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.

Taking the ‘Fridays for Future’ movement as its starting point, this article conceptualizes and defends youth disobedience, understood as principled disobedience by legal minors. The article first argues that the school strike for climate can be viewed as civil disobedience. Then, the article distinguishes between various forms of youth disobedience (according to whether they involve child-specific issues or actions). Building on the democratic rationale for civil disobedience, the remainder of the article argues that there is a special justification for youth (...) disobedience. To show this, it argues that children are wrongfully excluded from political participation and that principled law-breaking can be an important remedy to this exclusion. The upshot is that adults should engage seriously and leniently with youth disobedience. (shrink)

Faced with a choice between escaping without consequences and submitting to a democratic decision, Socrates chooses the latter. So immense is Socrates’ duty to obey law, we are led to believe, that even the threat of death is insufficient to abrogate it. Crito proposes several arguments purporting to ground Socrates’ strong duty to obey, with the appeal to the Athenian system’s democratic credentials carrying most of the normative weight. A careful reading of the dialogue, in conjunction with the ‘Apology’, reveals, (...) however, a more complex picture. If Crito sets the conditions that render a regime legitimate, and therefore warranting of obedience, the Apology reveals a legal system’s shortcomings that justify disobedience. This article substantiates this position by delineating circumstances that can justify resistance. Contemporary forms of political resistance can also rely on similar conditions. Plato’s texts anticipate the current democratic turn of civil disobedience. (shrink)

This article responds to the four contributors to the book symposium on Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience. Those four contributors are Thomas Hill Jr, David Lefkowitz, William Smith, and Daniel Weinstock. Hill examines the concepts of conviction and conscience ; Smith discusses conviction and then analyses the right to civil disobedience and my humanistic arguments for it ; Weinstock explores democratic challenges for civil disobedience ; and Lefkowitz assesses the merits of a legal demands-of-conviction excuse for civil (...) disobedience. This ‘Reply to Critics’ addresses them in turn. (shrink)

While many contemporary political philosophers agree that citizens of a legitimate state enjoy a moral right to civil disobedience, they differ over both the grounds of that right and its content. This essay defends the view that the moral right to civil disobedience derives from a general right to political participation, and the characterization of that right as precluding the state from punishing, but not from penalizing, those who exercise it. The argument proceeds by way of rebuttals to criticisms of (...) both claims recently advanced by Kimberley Brownlee. While in some cases those criticisms fail on their merits, in other cases the responses offered here reveal that the dispute over the ground and content of a moral right to civil disobedience reflects deeper disagreements regarding two foundational issues: first, whether moral rights are best conceived of as defeasible evaluative principles or conclusive normative ones, and second, whether principles of justice should be theorized on the basis of full or partial compliance. (shrink)