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When is it okay to disobey the law?
Jean
Heartbroken papa bearGatineau, QuébecRegistered User regular
Heartbroken papa bearGatineau, QuébecRegistered User regular
The whole controversy regarding Bill 78 in my native Québec made me think about this issue altough I do not wish this topic to focus on this particular law only.
Under which circumstances it is okay to say '' I refuse to obey this law'' ?
Under which circumstances it is okay to say '' I refuse to obey this law'' ?
"You won't destroy us, You won't destroy our democracy. We are a small but proud nation. No one can bomb us to silence. No one can scare us from being Norway. This evening and tonight, we'll take care of each other. That's what we do best when attacked'' - Jens Stoltenberg
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A dark knight.
As far as "refusing to obey laws" goes, I'd say when a law is archaic, outdated in regards to current culture, or blatantly tramples on civil rights. So civil disobedience would be okay in regards to "this is only for white people" (per options 1, 2, and 3) or "speak against the current government and be arrested" (option 3).
Universities are for learning, and the act of blocking people who've paid good money from entering them should be rightfully punished.
On a more serious note, I'd say a rough standard might be that it's acceptable to disobey a law when that law violates some form of universal human right, and when that disobedience doesn't violate the human rights of others.
Then we get into the rhetorical weeds of defining what "human rights" entail, though.
When he says so.
^ Exactly.
No matter your reasons for breaking a law, there are always going to be consequences when you're caught. Whether you think doing so is the right thing or not.
Read my fairy tale webcomic, The Fox & The Firebird, at: http://www.fairytaletwisted.com
And the action isn't in and of itself morally objectionable. Laws often exist to prevent violations of people's rights. I'm not a big fan of people shitting on one another.
I jaywalk, speed a bit, and use drugs. I am unlikely to be punished or to cause harm due to these actions, but on a technical level it is rare a day passes where I don't violate some sort of law.
My rule in life is this; do anything you feel comfortable with so long as you are also comfortable accepting any and all consequences of your decision.
No, it just means you need to be prepared if the worst happens, that's all.
Unjust laws suck, but unless your some sort of superhero or mover and shaker in the world there's not much you can do with indignant speech.
Agreed. I think that the purpose of laws should be to prevent people from causing harm and/or distress to other people. I don't think there should be laws to prevent you from harming yourself. Everyone should have a right to mess up their own life if they choose. That's why I think that drug laws are unnecessary. Though I, personally, do not do drugs...
Read my fairy tale webcomic, The Fox & The Firebird, at: http://www.fairytaletwisted.com
Potential gain - Penalties x probability of punishment
Either being killed for attempting to leave is unlikely or the benifit of leaving justify the risk.
More importantly, that you're willing to accept the consequences doesn't make it okay to break the law either.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
When the law is unjust, obviously.
However, the question as to what constitutes just or unjust is incredibly deep. Is that what you're after here?
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Making it illegal to block access to a university - that's fine. You shouldn't be getting in other people's way.
Requiring protestors to register with authorities in advance? Giving police broad powers to force protestors to relocate? I'd want to read the text of the bill before I pass judgment, but those look like huge red flags to me.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Here's the English translation of the law
Yes, definitively
That said, if the law is blatantly unjust - let's imagine WWII-era Germany just to make the point very clear - I'd say you have a moral obligation to not obey the law. Of course, between jaywalking and turning in errant Jews there is a lot of gray area. It varies from case to case.
Also, it's important to discern between an unjust law and a bad law. The law banning recreational use of marijuana may be a bad law - I think it is - but that doesn't make it necessarily unjust. And if a law is simply stupid, I don't think it gives you much moral leeway in terms of violating it. So yes, I would say that lighting up a doobie for shits and giggles if such is illegal would be an immoral act. Not immoral to the point where I would give a shit, really, but along the same lines as speeding, jaywalking, and so on. Let's not pretend that pot smokers are a noble force of disobedient warriors. They're dudes who like to get high. If you want to smoke pot, the moral action is to work within legal parameters to change the law, not to just ignore the law.
