The Case for Justifiability of Non-Violent, Integration Focused Civil Disobedience in a Nearly Just Society and of Violent Civil Disobedience in Non-Nearly Just Societies or Separatist Movements

Civil Disobedience is the breaking of a law in order to protest that or another law to inspire a change in law. Historically, civil disobedience has been instrumental to the expansion of human rights and for our collective progression towards a more equal and just society. Moreover, in this synthesis the individual’s moral obligation to participate in and the overall necessity of civil disobedience will be reaffirmed. This determined, a premise that one should generally avoid violent disobedience will be established and the scenarios wherein it is necessary to partake in violence will be outlined. This will illuminate the fact that in a near-perfect society with integrationist aims, violent civil disobedience is never justified; only in a non-near-perfect society or with separationist aims is violent disobedience justified.

Firstly, the necessity and justification of civil disobedience is confirmed through an analysis of various texts.

In his book “In Defense of Anarchism”, Wolff makes a compelling argument for the conflict between Kant’s third formulation of the categorical imperative (that is, the imperative for the individual to increase his autonomy) and the organized state’s inevitability to infringe on this imperative (Wolff, 18). In the second part of his essay, he deconstructs democracy’s claim to legitimacy and of resolving this autonomy-authority tension by presenting how, with the exception of unanimous, direct democracy, Locke’s social contract theory does not in fact carry over when the direct, unanimous democracy is diluted to a majoritarian, representative democracy (Wolff, 38-58). Ergo, Wolff argues, democracy is no better than a dictatorship or any other formulation of a state in terms of its legitimacy or its ability to reconcile the autonomy-authority tension (Wolff, 38-58). It naturally follows, then, that in such systems, those upon whom autonomy has been infringed by following laws they deem unjust may feel the need to express their anguish by demonstrating against said law in order to inspire change in policy. Indeed, in this way Wolff implies a justification for civil disobedience through the application of the categorical imperative.

Rawls echo’s this in slightly different terms when he describes the limits of the idea of the social contract. That is, he describes a ‘conflict of duties’: “At what point does the duty to comply with laws enacted by a legislative majority . . . cease to be binding in view of the right to defend one’s liberties and duty to oppose injustice” (Rawls, 319). When the latter supersedes the former, he argues, civil disobedience is required.

Wolff, who bases his arguments on Kant’s categorical imperative, and Kant, who deduced the categorical imperative in a search for determining a system of morality based on reason as opposed to faith, are also slightly contrasted with various thinkers who use faith, god, and the idea of a higher law to justify protest of civil law. In other words, rather than use a categorical imperative of autonomy to justify civil disobedience, these views employ a necessity to comply with a higher law as justification for the necessity to disobey a lower (civil) law. Such thinkers include Antigone, who says “I never thought your announcements/Could give you-a mere human being-/Power to trample the gods’ unfailing, Unwritten laws. These laws weren’t made now/Or yesterday. They live for all time” (Sophocles 19). In other words, she refutes Creon’s civil law for a duty to comply with god’s higher law. Martin Luther King says similarly “One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws”, and further “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God” (Luther, pg 3).

It is therefore clear that civil disobedience becomes necessary in a state-led society because of an inevitable tension between the laws of the state and an individual’s moral responsibility (be it to his categorical imperative of autonomy, duty to oppose injustice, or duty to observe a higher law).

However, it is yet to be determined whether violent civil disobedience is morally justified – whether it is right or not to protest a law with violence. This rather a difficult subject to broach and enters the field of moral philosophy. Indeed some may argue that it is never justified to use violence. Kant, for example, argues that it is never justifiable to kill anyone (nor even to lie). A subjectivist may hold that so long as he feels it is right to be violent, then he may be violent. Utilitarianism provokes even further qualms, some even to the premise of the justification of civil disobedience; these will be addressed separately. Moreover, given the breadth morality, we will state as a premise that it is preferable to avoid violence – that the just action is the one which avoids violence when it is not necessary.

Given this, when is it justified to use violence? The first situation is when there is no mechanism for change. The second is when one is attempting to separate, as opposed to integrate, in order to enact change.

Firstly, let us suppose a society in which those wronged have no means of representation. In a dictatorship, for example, no one has a voice to affect change. People may protest peaceably, and perhaps the dictator may concede to their requests. But if he does so, it is not because he disagrees and bows to their request, it is because he agrees with the peasants’ issue. The dictator does not derive his authority through the people. He derives it from force and therefore through power (Wolff, 4). In this situation, if the dictator has decided to hold his position, no quantity of peaceable resistance will cause change. Perhaps one may decide to cause economic harm to the dictator in order to force concessions and weaken him. Weakening him such, however, is only a precursor to violence; the dictator may submit, but he submits for fear of losing income, not being able to pay his army, losing force, and therefore losing his authority. In other words, he concedes for fear of overthrow; a violent act which the peasant would be justified in partaking because violence has become necessary. Indeed, in this manner the peasant has also subsequently engaged in a separatist approach (the second justification for violent civil disobedience).

