Does civil disobedience have to be peaceful?

Black's Law Dictionary includes nonviolence in its definition of civil disobedience. Christian Bay's encyclopedia article states that civil disobedience requires "carefully chosen and legitimate means", but holds that they do not have to be non-violent.

Is civil disobedience peaceful?

Civil disobedience can be defined as refusing to obey a law, a regulation or a power judged unjust in a peaceful manner. Civil disobedience is, therefore, a form of resistance without violence.

What are the necessary conditions for civil disobedience?

Such protest must be nonviolent and must be animated by a spirit of love for the perpetrators of the injustice against which one protests. Nonviolent protest so conceived may or may not involve actions in violation of positive law, but where such protest does involve disobedience of law, it must be civil in character.

What are the three types of civil disobedience?

1.2 Civility
  • 1 Communication. Typically, a person who commits an offense has no wish to communicate with her government or society. ...
  • 2 Publicity. On many accounts, civil disobedience must be not only communicative, but also public in a specific way. ...
  • 3 Non-violence. ...
  • 4 Non-evasion. ...
  • 5 Decorum.


Is civil disobedience violent?

Civil disobedience is the active, non-violent refusal to accept the dictates of governments. It informs them that unjust actions will be opposed and the people will act illegally if pushed to do so.

October 14 2017 Bear Protest: Peaceful nonviolent civil disobedience



How is civil disobedience violent?

It can at most be a warning that more thought and attention to how the public will react must go into a violent act of civil disobedience than into a nonviolent one, or into a physically violent act than into one involving only, say, illegal trespass.

Why is nonviolent civil disobedience effective?

Civil disobedience is nonviolent resistance to a government's law in seek of change. Civil disobedience is an effective way to bring about change because it is a harmless way of fighting an unjust law or idea, it can educate people about the cause, and it has been successful many times in history.

Why civil disobedience is morally justified?

To claim a right to civil disobedience is to claim that others have a duty to allow the agent to commit the act. Nonetheless it is justifiable to violate an immoral law (and even a moral law provided one is unable to violate the immoral law~ but would have been justified in doing so.)

What is the best example of civil disobedience?

Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, Rosa Parks, and other activists in the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, used civil disobedience techniques. Among the most notable civil disobedience events in the U.S. occurred when Parks refused to move on the bus when a white man tried to take her seat.

What is an example of civil disobedience today?

Types of Modern Civil Disobedience

In the U.S., for example, a protest with a permit is legal while many other attempts to break laws, even nonviolently, are still illegal. Some common forms of civil disobedience in the 2000s include: Walk-outs. Sit-ins.

Is civil disobedience always justified?

Many types of objections to civil disobedience have been raised, often based on the view that citizens in a democracy are obliged to obey the law. However, none of these objections are decisive against every act of civil justification. Thus, civil disobedience may be morally justified, even in a democracy.

Is it OK to disobey unjust laws?

One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

What were the main features of civil disobedience movement?

Three features of this movement were. i Peasants refused to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes. ii In many places forest people violated forest laws—going into Reserved Forests to collect wood and graze cattle. iii Women participated in the movement on a large scale.

Why is disobedience good for society?

Civil disobedience can be viewed by many as a weapon against injustice and cruelty. It enables people to help out others by standing up against their oppressors. It gives them an opportunity to allow someone a fair and just chance at life.

What were the limitations of civil disobedience?

The limitations of the Civil Disobedience Movement were as follows: 1)Untouchables were overlooked in the movement. 2)The Hindu-Muslim divide has widened due to the non-participation of Muslim political organisations. 3)Conflicts between Congress and Muslims arose as a result of Muslim demand for special seats.

What is the main theme of civil disobedience?

In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau's basic premise is that a higher law than civil law demands the obedience of the individual. Human law and government are subordinate. In cases where the two are at odds with one another, the individual must follow his conscience and, if necessary, disregard human law.

What is the most important element of civil disobedience?

By submitting to punishment, the civil disobedient hopes to set a moral example that will provoke the majority or the government into effecting meaningful political, social, or economic change. Under the imperative of setting a moral example, leaders of civil disobedience insist that the illegal actions be nonviolent.

How do you practice civil disobedience?

Types of Civil Disobedience
  1. Holy obedience. This is a clear-cut case of a direct conflict between obedience to God and obedience to government. ...
  2. Limited options. Several options have been tried and failed. ...
  3. Moral statement. ...
  4. Community solidarity. ...
  5. Lifting the issue to public view. ...
  6. Situational response.


Which action would be considered an act of civil disobedience?

In an act of civil disobedience, you either publicly break an unjust law in order to challenge the legitimacy of that law, or you commit some minor infraction (trespassing, for example, or obstruction), with the intent of bringing about broader political changes.

Should civil disobedience be allowed?

Civil disobedience is no nuisance to the public. Rather, it is an important, even necessary strategy for overcoming roadblocks to progress. It is an essential freedom, and a crucial resource for citizens of an organized society. A variety of arguments have been set forth by scholars in support of civil disobedience.

Which is better violence or nonviolence?

Recent quantitative research has demonstrated that nonviolent strategies are twice as effective as violent ones. Organized and disciplined nonviolence can disarm and change the world – and our lives, our relationships and our communities.

Why should protests be peaceful?

The nature of protests and its causes — usually sensitive topics like oppression, marginalization, and brutality — can make it difficult to remain peaceful and civil. Emotions, including anger, can run high, and passion for a cause can take hold in a crowd in ways that have an undesirable outcome.

Were non violent protests successful?

NAVCO gathered data on 622 campaigns between 1900 and 2019. As we can see in the chart, in this time, half of the 321 non-violent campaigns succeeded, while only a quarter of their 301 violent counterparts did. 56% of violent campaigns failed, compared to 30% of non-violent ones.

Can breaking the rules ever be justified?

It is now widely agreed that a person can be morally justified in breaking a law, even a valid law in a democracy whose institutions are by and large just. There is much less agreement, however, about the sorts of considerations that constitute good moral reasons in support of disobedience.

Is breaking the law morally wrong?

In short, if anybody ever has a right to break the law, this cannot be a legal right under the law. It has to be a moral right against the law. And this moral right is not an unlimited right to disobey any law which one regards as unjust.