 2. Other laws indirectly address a moral obligation, such as drive on the left hand side so that order may be maintained. As such merely showing that breaking the law causes no harm isn't sufficient to justify breaking it, because abiding by the law in and of itself is more virtuous than breaking it, because all laws at the very least are for maintaining order. One is only justified in breaking the law if the law violates some fundamental human right or some weightier moral principle, but you've not demonstrated that obliging you to stop at a red right violates a fundamental human right or weightier moral principle, and that is your burden of proof. The burden of proof is not upon us do defend the law with an argument that you would consider convincing. One last thing. There's a rule in politics which states, "Hard cases make bad policy", which is to say that good laws aren't rooted in rare exceptions, but are rooted what's best for most people in most cases. So while you may name a few exceptions to the red light rule such as bike jackings or wobbling when you ride off at a busy intersection those exceptions do not seem to negate the general prudence of stopping at a red light. In other words, in terms of policy making, "Stop at a red light" is an example of good policy making. Bad policy making would be "Stop at a red light except when: you feel unsafe and/or are a really good rider and/or are really observant and/or you're sure there are no cars etc." So to summarise this longer than I had hoped post: 1. While you may not see an intrinsic virtue in a law, the law may have a virtue behind it. 2. All things considered keeping the law is a virtue in and of itself because all laws at the very least maintain order. 3. Being legally obliged to stop at a red light doesn't violate any fundamental human right or weightier moral principle, though I'm sure you'll try to come up with some, in which case 4. 4. Hard cases make bad policy
