Arguments For Civil Disobedience

Despite the historical acceptance of civil disobedience, there is no universally accepted definition. For this argument, we will adopt a concept of civil disobedience that is characterized by a specific set of criteria; the act must be “nonviolent, open and visible, illegal, and done with the moral purpose to protest an unjust law” ( ). In this way, “mere dissent”, “protest”, or “disobedience” for the law does not qualify. A proponent for civil disobedience would suggest that there are situations in which this form of protest is necessary for society; however, there are many opponents of it who claim that it is unjustified. Ancient philosophers, like Socrates, believed that there could be no moral justification for civil disobedience. Socrates

The first assumption is the definition of what civil disobedience is. Again, there is no universally accepted concept of what civil disobedience is and this is not what the essay is meant to argue. From this point forward we will embrace the idea that civil disobedience is an act of willfully, morally, and nonviolently disobeying the law to convey a public message. The second assumption we must recognize is that all points of this argument regard a reasonably just and moral society that would normally espouse the compliance of laws. What must also be recognized is that while there may be strong moral obligations to follow our subjective and personal rules or laws, there is no moral obligation to follow federal laws in general, so when the government requires a man to “resign his conscience to the legislator” (Thoreau 2), to disobey then becomes his moral

Morality is created through government. Nothing about morality is divine or natural; instead, morality appears when rational, self-interested people realize that they can “best further their separate interests by agreeing to abide by certain rules, prescribing cooperation and mutual restraint” ( ). Governments, specifically democratic governments, are founded on a stipulated set of moral agreements that create a social contract. of course, governments are only able to follow this contract when all participating parties are capable of preserving an integrity to the contract; however, there is nothing fundamentally real about this morality that arises. Morality just suddenly becomes real as soon as a number of people agree that it is. This is because once we have agreed to particular rules, which is essentially what morality is, those rules become real and binding. This also means that morality can change. If people, as a group, change their minds, then they can simply modify the contract; this happens when we alter laws or when social norms shift. For example, when I was young, being gay was frowned upon, but now homosexuality is almost universally accepted; the morality of society shifted. As citizens, people have a responsibility to uphold their moral standards and to bring attention to anything that would violate their conscience, and civil disobedience is a