In what circumstances, if any, can one be justified in breaking the law?
Key readings
Brownlee, Kimberley, Civil Disobedience, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter, 2013).
Rawls, John, The Justification of Civil Disobedience, in Hugo Adam Bedau (ed.), Civil Disobedience: Theory and Practice, New York: Pegasus, 1969, pp. 240-255.
Dworkin, Ronald, Civil Disobedience, in Taking Rights Seriously, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977, ch. 8.
Further reading
Bedau, Hugo Adam, Civil Disobedience in Focus, London: Routledge, 1991.
Brownlee, Kimberley Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Enoch, David, Some Arguments against Conscientious Objection and Civil Disobedience Refuted, Israel Law Review, vol. 36 (Fall, 2002), pp. 227–253.
Feinberg, Joel, Civil Disobedience in the Modern World, Humanities in Society, vol. 2, no. 1 (1979), pp. 37–60.
Green, Leslie, Civil Disobedience and Academic Freedom, Osgoode Hall Law Journal, vol. 41, no. 2 (2003), pp. 381–405.
Lefkowitz, David, On a Moral Right to Civil Disobedience, Ethics, vol. 117, no. 2 (January, 2007), pp. 202–233.
Pateman, Carole, The Problem of Political Obligation: A Critical Analysis of Liberal Theory, Cambridge: Polity, 1985.
Pitkin, Hannah, Obligation and Consent, American Political Science Review, vol. 59, no. 4 (December, 1965), pp 990-999.
Raz, Joseph, The Authority of Law: Essays on Law and Morality, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, chs.12-15.
Simmons, A. John, Civil Disobedience and the Duty to Obey the Law, in R. G. Frey and Christopher Heath Wellman (eds.), A Companion to Applied Ethics, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, ch. 4.
Simmons, A. John, Moral Principles and Political Obligation, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.
Singer, Peter, Democracy and Disobedience, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973, part 1.
Smith, M. B. E., Is There a Prima Facie Obligation to Obey the Law?, Yale Law Journal, vol. 82, no. 5 (April, 1973), pp. 950-976.
Exam questions
'Citizens have political obligations, but the obligation to obey the law is not one of them.'
When, if ever, should citizens disobey the law?
Do you agree that civil disobedience is possible only within a liberal state?
Since there is a duty to resists injustice, in what sense (if any) is there an obligation to obey the state?
Is civil disobedience justified only in response to laws which have been made undemocratically?
How would you distinguish between justified and unjustified cases of civil disobedience?
If citizens in a liberal democracy have a duty to obey just laws, do they also have a duty to disobey unjust laws?