Civil Disobedience: Seeking Justice by Breaking the Law

Sometimes people break the law to try to change a law or policy that they see as unjust. For example, during the American Civil Rights Movement, Black activists sat at “whites-only” lunch counters to protest racial segregation. During the 1980s and 1990s, members of the group ACT UP staged ‘die-ins’ where they lay as if dead in public spaces to protest the U.S. government’s neglect of the AIDS crisis ravaging the LGBTQ community. More recently, environmental advocacy groups have blockaded roads to protest government inaction on climate change. These are cases of civil disobedience. But what exactly is civil disobedience? Can it be justified? If so, under what conditions? And what should happen to people who engage in civil disobedience? Should they be punished? Or should they be praised? This essay reviews some important philosophical answers to these questions.