A Duty to Resist

Abstract

What are our responsibilities in the face of injustice? Many philosophers argue for what is called political obligation—the duty to obey the law of nearly just, legitimate states. Even proponents of civil disobedience generally hold that, given this moral duty, breaking the law requires justification. By contrast, activists from Henry David Thoreau to the Movement for Black Lives have long recognized a responsibility to resist injustice. Taking seriously this activism, this book wrestles with the problem of political obligation in real world societies that harbor injustice. It argues that the very grounds supporting a duty to obey the law—grounds such as the natural duty of justice, the principle of fairness, the Samaritan duty, and associative duties—also impose obligations of resistance under unjust social conditions. The work therefore expands political obligation to include a duty to resist injustice even in legitimate states, and further shows that under certain real-world conditions, this duty to resist demands principled disobedience. Against the mainstream in public, legal, and philosophical discourse, the book argues that such disobedience need not always be civil. Sometimes, covert, violent, evasive, or offensive acts of lawbreaking can be justified, even required. Illegal assistance to undocumented migrants, leaks of classified information, hacktivism sabotage, armed self-defense, guerrilla art, and other modes of resistance are viable and even necessary forms of resistance. There are limits: principle alone does not justify lawbreaking. But uncivil disobedience can sometimes be required in the effort to resist injustice.

Anonymity, fidelity to law, and digital Civil disobedience

“…Other authors tackling this question typically widen the "civility" condition of civil disobedience to accommodate forms of digital illegal activism and protest, 16 or even abandon this condition altogether in favor of a justification of "uncivil disobedience." 17 In contrast, in this paper I argue that the ALCC is not mandatory to demonstrate fidelity to law, and therefore not a necessary condition for the categorization of a form of protest as "civil disobedience." By sticking with the Rawlsian liberal definition of civil disobedience and its fairly narrow notion of civility, my account has two advantages:…”

“…80 Transcending the liberal criteria for civil disobedience, these accounts are more concerned with a general justification of "politically or morally motivated […] instances of principled disobedience." 81 In doing so, authors tend not to actually break with the three civil-disobedience-criteria of publicity, non-violence, and fidelity to law. However, especially a very loose endorsement of the last criterion (fidelity to law) often moves these forms of "principled disobedience" in close proximity to non-violent revolutionary resistance.…”

“…The first one is the "sense of justice of the majority of the community," 85 where civility and decorum are necessary in order to cater to "the public's rather narrow understanding of the boundaries of acceptable political protest." 86 Martin Luther King touches upon this symbolic and public facet of civil disobedience, when he reflects on the dramaturgic aspect of the imprisonment, prosecution, and trial:…”

Untitled

“…While many writers on the subject have expressed doubts about national partiality being strong enough to justify serious harming, others believe it can sometimes be justified. 43 My goal here has not been to defend any specific conclusion about the extent to which national partiality can justify actions in war. Rather, my aim was simply to show how the concept of scope-restricted partiality can help us to see why we might agree with the interpersonal arguments, insofar as they show that national partiality is not plausibly justified in many interpersonal cases, and yet reject the claim that it is not applicable in war.…”

Did we get civic activism wrong? Understanding the waltz between constructive and aggressive civic tendencies in Bosnia–Herzegovina

“…accumulation of personal grievances attached to one cause versus another) and over time (e.g. state of socio-economic well-being, meaningful civic participation mechanisms) (Delmas, 2018). The feelings of frustration, disenchantment and marginalisation that are inherent to civic activism are not always contained within democratic mechanisms and functional relationships between right-holders and duty bearers (Biekart and Fowler, 2013), especially in post-conflict environments where mechanisms that citizens can leverage to influence socio-political change are weak or ineffective.…”