Part of me wants to say that in a truly just society, civil disobedience would be unnecessary and leave it at that, but that approach seems a bit simplistic.
The question I would add to Joel's is this: Are rights and duties necessarily exclusive?
In the case of some other rights, I would say no. For instance, I believe that voting is both a right and a duty for any citizen who cares about the state of their country. On the other hand, there are rights for which this is not true -- I certainly would not say that we have a duty to bear arms, or to remain silent while being arrested.
In short, my response to Joel is that, in a just society -- or even a society that strives to be just -- citizens have both the right and the responsibility to civilly disobey if the society ever leans towards injustice.
A very important question. My guess is that it will have different answers in different contexts, but we would want to identify definite indicators for when a right to resist authority morphs into a positive obligation to do so!
ReplyDeleteIf you listen closely to practitioners of CD, you will frequently hear them say that they felt it was their duty to take action. This might just be conventional rhetoric (after Martin Luther's wonderfully dramatic "Here I stand; I can do no other," though most of us would say anything after a Diet of Worms), or it might reflect something important about the motives and mindset that makes disobedience civil.
The terminology "entirely just society" pretty much says that CD would be wrong to do. Because it means that any person trying to disobey, would be disobeying things that are just. However, an entirely just society would indeed need to be willing to listen to those who are civilly disobedient.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say that then the society starts leaning in an unjust direction is exactly when disobedience would be called for and right.