Civil Disobedience

1
Civil Disobedience
2
Class Objectives

• Define civil disobedience
• Examine the criteria for legitimate civil
  disobedience
• Discuss Birmingham civil rights protests as
  example of legitimate civil disobedience

3
Civil Disobedience

• Definition the attempt to change legal or social
  conditions by deliberately and publicly violating
  the law
• Violent vs. non-violent civil disobedience
• violence necessarily illegitimate?
• Justified only when benefits of change outweigh
  costs of violence?
• Non-violence always justified?

4
Non-violent Civil Disobedience

• requires the protestor to abstain from violence
  even in the face of violent reaction from the
  police
• Steps involved
• 1. Collection of facts to determine oppression
• 2. Negotiation to attempt to change conditions
• 3. Self-purification
• 4. Direct action

5
When is Civil Disobedience justified?

• Aims to eliminate oppression
• Negotiation and moral suasion have failed
• Harm brought about by protest is less than the
• good that can be expected to be achieved?
• harm brought about by the oppression?

6
Unjust Law

• Moral vs. legal rights/responsibilities
• Kings conditions for unjust laws
• they are contrary to eternal law (natural law,
  Gods law)
• applied only to minority
• not consented to by the minority
• laws may also be just but unjustly applied