I largely agree with this. I believe that there is intrinsic value in the law - such that breaking the law for no purpose or for a negligible purpose is immoral.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
One has to wonder though just how worthy it is to respect an entirely implicit social contract that you had no choice in accepting or not. I mean yes in some cases you can renounce your citizenship and leave the country but that's if you're already rich. There's really no option for someone who, of their own will, disagrees with a lot of present social policy and just wants to go somewhere and not be bothered by the rest of the world and its laws. They can most certainly try but their ability to do so really hinges on them being able to find unoccupied land that no government on Earth currently claims or wants...so basically you'd have to live in the Arctic or Antarctic...which isn't realistic if you're not rich enough to build a decent shelter and afford getting someone to haul you and your stuff there.
What constitutes injustice I'm finding lately is actually a highly personal thing. We form consensus around areas where we all can relate, such as discrimination based on race, gender, etc. However when it comes to issues that large segments of the population have no comparable frame of reference the idea of justice tends to devolve into personal preference/belief. I could write a lot about how marijuana laws are unjust on the premise that they attempt to regulate individual behavior for no medically necessary reason because a bunch of people think weed is scary. They're telling you that you can't do something in the privacy of your own home, not because it harms you, or them, but because they find the idea you like to do that threatening in some way. But of course whether you find the above merely dumb or unjust depends on your point of view (predominantly, how much the law in question effects your life compared to the difficulty you'd have changing it. Tell a glaucoma patient they have to convince the federal government to reform the entire system of federal drug scheduling laws before you ever let them take one puff and you'll have a very angry glaucoma patient.)
I jaywalk when it's safe to. I'm not waiting for the light to change when no cars are coming. Waste of my time.
This is, more or less, the belief of the founders of the United States. Seems like a pretty decent place to start.
As a pretty harmless example, I believe that we should be able to buy and use fireworks, but my state has banned most types (I believe that sparklers and those little fountains are about the only things still legal). So every few years, I'll go with my dad on a 5 hour trip across state lines into a state that doesn't have those regulations, and drop a couple hundred bucks on a few years of fireworks. Furthermore, I will gladly neglect to report anyone I know who does the same.
In this case, the potential consequence is probably a fine, and the actual chance is pretty slim (a friend of mine's parents got caught lighting off illegal fireworks on a 4th of July party and the cop just joined in) so it's a law I'm comfortable breaking.
That said, I'm opposed to a lot of stupid laws and I doubt I'd bother reporting anyone I knew who committed them.
Such as the police or my congressmen.
I wonder about that. Is it the law that is bad to break or the morality? Jaywalking could put people at risk, especially if everyone did it. (Note the 'could' - in many nations it is perfectly legal, and I have no idea if it actually does).
A law to use light blue toilet paper rather than blue toilet paper - would it be bad to break it? Perhaps. You'd have to lie sometimes, other people would have to lie to supply it to you. You'd put extra work on the police. Those things are wrong. So it's wrong for moral reasons.
Every time someone says we should follow the law, I think you can always trace it to a moral reason. Sometimes that reason is mild, complex, or obscure. So we say that we need to follow the law for its own sake. But actually we are following morality.
I don't think I can even parse the sentence, 'We should follow this law because it's the law, and not for moral reasons. Breaking this law would have no moral consequences whatsoever, but we should still follow it.'
It's still morality we are talking about, not the law.
this rings kind of hollow to me; there are all kinds of laws which people flout on a regular basis, and I don't think of that as moving society toward some kind of anarchic or amoral future
all laws ultimately only exist as the will of the public; a law that can't (or won't) be enforced is no law. I don't find it immoral to use drugs or jaywalk or whatever just because there is a law that says otherwise, since it's obvious to me that those activities are pretty well normalized in public life.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
For example, if the police used the law to enforce a reasonable limit on the places where somebody could protest - by saying, for example, "You can't protest here because you are blocking traffic; you may protest on the other side of the street," that would be fine. That's a relatively minor inconvenience. On the other hand, if they said, "you may protest in this abandoned quarry four miles away" that would not be reasonable, that would be an infringement of what I consider to be a universal right of free assembly, and there would it would not be immoral to defy that law.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
there are already laws against, say, standing in the middle of the street and blocking traffic. Why pass additional regulation, but to single out protest the government finds objectionable?
