Is It Morally Acceptable to Break Unjust Laws Other

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Just, Unjust and Laws of Conscience

Just a half a century ago, interracial marriage was still illegal in some states, and it has only been recently that same-sex marriages have been legalized across the country and cannabis has been decriminalized or legalized in more than half of the states. This trends mean that laws that were once widely regarded as just at one point in time become unjust as social views change. The argument concerning whether laws should be regarded as just and therefore worthy of being obeyed or disregarded as a matter of conscience, however, is certainly not new but rather dates to antiquity. The purpose of part one of this paper is to provide an assessment of Socrates' arguments in the “Crito” concerning his rationale for remaining in prison and accepting his death sentence. In addition, an evaluation concerning Martin Luther King’s contrasting arguments in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and his support of civil disobedience is followed by an analysis of their arguments which touch on just, unjust and moral laws or laws of conscience. Finally, a presentation of salient arguments in opposition to Socrates’ arguments presented in the “Crito” is followed by a corresponding presentation of arguments in support of Martin Luther King’s position in support civil disobedience of unjust laws in part two. In sum, the arguments discussed below focus on what obligations individuals have to obey laws and whether there is a fundamental conflict between civil and moral law, and to which do individuals owe their allegiance.

Part One: Critical Analysis and Evaluation

Socrates’ arguments in the “Crito” for remaining in prison and accepting the death sentence

What are laws anyway? According to the straightforward definition provided by Black’s Law Dictionary (1990), a law is “a body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority, and having binding legal force [and] that which must be obeyed and followed by citizens subject to sanctions or legal consequences” (p. 884). Charged with violating the Athenian laws concerning the “corruption of the youth” and “refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state,” Socrates was sentenced to death in by a jury of 500 Athenians in 399 BCE (The suicide of Socrates, 2018). A wealthy friend of Socrates, Crito, wanted to use his wealth and significant political influence to help Socrates escape from his imprisonment and avoid this unjust sentence. In sum, from Crito’s perspective, Socrates has no legitimate reason to remain in prison or to allow the state to carry out its death sentence because the laws that were broken were not just.

Fortunately for historians, Socrates provided an in-depth explanation concerning his rationale for his response to the death penalty notwithstanding its unjustness. According to Socrates, individuals should apply an step-wise approach to evaluating laws to determine if they are just or unjust and therefore worthy of being obeyed or not. For example, Boghossian (2006) reports that the Socratic analytical method is comprised for five steps that Socrates advocated for this purpose as follows:

1. Wonder: The first step in the Socratic Method requires positing the philosophical/moral question, such as "Why obey the law?' Questions are asked in order to further define the idea in question; that is, Socrates seeks definitions for the terms about which he inquired, starting with general questions and systematically narrowing down the inquiry.

2. Hypothesis: This second step involves a careful and thoughtful consideration of the responses received to the question posited in the first step. Only the response in question is addressed, there is no evaluation of the response.

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3. Elenchus (refutation and cross-examination): This step (also referred to alternatively as the question-and-answer or cross-examination stage) represents the main element of the Socratic Method wherein Socrates played the devil’s advocate by offering counterpoints to the arguments by participants that were developed in the preceding steps to determine whether the entire set of beliefs (or a particular belief) held by the participants are mutually consistent.

4. Accept/reject the hypothesis: The penultimate step in the Socratic Method involves accepting or rejecting the hypothesis developed in the first four steps. If the counterexample is accepted, then the discussion goes back to the second stage and another hypothesis is elicited. Alternatively, the counterexample could be rejected by both parties who agree that it was neither necessary nor sufficient to undermine the hypothesis. If the counterexample is rejected, then the hypothesis is accepted as being "provisionally" true. If there are other counterexamples that could show the hypothesis to be false, then Socrates returns the discussion to stage three.

5. Act accordingly: The final step in the Socratic Method whereby laws are evaluated to determine whether they are just or unjust involves taking appropriate action in response (adapted from Boghossian, 2006, p. 43).

Taken together, although the foregoing process does provide a systematic strategy for evaluating the justness or unjustness of specific laws, it is constrained in major ways by the quality and quantity of the counter arguments and examples that are offered by the participants who are involved in the analysis. In this regard, the manner in which Socrates applied this step-wise approach to analyzing his predicament following his death sentence can be discerned from his exchanges with his friend, Crito. Despite Crito’s insistence that Socrates was not morally bound to obey unjust laws, though, Socrates was absolutely adamant that since he was a citizen of Greece who had benefited from the state’s other laws all his life, the social contract thus created meant that he was morally obligated to conform to its laws regardless of whether they were just or unjust (Kelley, 2012).

In other words, Socrates believed in the adage that two wrongs do not make a right, and it was his moral obligation to willingly accede to the jury’s decision about his fate rather than rocking the Athenian legal boat by accepting Crito’s offer of escape from misguided justice. For instance, according to Kelley (2012), “Crito, whose wealth will be used to bribe the guards and free Socrates, reminds him that the trial and sentence are unjust. Socrates refuses Crito's appeal, insisting that one injustice does not legitimate another” (p. 440). While it is reasonable to suggest that Socrates held some strong and valid beliefs about the overarching need to obey the laws of the land, his analysis of his own circumstances and how he should respond was predicated on the notion even unjust laws must be obeyed, an issue that was specifically addressed in Martin Luther King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” as discussed further below.

Martin Luther King’s arguments in support of civil disobedience

In April 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King was jailed for his role in the Birmingham Campaign which sought to facilitate the integration of African-Americans into communities in Alabama. Like the firebrand….....

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