Summary: The Justification Of Civil Disobedience

Human’s are and have always been flawed, imperfection is part of the human experience. Following this logic anything built by humen cannot be perfect, being made by human hands. This extends to the systems of government that men form whether we consider them good and just or not. Many of these imperfections have shown themselves over time and in response people have turned to civil disobedience. At what point can we turn against the government by disobeying the law under the idea of civil disobedience? One may use civil disobedience when there is a unjust law hurting society which is under all other conditions ignored. To be civil disobedience a demonstrations need to do only what is necessary to raise unavoidable awareness, which by

Martin Luther King being among them. All of these great thinkers stated that there must be a wrong in need of repair to call for such drastic actions. Rawls, in The Justification of Civil Disobedience, talks of what makes these wrongs or unjust laws by talking about what creates a just law. His view of just was routed strongly in equality which means unjust laws would be something that by nature or in application deviates from the equal treatment of people. Because the government is often dictated by the will of the majority King and Rawls would agree that injustice effects the minority of a society heavily and unequally. In a law this can mean it is only applicable to, only applied to, or was written without the consent of, the

It is a large step to take because it is violating the institution that gives you so many of the benefits you willingly accept, an institution that as Socrates, as written by Plato, thought essentially raised you. The harm, then, of the unjust law must out weigh the harm disobedience causes society. After all an unjust law being a product of the system as a whole is still a law and defying it like defying any law can hurt the weight we give laws causing a greater harm to society than one incident might generate in isolation. Therefore we must as Plato, and Rev. King state, take the consequences of breaking the unjust law laid out by the governing body, just or not. This can create a bigger splash gathering more attention, defining the seriousness of the situation at hand while protecting society from further cutting the social fabric binding us together. This protection of society leads naturally to the necessity of civil disobedience’s nonviolent nature. The aim is to persuade the majority there is a harm to be fixed and avoided, not to cause the majority harm. The need and drive created by out “natural duty” to foster just establishments is here separated from anger and