But an intuitive definition for Law usually is "obeys the law" or "respects the law". These seem intuitive, but their opposites do not unless we want insane Chaotic characters, which some past editions encouraged. "Disrespects the law" is almost OK for Chaos, but what does that mean in practice? I still think you end up with "LOL I'll do want I want" as a justifiable interpretation.
Obeying the law is only part of what lawful can be. I just posted this in another alignment thread and it comes from the 3e alignment section.
"Lawful characters tell the
truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it. “Law” implies
honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include closemindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should."
"A lawful neutral character acts as
law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Ember, a monk who follows her discipline without being swayed either by the demands of those in need or by the temptations of evil, is lawful neutral."
I think the reason is that, in real life, there aren't any "real" Chaotic societies (I'll explain below). But since the 1st Edition of the Monster Manual, elves have been canonically Chaotic Good. That's a rather important group of demi-humans to not fully understand their default alignment!
I'm going to disagree with that statement. Laws are necessary for any large society to function. The presence of necessary laws doesn't transform the society to lawful. You have to look at the fundamental beliefs of the society in question, because those beliefs will run throughout the laws of that society.
Take America. We have many laws, but fundamental to those laws, and in fact in our greatest set of laws(the Constitution) is the idea that freedom and individuality are to be protected. Freedom of expression. Freedom of religion. Freedom of the press. Freedom from persecution over individuality(age, gender, etc.). The right to choose. The right of individuals to vote. And more. America would be in my opinion a CG society.
So to get a useable definition of Chaos, we also need to refine Law as a subtle reworking of the "respect" concept. I propose the following:
A Lawful person accepts the legitimacy of law that is external to themselves; a Chaotic person does not.
I'm not sure I agree with this, either. You can accept the legitimacy of law, while chafing under the restrictiveness of those laws. Traffic laws are like that. Many ignore them, but we still for the most part obey the majority or don't break them by much, not because we are lawful, but because the cops will ticket us if we don't. We also understand, even if we don't like them, the legitimacy of those laws.
A lawful person follows the laws, because he believes in the order and stability that they represent. Society would fall apart without them, so they are necessary and good.
A chaotic person follows the laws primarily because he has to, or in some cases because they match his beliefs(freedom of expression).
This definition is close to respect, but slightly different. It says that one can recognize the legitimacy of a body coming together to determine their laws, whether or not you agree with the outcome. For example, I'm sure we can all think of countries whose laws we do not admire. But do you then think those countries and their laws are illegitimate? I imagine there could be a few of these, but in general, we let sovereign countries be sovereign and run their internal affairs. In other words, we follow the Rule of Law as it's known in political science. So a Lawful person follows their own country's laws, even if some of them seem unjust. That same Lawful person would express disapproval of another country's laws by not traveling there or by biting their tongue.
A lawful person can express disapproval of bad laws in his own country. He doesn't have to follow the laws blindly. If he feels a law is a bad one, he might go through the proper procedures to try and get it overturned.
So what does it mean for a Chaotic person to not view "external" laws as legitimate? Simple--only their own internal laws are legitimate, their "code". A Chaotic Good person understands that others have their own codes and they are legitimate for them. A Chaotic Neutral person values their code above all, and is not concerned whether or not it infringes on the agency of others. Note that this definition allows the Chaotic Neutral to not be a lunatic! They could even fit into a Lawful society, never respecting it but discretely carrying out their code whenever possible. Finally, I think this definition gets us very close to the tradition definition of Chaotic Evil: a person who respects neither agency nor the legitimacy of any law. In all these cases, I don't think any of these Chaos alignments correspond to any real human society. Our definition of "society" presupposes a minimum level of Law.
Have an internal code of conduct is generally a lawful behavior. Lawful, as I showed above, doesn't have to mean that you follow the laws of the land. It can be a code as well.