In this paper, I argue that the principle of fairness can license both a duty of fair play, which is used to ground a moral duty to obey the law in just or nearly just societies, and a duty of resistance to unfair and unjust social schemes. The first part of the paper analyzes fairness’ demands on participants in mutually beneficial schemes of coordination, and its implications in the face of injustice. Not only fairness does not require complying with unfair (...) and unjust social schemes, but it also prohibits benefiting from such schemes. I use the case of racial segregation in the U.S. to illustrate this latter argument, and consider some objections to my investigation, given the availability and straightforwardness of justice. The second part of the paper elaborates the argument for the duty to resist. The Radical Reform argument first establishes, by elimination of the alternatives (exit and restitution), that the principal way for citizens to cease benefiting from an unfair and unjust social scheme is to radically reform it. The Resistance Argument then shows that resistance is crucial to bring about reform, so that one ought to resist unfair and unjust schemes from which one benefits. Next, I offer two arguments for collective resistance and political solidarity, one based on empirical considerations and the other based on fairness. Finally, I consider the costs of the resistance efforts which fairness may require. (shrink)

Many historical and recent forms of protest usually referred to as civil disobedience do not fit the standard philosophical definition of “civil disobedience”. The moral and political importance of this point is explained in section 1, and two theoretical lessons are drawn: one, we should broaden the concept of civil disobedience, and two, we should start thinking about uncivil disobedience. Section 2 is devoted to the main objections against, and theorists' defenses of, civil disobedience.

The purpose of this paper is to show that conscientious objection to military service is essentially not a dilemma of freedom of conscience versus the duty to obey the law, but above all a dilemma between two conflicting patriotic moral obligations. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates that CO is justifiable on the basis of what is known as moderate patriotism, that is, out of a patriotism which is committed simultaneously to universal and particular values. The paper begins with a critical discussion (...) of theoretical weaknesses in liberal thought of CO. Then, the concept of moderate patriotism is presented, followed by a discussion of the notion of patriotic CO. The next stage presents a step Towards A Theory of PCO to Military Service and shows how it differs from other liberal theories of disobedience. The conclusion is that if CO on patriotic grounds is morally justifiable, it follows that this is an act committed within the framework of legitimate political discourse. Therefore, PCO is politically legitimate even if it is not always legal. In other words, the discussion of PCO offers a theoretical distinction between politicallegitimacy and legality. (shrink)

Standard accounts of civil disobedience include nonviolence as a necessary condition. Here I argue that such accounts are mistaken and that civil disobedience can include violence in many aspects, primarily excepting violence directed at other persons. I base this argument on a novel understanding of civil disobedience: the special character of the practice comes from its combination of condemnation of a political practice with an expressed commitment to the political. The commitment to the political is a commitment to engaging with (...) others as co-members in the on-going political project of living together. I show how such an understanding of civil disobedience is superior to the Rawlsian strain of thought, which focuses on fidelity to law. Rawls was concerned with civil disobedience solely in the context of overriding political obligation. The project of characterizing a contestatory political practice that can be distinguished and used in a wider variety of contexts than Rawls is concerned with, including under illegitimate regimes, beyond the nation-state, or on behalf of anarchism, requires a different understanding of civil disobedience. (shrink)

Tony Milligan argues that some forms of covert non-human animal rescue, wherein activists anonymously and illegally free non-human animals from confinement, should be understood as acts of civil disobedience. However, most traditional understandings of civil disobedience require that the civil disobedient act publicly rather than covertly. Thus Milligan’s proposal is that we revise our understanding of civil disobedience to allow for covert in addition to public disobedience. I argue we should not. Milligan cannot justify using paradigm cases to expand the (...) scope of civil disobedience without justifying similar reasons to limit the scope, and he does nto give convincing reasons for discarding the communication requirement, according to which an action cannot count as civil disobedience unless it is communicative. The immediate conclusion is that animal rescue is not civil disobedience, while the broader conclusion is one about civil disobedience more broadly: an act must be public to count as civil disobedience. (shrink)

According to current definitions of civil disobedience, drawn from the work of John Rawls and Carl Cohen, eco-saboteurs are not civil disobedients because their disobedience is not a form of address and/or does not appeal to the public's sense of justice or human welfare. But this definition also excludes disobedience by a wide range of groups, from labor activists to hunt saboteurs, either because they are obstructionist or because they address moral concerns other than justice or the public weal. However (...) earlier definitions of civil disobedience were not so narrow. I review the development of the current definition and the circumstances of its acceptance. I argue that the circumstances which help to explain the attractiveness of the Rawls/Cohen formulations in the 1970s are no longer applicable and that the question of civil disobedience should be revisited. I suggest a wider definition according to which at least some types of eco-sabotage would be civil disobedience. (shrink)

