Analysis Of Civil Disobedience

In “The Justification of Civil Disobedience”, John Rawls says that civil disobedience is done in a public setting and is usually a non-violent protest or act. It is done in a situation where arrest and punishment are expected and accepted without resistance. Each of Rawls key characteristics of civil disobedience helps justify why civil disobedience is consistent with respect for the law. The constitution itself gives every citizen the freedom of speech and therefore for those laws that people find unjust, the people of the nation have the right to speak up and try to have the law changed in order to benefit the public in the best way possible. The actions of civil disobedience are done in a way that is not necessarily disrespecting the law

Therefore, the chief characteristics of civil disobedience are conscientiousness, political motivation, changing the law, publicity, non-violence, and having the expectation and acceptance of arrest of punishment. The conscientiousness comes into play because acts of civil disobedience, are assumed to be done out of the earnest and moral principle rather than being influenced by self or group interest. The motivation of an act of civil disobedience must be political in nature because the people partaking in such acts are appealing to a conception of what is thought to be just. The majority of civil disobedient actions are done with the aim of changing the law in order to have the law followed the requirements of justice. Acts of civil disobedience are often done in public and in a nonviolent way in order to prove that the disobeyers’ only goal is to bring about change to an unjust law rather than creating a chaotic and violent protest. Also those that are participating in acts of civil disobedience should expect and accept the probability of being arrested and punished for committing a crime (Arthur & Shaw, p.63). In a sense going against a specific government or power is going against the law that was put in place and therefore they can be prosecuted. Even though the

The first condition is that if all other ordinary possibilities toward changing the law have been used and has been rejected by the legal institutions and therefore all options have been exhausted and civil disobedience is their last choice of action. The second condition is that acts of civil disobedience should usually target only substantial and clear violations of justice, such as an unjust law about equal liberties and opportunities rather than any law. This condition is very logical because if everyone was allowed to protest every little law that they thought was unjust, but did not make a huge impact on society, the bigger protest would not be seen with as much importance because acts of civil disobedience would be something that would happen on a daily basis. If every law got questioned civil disobedience would be too widespread, and which will ultimately undermine the function of government. Also if they try to protest and change significant laws, typically if successful remaining injustices in the same arena will be rectified as well. The third option is that acts of civil disobedience should be restricted to those cases in which the dissenter sustains that’s everyone else that is similarly subjected to the same degree of injustice, has the right to protest in a similar way. Rawls maintains that if civil