Download “There is no country in the world where everything can be provided

“There is no country in the world where everything can be provided for by laws, or a
political institute can provide a substitute for public morality.”
-Alexis De Tocqueville (pronounced Tokeville)
No government will act without errors, even the most well-run democracy. Because of
this imperfection, citizens must have some justifiable resource to act against the error. It
is for this reason that I must stand in strong affirmation of the following resolution: Civil
disobedience is justified in a democracy. In order to clarify the resolution, the
affirmative defines the following key terms:
Civil disobedience: non-violent political action contrary to law done with the aim of
bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government. (John Rawls, American
Philosopher)
Justified: morally right concerning fairness and due treatment (American Heritage)
Democracy: government by the people, either directly or through elected
representatives (American Heritage)
The value premise of today’s debate is dignity: upholding the inherent worth of man.
Civil Disobedience puts the individual in the forefront. Dignity is preserved only when
society respects moral laws and the government observes limitations on its power. The
value criterion is government legitimacy. A legitimate government generates a duty to
be obeyed, according to Joseph Raz, a professor of legal philosophy at Columbia Law
School. This duty is generated when the authority answers to the moral implications of
its decisions.
Allen E. Buchanan Professor of Political Philosophy at Duke University, and Robert O.
Keohane of International Studies At Princeton University said that government
legitimacy “is the right to rule, [meaning] that institutional agents are morally justified in
making rules and attempting to secure compliance with them and that people subject to
those rules have moral… reasons to follow them..”
Contention One: Legitimacy stems from moral law. Even though social contract theory
says that people surrender certain rights in order to benefit from the protection of a
sovereign, this does not include the surrender of the right to make moral judgments.
Furthermore, citizens have a duty to make their society the most ethical state possible.
Immanuel Kant best expressed this obligation when he wrote, “[Respect for the
kingdom of ends, or the “ethical commonwealth”] commands us to create the ideal
world that morally virtuous people would create, under the guidance of practical
reason, were such a thing in their power and to make this your final end.” In a
democracy, a minority view can be easily squelched or ignored. According to John
Rawls, by engaging in civil disobedience, a minority forces the majority to consider
whether it wants its actions to be construed as [unjust], or whether, in view of the
common sense of justice, the claims of the minority are legitimate.” Civil disobedience,
therefore, is a method of testing laws.
Civil disobedience asks a person to prioritize moral issues over his obligation to obey his
government. French philosopher Jacques Maritain rightly points out that no governing
system is inherently valuable; rather, its worth is derived from the justness of its
policies. A majority decision does not carry with it any guarantee of justice.
Contention Two: Civil disobedience protects the legitimacy of a democracy against the
tyranny of the majority. If the majority controls the government, it is logical to assume
it also controls the checks on political power. The established systems in a democracy,
such as congresses and parliaments, can all be made less legitimate by the abuse of
majority power. Civil disobedience gives the minority an additional method of
expressing its views, allowing them to go beyond the legal process of protest, should it
fail, and providing a valuable check on the power of the majority.
Groups or individuals who disobey unjust laws in deliberate acts of civil disobedience do
not undermine the legitimacy of government. Their lawbreaking must not be
considered as an ordinary crime, since it has different aims and the lawbreaker openly
disobeys the law and accepts punishment. Democratic systems enhance a
government’s legitimacy, but the practice of civil disobedience is justified because it
adds to the legitimacy of the government as laws are tested and sometimes eventually
changed, thus supporting the value of dignity, or upholding the inherent worth of man.