[We] will move on Washington, he resolved, determined to stay there until the legislative and executive branches of the government take serious and adequate action . By this means, his admirers might plausibly argue, King acknowledged the seriousness of critics major concern and effectively addressed it. Introduction: The Nature and Moral Justification of Civil Disobedience 5. Spirit. Is there any tenable moral distinction between the intimidation he equivocally decried and the disruption and coercion he advocated as elements of his mature form of civil disobedience? Civil Disobedience and Conscientious Objection | Oxford Research In a 1960 televised debate with King, the segregationist James J. Kilpatrick, editor of the Richmond News Leader, remarked that in the controversy over public school integration, [W]e at the South were exhorted on every hand to abide by the law and it is therefore an interesting experience to be here tonight and see Mr. King assert a right to obey those laws he chooses to obey and disobey those that he chooses not to obey.[REF] Prominent black leaders also objected to the practice of civil disobedience, as Emory O. Jackson, editor of the black newspaper The Birmingham World, Joseph H. Jackson, president of the National Baptist Conference, and even the great civil-rights attorney (and, subsequently, the first African-American U.S. Supreme Court Justice) Thurgood Marshall, all called for fidelity to the law in pursuance of the movements objectives.[REF]. In the Letter, King indicated that the sources of his thinking about the moral law were eclectic. Although the enlistees in that new army might receive training similar to what their first-phase predecessors received, the fact remains that the latter, drawn substantially from a population of southern churchgoers imbued with a Christian ethic of love and service, were beneficiaries of a moral heritage that many of those solicited for the later phase did not share. Civil disobedience occurs when an individual or group refuses to follow the rules, policies, or legislation passed by their government. The Limits and Dangers of Civil Disobedience: The Case of Martin Luther King, Jr. At the heart of the American character, evident since our nations birth, is a seeming paradox: Americans take pride in our self-image as a republic of laws and no less pride in our propensity toward righteous disobedience. If it conflicts with the higher law, it cannot be binding as law. is defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary as "Refusal to obey governmental demands or commands, especially as a nonviolent and usually collective mean. King attempted to find even in the riots themselves support for his contention that the disaffected urban poor constituted a promising new class of potential pilgrims to nonviolence. What is Civil Disobedience? [2] As King rightly understood, civil disobedience may only be undertaken: (1) for the right reasons; (2) in the right spirit; and (3) by the right people. Civil disobedience in a democracy is not morally justified because it poses an unacceptable threat to the rule of law. In that specific application, his explanation of just cause for civil disobedience may be judged successful. Non-violence has traditionally been associated with civil disobedience. Such behavior would only hurt the system. It is meaningful, if unsurprising, that the SCLC required of protesters a commitment suffused with the moral spirit of Christianity. Further, the dignity of human personality signifies the equal dignity of human persons. However, he was "interested primarily in social matters". Defending human rights in peaceful ways outside "the law" is ultimately a form of defense of and respect for the law. Seek to perform regular service for others and for the world. Because the right to civil disobedience is intelligible only as a corrective of rulers lawlessness, it must not itself foster lawlessness. [We] will move on Washington, he resolved, determined to stay there until the legislative and executive branches of the government take serious and adequate action . One might also discern in Kings eagerness to deploy the language of revolution and natural rights in preference to that of constitutional law a certain zeal for revolution at odds with his insistence on respect for positive law. That same day, the local newspaper published a public letter addressed to King and his fellow protesters, written by a group of eight Birmingham clergy (seven Christian pastors and one rabbi). An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice. As the Declaration makes clear, the right to disobey the laws or decrees of unjust government, whether by civil or uncivil means, must be exercised with great caution. Resolved: Civil Disobedience in a democracy is morally justified. Civil disobedience, Hugo Bedau noted, "is not just done; it is committed. For present purposes, the fundamental questions concern whether his judgments to disobey the courts injunction and to justify that disobedience by an appeal to natural and divine law rather than U.S. constitutional law are properly characterized as last resorts, taken in response to a genuine necessity. Beyond such simple formulations, King took seriously the objections Kilpatrick, the clergymen, and others raised. To establish the compatibility of his practice of civil disobedience with the rule of law, he needed to say more. It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and nonviolence that I discovered the method for social reform that I had been seeking.