If one assumes then that in a democracy people have a mechanism of change, then in a democracy he does not have this justification of violent civil disobedience. This is evidently true in a

direct unanimous democracy. In a majoritarian, representative democracy, however, it is less clear (Wolff argues against it (Wolf, 38-58)), Locke would argue for it (Social Contract)). Given this, we will employ Rawls’ useful tool of the “nearly-just society” (“One in which the basic structure of a society is nearly just, making due allowance for what it is reasonable to expect in the circumstances” (Rawls, 309)) in order to presume that in a nearly-just society, people have a mechanism for change through voting and representation, and so violence is not necessary. Indeed, this is the view Martin Luther King when he advocates for creative nonviolent direct action: “I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency . . . the other force is one of bitterness and hatred . . . it comes perilously close to advocating violence” (King, 5). He argues that because his society grants him a voice through voting and representation, his method “create[s] a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitable open the door to negotiation” (King, 2).

For these reasons, violent civil disobedience is necessary and just in a society that is not-nearly just. However it can be said that in a nearly-just society, violent civil disobedience is not justified because there is preferable (ie peaceable) means to resolution.

Yet, it is evident that violent civil disobedience has occurred to great effect in democracies though out history. However, these examples occur in the situation where the intent was one of separation. In other words, violent civil disobedience is justified when one’s aim is to separate from the current state in order to then create one’s own laws and norms which he deems in line with his morality. Assuming an unwillingness of an overlord to cease territorial possession to his rebels (even if a democracy, as in the civil war), it then follows that the rebel must employ violence to correct the wrong he is attempting to solve through separation. This scenario encompasses independence movements and revolutions. It may be argued that this is indeed no longer truly civil disobedience, as one is not attempting to change his own laws, but create new ones. While a fair argument, let it be said, then, that cases which may truly seem to be violent civil disobedience and are in fact motivated by and reliant separatist tendencies for their justification.

For this, observe Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet”. His movement, ostensibly supporting violent civil disobedience in order to expedite an end of African-American segregation, was in fact motivated by separation. This is illustrated when he says,

“So the economic philosophy of black nationalism means in ever church, in every civic organization, in every fraternal order, it’s time now for our people to become conscious of the importance of controlling the economy of our own community. If we own the stores … businesses . . . industry in our own community . . . then you don’t have to . . . beg some cracker downtown for a job in his business” (X, 11)

Further, other examples of violent civil disobedience tend to be from police-incited violence (as in 1963 Birmingham (“The Birmingham Campaign.”) or the 2018 ‘Gilets Jaunes’ riots in Paris (Bock, 2019)) or from those who take advantage of protests to participate in vandalism of the city. Both of these cases would not be considered justified under these premises, for it is clear that non-violent alternatives are available.

These arguments are possibly countered when one disagrees with the premise of civil disobedience being justified. This occurs, as alluded to earlier, in the case of utilitarianism. In utilitarianism, it is acceptable to sacrifice the individual’s autonomy or duty to a higher power, so long as it benefits the whole. Again, this is a broad undertaking to undermine, so it is more tempting to accept it as a valid critique and fall back on the assumption that, for example, an individual does have a Kantian Categorical imperative to reassure the justification for participating in civil disobedience.

Secondarily, Thoreau gives the argument that most people cannot die since “in order to die you must first have lived” (Thoreau, 10). This argument lies on the foundation that in order to live, one must have “something to live for” (Thoreau, 10), as John Brown did in his fight for slavery. Therefore Thoreau argues that if this is the case, committing civil violence is acceptable because people are not really dying. In this case, it seems moreso that Thoreau is attempting to bend a clear act of violent civil disobedience to fit the definition of non-violent disobedience, since, as he argues, no one dies, so no violence was committed. If this is the case, then perhaps this it in facts reaffirms, rather than undermines, the arguments made previously.

It is therefore clear, that by justifying civil disobedience, assuming the premise that just is when violence is avoided, and by outlining when violence is necessary in civil disobedience, we can conclude that only non-violent civil disobedience is in fact justified in a nearly-just society when taking an integration approach as opposed to a separatist approach. It further illuminates that violent disobedience is in fact different in kind rather than degree from non-violent disobedience because the two are used justly under different circumstances entirely. Conclusively, hopefully this analysis may be an interesting lens with which to observe and understand the justifiability of current events.

Works Cited

Bock, Pauline. “The French Police's Brutality against the Gilets Jaunes Can No Longer Be Denied.” New Statesman, 30 Jan. 2019, www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2019/01/french-police-s-brutality-against-gilets-jaunes-can-no-longer-be-denied.

King, Martin Luther. “‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’” Birmingham Campaign | The Martin Luther King,

Jr., Research and Education Institute, 16 Apr. 1963,

kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/letter-birmingham-jail.

Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Belknap Press, 2005.

“The Birmingham Campaign.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/black-culture/explore/civil-rights-movement-birmingham-campaign/#.XFNfk1xKjb0.

Thoreau, Henry David. “A PLEA FOR CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN.” Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, Project Gutenberg, 6 Dec. 2008, www.gutenberg.org/files/2567/2567-h/2567-h.htm.

Wolff, Robert Paul. In Defense of Anarchism. University of California Press, 1998.

X, Malcolm. “The Ballot or the Bullet.” Teaching American History,

teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-ballot-or-the-bullet/.