Abstract

I believe that some instances of civil disobedience are justifiable, even in a reasonably healthy democracy. This is a proposition with which most persons are inclined to agree intuitively, I think, and may therefore appear to be in no need of defense. In fact, however, the presentation of a solid defense of that thesis would be so complicated, and so inextricably entwined with factual questions about the circumstances in which the disobedience in question takes place, that I shall not even attempt to provide it here. The provision of that defense is one ultimate object of mine, however, and my present purpose is to advance toward it by examining certain critical arguments that the defense of civil disobedience must meet. My aim here is to show that the major arguments, which are designed to establish the unjustifiability of civil disobedience, do not do that.