[REF]. Amid these conditions, a reconsideration of King could serve as a useful first stepdrawing our guidance from the. The difficulty appears first in the fact that, as King at times acknowledged, his expansive, second-phase conception of rights was rooted in principles outside Americas constitutional tradition: We have left the realm of constitutional rights, he remarked in, A corollary of Kings earlier position that civil disobedience may be practiced only where necessary is that such disobedience should cease as soon as possiblei.e., as soon as the necessary reforms are achieved or lawful, political avenues to their achievement become available. In this way both the disobedience and the acceptance of the penalty are essential to Kings effort to reform the law by means of moral suasion. Kings apologetic discussion of the rioting raises troubling questions. It is the non-violent, noncompliance with unjust laws that is ordered towards changing the laws. Having characterized civil disobedience we can now discuss reasons for why people may act civilly disobedient. King departed from his previously held regulatory principles in another, related respect. Civil disobedience is the opposite notion to the morality and duty in society. A Debate About Whether or Not Civil Disobedience Is Justified and A delegation of poor people can walk into a high officials office with a carefully, collectively prepared list of demands. Since no one knows the answer if civil disobedient will ever be justified, Brian Kogelmann said, "one's act of civil disobedience may result in horrible consequences might give one a moral reason to not commit the act of civil disobedience, a moral reason to obey the law." (Kogelmann). Official websites use .gov For present purposes, the fundamental questions concern whether his judgments to disobey the courts injunction and to justify that disobedience by an appeal to natural and divine law rather than U.S. constitutional law are properly characterized as last resorts, taken in response to a genuine necessity. In the Declaration of Independence, the ultimate recourse is a right, again where circumstances dictate, to full-blown revolution: Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of [its proper] ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government., Further, it should be clear that the imperative subjection to the rule of law applies no less to the people themselves, as represented by a ruling majority, than to government. Kings later conception departs, too, from his earlier insistence that civil disobedience must be practiced in a spirit of respect for law, respect for democratic governance, and redemptive good will, manifesting a desire for reconciliation with ones erstwhile adversaries. Some definitions suggest that non-violence"civility" is a necessary condition for political disobedience to qualify as civil disobedience. As the Declaration makes clear, however, the right to disobey the laws or decrees of unjust government, whether by civil or uncivil means, must be exercised with great caution. The judgment as to when circumstances warrant, along with the practice of civil disobedience itself, must be governed by the most careful prudential regulation. King concluded: If one can find a core of nonviolence toward persons, even during the riots when emotions were exploding, it means that nonviolence should not be written off for the future as a force in Negro life.. Justice, King maintained, is manifest in a higher law that is accessible to human reason. Their letter, entitled An Appeal to Law and Order and Common Sense, urged the protesters to desist, arguing that direct-action street protests, especially those involving lawbreaking, were unhelpful as means for repairing race relations in Birmingham. Civil Disobedience and Its Justification - LinkedIn These prudential regulations circumscribing the right to revolution apply similarly to acts of civil disobedience. Remember always that the nonviolent movement in Birmingham seeks justice and reconciliationnot victory. Monumental Disappointments in Our Public Spaces. Mindful of the same socioeconomic conditions that alarmed King, Bayard Rustin (Kings longtime adviser and perhaps the movements shrewdest tactician and organizer) called for activism within the regular democratic processes of petition, electoral persuasion, and voting; he endorsed a strategic turn toward political action and a temporary curtailment of mass demonstrations.[REF] By failing to heed Rustins advice, King departed from his previously stated principles regarding civil disobedience. In sum, however paradoxical it might appear, Americas founding principles of natural rights and the rule of law permit the practice of civil disobedience narrowly conceived. Gandhi, a "central figure in the relationship of Congress and the Raj" was able to awaken Indians into political movements. But this is not all: many theorists argue that civil disobedience is compatible with the moral duty to obey. Positive or man-made law must conform with higher lawwith natural or divine law. However, from an outside perspective, the justifications are analyzed through the values of the individual, organization or government. Recall, too, however, that civil disobedience as King conceived it was to be practiced only so far as necessary. Is there any tenable moral distinction between the intimidation he equivocally decried and the disruption and coercion he advocated as elements of his mature form of civil disobedience? Kings second main regulating condition, that civil disobedience must be undertaken in the right spirit, means foremost that civil disobedience must convey a proper respect for law. a conscientious refusal to submit to a law deemed unjust; a respectful acceptance of the legal consequences (typically jailing) of ones action; and. To gain our bearings amid todays protests, characterized more by disruption and coercion than persuasion, we should look beyond contemporary justifications and return to the best of Kings thinkingand beyond King, to the understanding of civil disobedience grounded in Americas first principles.

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