1 Final Draft. Published 2017 in: C. Rostbøll and T. Scavenius (eds.): Compromise and Disagree- ment in Contemporary Political Theory. London: Routledge (pp. 50-62). Compromise and the Value of Widely Accepted Laws Fabian Wendt Abstract: The article defends the claim that if some laws are (or would be) widely accepted, this provides pro tanto moral reasons to support these laws and not to support otherwise bet- ter laws that are not widely accepted. In that sense the value of having widely accepted laws provides moral reasons to make compromises in politics, and it justifies a modest and quali- fied status quo bias. Widely accepted laws are valuable because they reduce enforcement costs, have symbolic value, help to maintain peace, and realize the value of non-subjugation. Keywords: Compromise, Acceptance, Law, Status Quo Bias, Non-Subjugation Politicians often have moral reasons to make compromises. One value that provides such rea- sons is the value of having widely accepted laws. Assume you think that law X would be the morally best (most just, efficient etc.) law, while law Y is actually in place and widely accept- ed. My claim is that the fact that Y is widely accepted is a pro tanto reason to keep it in place and hence to make a compromise by supporting it in one way or another. The same holds when law Y is not actually in place, but is expected to be widely accepted if enacted, while law X is actually in place, but is not widely accepted. Again I claim that this fact provides a pro tanto reason to make a compromise by supporting or voting for Y, even though you think law X would be the better law. The argument proceeds in five steps. I start with a background distinction between two levels in the moral evaluation of laws (section 1). This distinction is important in order to un- derstand how it is even possible to have moral reasons to make compromises in politics. In the next section I clarify what I mean by ‘acceptance of laws’. I distinguish acceptance from re- lated notions like acceptability, public justifiability, tacit consent, obedience, conformity and recognition (section 2). Then I present several reasons why having widely accepted laws is valuable (section 3): widely accepted laws reduce enforcement costs, they have symbolic val- ue because widely accepted laws tend to be publicly justifiable laws, they are helpful for keeping peace, and they realize the intrinsic value of non-subjugation (to a greater extent than not widely accepted laws). I then discuss two objections (section 4), and I explain how and why the value of having widely accepted laws provides moral reasons to compromise and in what sense this vindicates a status quo bias (section 5).