The conventional definition of civil disobedience leaves open some fundamental and difficult questions about its justifying causes and permissible scope and objectives. For example, how can we know that the protesters` demands for injustice are valid and that the changes they demand are salutary? How can civil disobedience be declared and justified to exclude the possibility that it may implicitly authorize illegitimate and illegitimate disobedience, or to ensure that even its legitimate uses do not prove destructive of the rule of law? Most of the literature on civil disobedience focuses on defining what it is, the philosophical or political justifications for its use, or the jurisprudential issues related to its use. Much less attention is paid to the consequences. After a brief review of the methodological challenges in assessing the consequences, outcomes, or effects of civil disobedience, I examine the individual, political, and cultural consequences. The individual consequences of civil disobedience are effects on those who engage in civil disobedience, such as government sanctions or the experience of liberating and empowering emotions. Political consequences are the effects of civil disobedience on the political environment, such as initiating public reflection or debate, mobilizing support for a cause, or tangible changes in social practices, laws, policies, or governments. Just as there are risks for those who engage in civil disobedience, there are risks for the lawyers who represent them. Fortas, Abe. 1969. On Dissent and Civil Disobedience. New York: The New American Library, Signet Books. One of the reasons Rawls defends this coordination requirement is that, in most cases, it serves a more important concern, namely getting the right consequences.
It is often argued that civil disobedience can only be justified if there is a high probability of bringing about positive change through that disobedience. Only in this way can one justify exposing one`s own business to the risk of harm. The harms generally identified with civil disobedience are as follows. First, civil disobedience can be a divisive force in society. Second, since civil disobedience is generally intended to attract public attention, it can lead people to think about using disobedience to obtain changes in laws or policies that they feel are justified (Raz 1979, 262). Third, civil disobedience can promote more than other civil disobedience; This can encourage a general disregard for the law, especially if the law is perceived as lenient towards certain types of crimes. Beyond these simplistic formulations, King took seriously the objections of Kilpatrick, the clergy, and others. Aware of the dangers of overly permissive justification, he rejected the kind of disobedience that would “lead to anarchy” and explained his own practice in terms suggesting a serious intention to deny or minimize anarchic effects. [REF. ] The differences between civil disobedience and flight of conscience are easier to see than those between civil disobedience and conscientious objection or conscientious objection. While conscientious objection is generally not characterized by the purpose of informing government and society that a law has been violated, or the reasons for the violation, many acts commonly classified as conscientious objection – tax avoidance and resistance to conscription – have a public or communicative component. When such actions are undertaken by many people, their collective impact can come close to the type of communicative protest expressed in civil disobedience.
With respect to the latter, sometimes reasons apply to a situation, but do not favor the particular action that a person undertakes. When deciding how best to advocate for a legitimate cause, a person needs to think about the appropriate strategy. A person may have reasons for one form of disobedience, but opt for another form that is not supported by those reasons. For example, she may have an undefeated reason to participate in a roadblock because the action fits well with her political concerns and her government understands and responds well, or because the action has a public impact that does not significantly harm the interests of others; But he has no undefeated reason, say, to invade government property or engage in vandalism. In the latter measures, the Commission was guilty of a certain error of assessment, on which valid reasons are based (see Gardner and Macklem 2002). Given her mistake, the best thing she can say is that her behavior is excused, because she had reason to believe that she had reason to engage in this particular form of civil disobedience. If, on the other hand, a person`s civil disobedience is supported by invincible reasons that apply to his situation, then his choice of action is justified. The justification for their actions derives from their reasonableness as a measure to be taken. Its relevance is partly structured by the political regime, the tone of the social environment, the actions of other political actors, etc.
All these factors affect the appropriateness of a particular act and the manner in which it is performed, and thus determine the extent to which the reasons in support of it constitute justification. In contrast, desert theory takes a retrograde view of the purpose and justification of punishment, focusing on what the author earns for his action. The desert theory is much more concerned than the theory of deterrence from punishing only those people who are the right objects of punishment and punishing those people only as much as they deserve. The desert theory aims at a reaction to crime that is proportional to its gravity as a crime. Severity is determined by two factors: the perpetrator`s culpability and the harm caused by the perpetrator`s act. Desert theories are criticized for not sufficiently defending the idea that the guilty should always be punished. Although the intuition that the culprits deserve to suffer is widespread, it is not clear why they deserve this. Desert theories are also criticized because they assume that investigators can determine what offenders earn, and that the deserved punishment is necessarily the justified punishment: should people always be punished as they deserve? Conscience: This trait, evidenced in almost all reports of civil disobedience, indicates the seriousness, sincerity and moral conviction with which civil disobedience violates the law. For many disobedient people, breaking the law is required not only by self-respect and moral consequences, but also by their perception of their society`s interests. Through their disobedience, they draw attention to laws or policies that they believe should be re-evaluated or rejected. Whether their objections are well-founded is another issue addressed in Section 2. Woozley, A.D.
1976. Civil disobedience and punishment. Ethik 86: 323-331. But much of this rests on the assumption that disobedient civil violations of the law are indeed comparable to ordinary crimes and deserve a comparable response from the law. The discussion in section 1 on the broad outlines of civil disobedience showed that it is very different from ordinary crimes both in motivation and action, not to mention moral justification. This suggests that, in the eyes of the law, civil disobedience should be considered a different type of disobedience from ordinary crimes. This leaves two options: civil disobedience deserves greater censorship, or it deserves less blame than ordinary crimes. This point concerning the regulation of civil disobedience by the command of prudence has a vital consequence: acts of civil disobedience are not necessarily revolutionary actions and are not necessarily based on premises that justify revolutionary action. In the definition cited above, the general purpose of civil disobedience, which is to bring about a “change in laws or government policies,” includes a variety of possible specific objectives, ranging from the reform of certain laws or policies to the fundamental modification of the constitutional order. The correction of an unjust government may not require radical and complete regime change – and the Declaration`s doctrine of prudence does not permit such revolutionary change: measures to “change” an unjust government are, to the extent possible, preferable to measures to “abolish” government.