En matière de liberté d’expression, les normes de forme sont celles, sociales ou juridiques, qui, sans égard au contenu du discours, encadrent les moyens employés pour se faire entendre. L’analyse partira d’un cas spécifique de violation de ces normes : les actes expressifs illégaux, infractions que leurs auteurs présentent comme un exercice de leur liberté d’expression, quoiqu’ils enfreignent la légalité. Que ces infractions soient le plus souvent le fait de voix minoritaires conduit à examiner le lien entre normes de forme (...) et asymétries de pouvoir entre locuteurs sur le « marché des idées », et à proposer un assouplissement des normes de forme au bénéfice des discours minoritaires, tout en soulignant les difficultés de sa mise en œuvre juridique. (shrink)

Traditionally, acts of civil disobedience are understood as a mechanism by which citizens may express dissatisfaction with a law of their country. That expression will typically be morally motivated, non-violent and aimed at changing their government’s policy, practice or law. Building on existing work, in this paper we explore the limits of one well-received definition of civil disobedience by considering the challenging case of the actions of animal activists at sea. Drawing on original interviews with advocates associated with Sea Shepherd, (...) Greenpeace and Humane Society International we find that even if animal activists are morally motivated and civil, the transnational nature of their activity makes it difficult to assess their intention to bring about a change in law or public policy. This means that a civil disobedience defence may not be available to activists operating across international borders. This raises important questions about the usefulness of the civil disobedience concept within the context of a globalised world. We conclude that while the actions of some anti-whaling activists may not meet definitions of civil disobedience as conventionally understood, this says more about the narrow way in which that concept has been traditionally defined, than it does about the type of activity some anti-whaling activists have undertaken in the Southern Ocean. Finally, we argue that activists wishing to make a stand against whaling may have no choice but to act as global citizens because policy change within a single nation-state is unlikely to lead to the cessation of this inherently transnational activity. (shrink)

It is still an open question whether or not Civil Disobedience (CD) has to be completely nonviolent. According to Rawls, “any interference with the civil liberties of others tend to obscure the civilly disobedient quality of one's act”. From this Rawls concludes that by no means can CD pose a threath to other individuals' rights. In this paper I challenge Rawls' view, arguing that CD can comprise some degree of violence without losing its “civil” value. However, I specify that violence (...) must not be aimed at seriously injuring, or even killing, other individuals. This would contravene the communicative aspect of CD. The main claim is that what really is important is that the civil disobedients be willing to accept the punishment following their law-breaking behaviour. By doing so, they demonstrate the conscientiousness of their civilly disobedient action. This also shows that they are aiming for future cooperation with the State, and are expecting the State to be sensitive to their concern for the principles of justice. (shrink)

Since at least the 1970s, one of the stock standard tools in the animal protection movement’s arsenal has been illegal entry into factory farms and animal research facilities. This activity has been followed by the publication of images and footage captured inside those otherwise socially invisible places. This activity presents a conundrum: trespass is illegal and it is an apparent violation of private property rights. In this paper we argue that trespass onto private property can be justified as an act (...) of civil disobedience. We look at one particular type of justification: the use of information gathered through trespass in public policy formation. We then animate this analysis both with an historical overview of the effects of sharing information about animal agriculture, and with a specific case study of trespass undertaken recently. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has insisted on a more historically attentive approach to civil disobedience. This article follows their lead by arguing that the dominant understanding of civil disobedience relies on a conceptual confusion and a historical mistake. Conceptually, the literature fails to distinguish between violating a law and defying the authority of a legal order. Historically, the literature misreads the exemplary case of Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham, Alabama. When read in its proper context, we can see King was not (...) just a civil disobedient, violating the law in a way that shows fidelity to the law. He was a radical disobedient, challenging the authority of the legal order. As such, he was part of a long tradition of radical disobedience, extending back through militant strikes of the labor movement. The character of this disobedience was evident, both to its main protagonists, like King and Eugene V. Debs, and to its major opponents, especially the courts. In reconstructing these historical cases, I revise the civil disobedience literature and demonstrate the distinctiveness of the radical disobedience concept. (shrink)

A prominent way of justifying civil disobedience is to postulate a pro tanto duty to obey the law and to argue that the considerations that ground this duty sometimes justify forms of civil disobedience. However, this view entails that certain kinds of uncivil disobedience are also justified. Thus, either a) civil disobedience is never justified or b) uncivil disobedience is sometimes justified. Since a) is implausible, we should accept b). I respond to the objection that this ignores the fact that (...) civil disobedience enjoys a special normative status on account of instantiating certain special features: nonviolence, publicity, the acceptance of legal consequences, and conscientiousness. I then show that my view is superior to two rivals: the view that we should expand the notion of civility and that civil disobedience, expansively construed, is uniquely appropriate; and the view that uncivil disobedience is justifiable in but only in unfavorable conditions. (shrink)

The Gulabi Gang is a feminist vigilante based in northern India. They are known as a group that uses physical violence to fight systems of oppressive power. The idea of a Gulabi Gang vigilante, interacting with the people and the state will be discussed, while incorporating John Locke’s social contract theory into the argument as a way to critique vigilantism, or as a basis of critique to then argue why the Gulabi Gang’s vigilantism is necessary. After both sides of argument (...) are weighed, possible solutions of how the Gulabi Gang can better their organization will be discussed in the concluding chapter. (shrink)