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Yeah, me too.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Someone could still say you should follow the law because if you break it, you will be punished. This is entirely sans moral judgements for the act in question. When people say "You should follow the Law Just Because!" that's when they're making a stealth moral judgement of there being an inherent moral good in obeying our implicit social contract. But someone can actually be quite a strong advocate for following the law based on all of the horrible things that can be done to you if you're caught breaking it.
Nah, it means that you should only leave the country if it's worth it to risk dying.
Unfortunately, a lot of pot smokers I've met are too lazy to vote. So we'll probably be stuck with that bad law for awhile. I don't see it as immoral though, since a smoker isn't hurting anyone but themself.
I think that just because something is illegal, it doesn't make it any more immoral. It just makes it more risky. Actions that are immoral and legal are still immoral. Actions that are not immoral but illegal are still not immoral.
Read my fairy tale webcomic, The Fox & The Firebird, at: http://www.fairytaletwisted.com
it seems like the law as a moral force argument flows from the idea that we have this social compact and that since we're all in it and have at least implicitly agreed to be bound by it, we ought to follow it as best we can.
My question is, do we care about this general social agreement itself, or just the codification of it? Jaywalking is an example of something that we have laws against for a sensible reason; on the other hand, nobody actually cares if you jaywalk. Drug laws are the same way; we have laws against it, but does society actually think it's a problem if I roll a blunt?
We could go through the list of states' blue laws and find a bunch of stuff that's really only worthy of being laughed at, but it's still the law.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
But to the question of the thread:
When it is more moral to break a law than follow it would be my short, one line answer. Civil disobedience is important, dissent is patriotic after all. To a point. It's all about scale and perspective, really. Most laws, in truth, are there to protect people; stop signs and the like, and so to break them one would need a damn good reason and you do have to be willing to risk, if not accept, the consequences.
Violence should always be the last possible choice, though, to be clear. And every legal avenue should be exhausted before you start meandering down illegal alley.
I break those laws regularly. No-one notices, no-one cares, no police time is wasted bothering me, and I don't have to lie, because I don't even know I'm breaking the law.
The law is broken without any harm to anyone.
Am I wrong to have broken the law? I don't think so, and I doubt anyone else would say so.
When is it OK to break the law? Whenever it's the right thing to do. The same as every other action. The law is a power I must fear. It has no moral force in and of itself.
The context for the law is this: there was a university tuition hike (an unfair one; Canadian students in general pay absolutely ludicrous tuitions because the government refuses to spend money on education even while they happily blow wad upon wad of cash on toys like new fighter jets that we'll never use. Quebec has lower tuition than the rest of the country, but that's not saying much), and various bodies of students went absolutely apeshit.
I don't think it was about the tuition at the end of the day; there's been simmering rage in some of the more progressive provinces (like Quebec) over the results of the last election, and the tuition hike triggered an eruption. Students went around burning vehicles, smashing-up businesses & people's houses, vandalizing university property, blocking all access to university campuses, etc. It's been absolute mayhem.
The law is still bullshit.
...In essence, everybody is in the wrong here. The students who went rampaging through Montreal & elsewhere ought to be ashamed of themselves for allowing the tuition hike to catalyse that sort of violence, while the federal government ought to be ashamed of itself for facilitating a state of public outrage & using the inevitable outburst as an opportunity to pass fascist legislation.
Jean, of course you should break that law. That law is fucking ridiculous; it's the sort of thing one should expect to find in a banana republic. If I were in Quebec and / or in a position to do it, I'd break the fucking law, get arrested, and have a real shit show in a courtroom because the law violates the fucking constitution.
Harper's majority government is not entitled to overturn the constitution last I checked.
Sums up what I think about that law tough. I didn't really cared about that student strike until that bill passed to be honest but now I'm quite angry at the Charest governement, to put it lightly.