Civil Disobedience

Unjust Laws

The intended end of civil disobedience is not to overthrow regimes thought to be illegitimate. A civil disobedient voluntarily submits to sanctions and merely seeks to raise the level of social consciousness about the unjust nature of state laws. Covert action motivated by the same reason, on the contrary, consists of acts of conscientious evasion. Civil disobedience draws attention not only to the action itself but also to the reasons for disobedience. It is a political act, addressed to those who hold political power, and it aspires to influence their appreciation of what is just law. The motivation, therefore, is to invoke commonly shared conceptions of justice rather than those grounded in group or self-interest. In this sense, civil disobedience differs from militant action: A disobedient does not deny fidelity to an otherwise just system. A militant, on the other hand, outrightly denies that there exist any shared conceptions of justice; she is much more deeply opposed to the existing political system than to any particular law in the system.

Civil disobedience as an appeal to a higher level of justice is not against all unjust or immoral law. It must be a case of substantial injustice based on principles commonly shared by the political majority. Examples would include the denial of the right to vote to ethnic or cultural minorities or the right to hold office or the right to practice one's religion. It is also imperative that the political minority, appealing to higher conceptions of shared justice, uses all other available means of legal and political redress. It should try negotiation, protests, demonstrations, and other forms of political activity to engage with the majority. It should resort to civil disobedience when appeals to the majority for accommodating the claims of the minority have proved futile.

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