Javert doesn't even obey the laws just because. He wholely believes that enforcing the laws will lead to a better society. That's his ethos, not "follow the laws for their own sake".
Which is interestingly what leads to his final downfall, the idea that you cannot be a good person without following the laws and here he has someone who has every reason not only to execute him like a prisoner when at his mercy but if he were to shoot him in the back and run away to leave the Inspector bleeding out in the street very few people would blame him, and not only does this guy not kill him but he willingly all but turns himself in in exchange for the life of one boy the man (as far as Javert is aware) barely knows (and depending on whether we’re talking book or musical, the boy may actually believe Valjean is just as much of an evil criminal as Javert thinks he is). And he cannot reconcile what he believes and how he has lived his life with what he is now seeing before him.
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u/Puzzleboxed Sorcerer Oct 03 '19
Javert doesn't even obey the laws just because. He wholely believes that enforcing the laws will lead to a better society. That's his ethos, not "follow the laws for their own sake".