Ovaj rad propituje status nasilja unutar građanskog neposluha. Naime, pitanje je može li građanski neposluh biti nasilan, a istovremeno opravdan? Ako nadiđemo pojam nasilja kao isključivo fizičkog čina, onda teorija prema kojoj je građanski neposluh opravdan, a nasilje nije, postaje teško obranjiva. U radu zastupam stajalište prema kojem je prisila ponekad opravdana jer prima facie prava nisu apsolutna prava već stoje za prava koja mogu biti nadjačana snažnijom, moralnom obavezom. No to stajalište otvara potencijalno problematično područje morala i neminovno se (...) postavlja pitanje: što s građanskim neposluhom grupa koje se pozivaju na vrijednosti poput slobode i jednakosti, no čiji se zahtjevi temelje na kršenju prava određenih skupina u društvu? (shrink)

Given the conceptual gap in the global justice debate today (where most of the talk is about the duties of the rich, but little is said about what the poor may do for themselves), in this article I reintroduce the idea of a right of necessity. I first delineate a normative framework for such a right, inspired by these historical accounts. I then offer a contemporary case where the exercise of the right of necessity would be morally legitimate according to (...) that framework – even though illegal and probably condemned by the standard moral norms. The case is that of a small group of Paraguayan campesinos (small farmers) suffering from the effects of a severe drought. In the third part, I introduce the concept of noncivil disobedience: I call an act of noncivil disobedience a conscientious, public, illegal and forcible act whose performance, while not necessarily intended directly as a means to bring about social and/or political change, may help to trigger these changes indirectly. In the fourth part, I suggest that certain instances where the right of necessity is overtly exercised – as in the case of the famine-struck Paraguayan campesinos – may also be interpreted in terms of noncivil disobedience, insofar as they serve a double function: as a means of satisfying immediate need, and as a marker of discontent in a society where the equal rights of individuals are a nominal ideal which remains unfulfilled in practice. I then address two objections that may be raised against resurrecting the idea of a right of necessity and identifying it in certain instances with noncivil disobedience. I conclude by suggesting that, at the point of convergence between the two, a basic right like the right of necessity recovers its value as an active, (rather than passive) entitlement of its holders, while the use of force enters the picture as a legitimate means that – at least under certain circumstances – may be resorted to within the limits of civil society. (shrink)

Can anti-deportation resistance be justified, and if so how and by whom may, or perhaps should, unjust deportations be resisted? In this paper, I seek to provide an answer to these questions. The paper starts by describing the main forms and agents of anti-deportation action in the contemporary context. Subsequently, I examine how different justifications for principled resistance and disobedience may each be invoked in the case of deportation resistance. I then explore how worries about the resister’s motivation for engaging (...) in the action and their epistemic position apply in the specific context of anti-deportation action and consider in what circumstances there is not merely a right but a duty to resist deportation. The upshot of this argument, I conclude, is that the liberal state ought to respond to anti-deportation action not by criminalising disobedience and resistance in this field, but rather by creating legal avenues for such actors to influence deportation decision-making. DOI 10.17879/95189423213. (shrink)

This thesis examines the concept of civil disobedience, and the role the latter can play in a democratic society. It aims to offer a moral justification for civil disobedience that departs from consequentialist or deontological considerations, and focuses instead on virtue ethics. By drawing attention to the notion of civic virtues, the thesis suggests that, under some circumstances, an act of civil disobedience is the very act displaying a virtuous disposition in the citizen who disobeys. Such disposition is interpreted in (...) light of a duty each individual has to respect her fellow citizens as autonomous agents. This grounds, in turn, a moral obligation to respect the law. The central claim of the thesis is that the obligation towards the law is fulfilled not only through acts of obedience but also, under different circumstances, through acts of disobedience. The status of non-violence as a necessary component of civil disobedience is questioned, and it is argued that a degree of force or violence may be permissible in civil disobedience, when it is compatible with the duty to respect others’ autonomy. Subsequently, the thesis offers an analysis of ‘reasonableness’ as a civic virtue, and by comparing three different approaches to the issue of reasonable disagreement among democratic citizens, it defends the deliberative approach as the most suited for treating fellow citizens as autonomous agents. The last two chapters focus on the importance, for an act of civil disobedience, of the agent’s willingness to accept the legal consequences of her law-breaking behaviour. It is argued that a civil disobedient has an obligation to face the prospect of being punished for the breach of the law. However, in considering the behaviour of a virtuous civil disobedient who appears at her criminal trial, it is also claimed that she should plead not guilty and aim to persuade her fellow citizens that she does not deserve to be punished, because what she did does not constitute a criminal wrong. In doing so, this thesis depicts civil disobedience not as a merely permissible form of behaviour, but as a morally praiseworthy conduct within a democratic community. (shrink)