Activism can be defined as the efforts people make to bring about political or social change. Activism can take many forms, some peaceful and others violent. A social ethic of activism is one in which the actors make a choice about how to respond to their surrounding social and political environment and how to engage with existing power structures. After defining the social ethic of activism and providing an overview of activism within the context of the social sciences, this entry discusses the role ethics and morality play in activism and examines the differences between the ethics of peaceful and violent forms of activism.

For social scientists, ethics is not a set of principles that exist only at an abstract level, but something that can be ...