In analyzing the durability of liberal democracies over time, it is essential to understand how substantive institutional and legal changes are enacted, and how democracies endure internal revolutions without collapsing. Jurgen Habermas and Michael Walzer believe civil disobedience to be a vital instrument of revolution because it calls attention to injustice and facilitates systemic change. Herbert Storing rejects this principle, denouncing civil disobedience as a means to subvert institutional solutions to unjust legislation and degrade constitutional order. Habermas and Walzer dispute Storing’s condemnation of non-violent direct action, defending civil disobedience as an inherently democratic process that advances systems of governance, …show more content…
The author claims that within representative nations, citizens owe total respect to the law, even when it does not function in their favor. Storing therefore implores, that citizens must follow the law, even if it oppresses them, or strips them of their natural rights; otherwise the entire democratic structure is threatened. He suggests civil disobedience is “exercised because the subject cannot or will not take up the rights and duties of the citizen.” Storing’s theory finds the only means by which the system in place should be changed is through citizen’s active participation in the democratic system. Accordingly, voting, running for office, and reaching out to elected officials are some of the only solutions Storing provides for addressing unjust law or entrenched inequalities that target underrepresented communities. The author dismisses civil disobedience as a “guerilla warfare” tactic used to subvert just law, when in reality, disobedience is the democratic solution to infiltrating historic systems of oppression designed to legally exclude minorities and prevent them from gaining a …show more content…
Walzer’s critique of Storing refutes a conceptualization of civil disobedience as “a feeble guide to action,” rather Walzer argues when “law is overextended,” and when disobedience is employed with moral intentions for group benefit, disobeying is a justifiable action that does not evade the law. Civil disobedience exposes oppressive systems of control and refutes tyranny of the masses on the grounds of moral democracy. Directly contrasting Storing law-abiding condemnation of disobedience , Walzer defends direct action “against the state” when individuals group primacy does not lie with the government. Whereas Storing argues citizens should refrain from unlawful direct action, Walzer is fundamentally contradictory, defending disobedience as a process that is morally just and fundamental to democratic legitimacy. It enables dissent when legal systems restricts a person from exercising their rights fully, and often requires actions against the state to ameliorate
Civil disobedience spawns a major and widely debated issue by many who established by well-known intelligent scholars and many examples of civil disobedience become displayed. The acts of civil disobedience can be noted in major works such as Sophocles?s Antigone, King?s ?Letter from Birmingham Jail?, or even from Plato?s ?from Crito?. A specific claim exemplified throughout these works make that civil disobedience races in gaining popularity and should remain allowed, and continued to be seen as a solution to reform poorly established laws. A claim represented is, civil disobedience is right. Rhetorically, appeals such as credibility, logic and emotion can provide support for these claims.
“All machines have their friction―and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil… But when the friction comes to have its machine… I say, let us not have such a machine any longer” (Thoreau 8). In Henry David Thoreau’s essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” the author compares government to a machine, and its friction to inequity. He believes that when injustice overcomes a nation, it is time for that nation’s government to end. Thoreau is ashamed of his government, and says that civil disobedience can fight the system that is bringing his country down. Alas, his philosophy is defective: he does not identify the benefits of organized government, and fails to recognize the danger of a country without it. When looked into, Thoreau’s contempt for the government does not justify his argument against organized democracy.
When a citizen abides by the social contract, they initially agree to enter and be a participant of a civil society. The contract essentially binds people into a community that exists for mutual preservation. When a person wants to be a member of civil society, they sacrifice the physical freedom of being able to do whatever they please, but they gain the civil freedom of being able to think and act rationally and morally. Citizens have what is called prima facie obligation to obey the laws of a relatively just state. A prima facie duty is an obligation that we should try to satisfy but that can be overridden on occasion by another, stronger duty. When it comes to prima facie duty, this duty can be outweighed by a higher order obligation or
Civil disobedience has its roots in one of this country’s most fundamental principles: popular sovereignty. The people hold the power, and those entrusted to govern by the people must wield
In a democracy, people choose representatives to lead and govern. However, these representatives might take unpopular steps. In such instances, the people may show their disapproval of a policy and vent their grievances through acts of civil disobedience. Henry Thoreau said, “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.” It is both the right and responsibility of a person to fight an unjust law, and civil disobedience allows one to convey his thoughts and ideas in a passive, nonviolent way.
William Smith, Democracy, Deliberation and Disobedience (Paper presented at the UK Association for Legal and Social Philosophy Annual Conference, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, April 2003).
There are many features of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience according to Rawls must be political in nature; agents engaged in civil disobedience must be appealing to a “common conception of justice”. It is aimed at changing the law, thus, it is a method requiring political engagement. The goal of this is to bring the law into conformity with the theory of justice. In order to make it a particularly clear case of rejecting the ou...
In our country’s history, Civil Disobedience has had positive effects upon legislation and societal norms. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states five basic forms of expression that are to be protected by the government: Speech, Press, Assembly, Religion, and Petition. The Founders, in essence, created a means by which the average citizen can achieve political and social change. Justice William J. Brennan Jr. stated in 1989 that, “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that government cannot prohibit the expression of an idea simply because the society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”* When citizens speak out or
Civil disobedience is the refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to induce change in governmental policy or legislation, characterized by the use of passive resistance or other nonviolent means. The use of nonviolence runs throughout history however the fusion of organized mass struggle and nonviolence is relatively new.
One of the most well-known uses of civil disobedience was done by Dr. Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century. Dr. King and his colleagues would meticulously question what laws they would violate while preparing for the consequences that would come whether physical, psychological, or spiritual. In Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he addresses the criticism that his actions are “unwise and untimely.” The significance of this letter is King’s calm, yet powerful tone and the fact that this is a dialogue between two religious leaders who believe and practice the same faith. From this letter, people can understand how dedicated King was to his cause.
Justice is often misconceived as injustice, and thus some essential matters that require more legal attentions than the others are neglected; ergo, some individuals aim to change that. The principles of civil disobedience, which are advocated in both “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. to the society, is present up to this time in the U.S. for that purpose.
Chenoweth, Erica, and Maria J. Stephan. 2011. Why Civil Resistance Works : The Strategic Logic of
After spending a night in jail for his tax evasion, he became inspired to write “Civil Disobedience.” In this essay, he discusses the importance of detaching one’s self from the State and the power it holds over its people, by refraining from paying taxes and putting money into the government. The idea of allowing one’s self to be arrested in order to withhold one’s own values, rather than blindly following the mandates of the government, has inspired other civil rights activists throughout history, such as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King , Jr. Both these men fought against unjust laws, using non-violent, yet effective, methods of protest.
Suber, Peter. " Civil Disobedience." Earlham College, 1999. Web. 18 Dec. 2013. .
----- "Civil Disobedience" from A World of Ideas - Essential Readings for College Readers, Lee A. Jacobus, Bedford Books, 1998, 1849(123 -146)