Uncivil Disobedience: Beyond the Orthodox View of Resistance and Counter-Resistance
type: CreativeWork
description: What I call the Orthodox View of resistance and counter-resistance holds that at least in reasonably just societies a) political resistance is sometimes justified and b) the state and other citizens are justified in taking it seriously and treating it as relevantly different from other illegal acts but only when the resistance in question involves observing the requirements of so-called civil disobedience. In this dissertation, I argue that we should reject the Orthodox View in favour of a view that is both more inclusive with regard to the ethics of resistance and more nuanced with regard to the ethics of counter-resistance. Most importantly, in the first part of the dissertation, I argue that we should reject what I call the Orthodox Resistance Thesis, which holds that political resistance is sometimes justified in reasonably just societies but only when it involves civil disobedience. I argue that we should embrace the more inclusive view that uncivil disobedience - illegal resistance that falls short of the relevant standards of civility - is also at least sometimes justified in reasonably just societies. I present four arguments for this key claim. First, I argue that, just as the purported grounds of our political obligations are often taken to support civil disobedience (as opposed to obedience) in special circumstances, so too the purported grounds of our political obligations sometimes support uncivil disobedience (as opposed to civil disobedience) in other special circumstances. Second, I argue that one important and undertheorized kind of uncivil disobedience - political vandalism - is justified when and because it amounts to a form of appropriate counter-hate speech. Third, I argue that responding appropriately to the demands of fairness sometimes permits (and even requires) uncivil disobedience as opposed to civil disobedience since the targeted costs imposed by uncivil disobedience on responsible parties are sometimes more consistent with the demands o…
abstract: What I call the Orthodox View of resistance and counter-resistance holds that at least in reasonably just societies a) political resistance is sometimes justified and b) the state and other citizens are justified in taking it seriously and treating it as relevantly different from other illegal acts but only when the resistance in question involves observing the requirements of so-called civil disobedience. In this dissertation, I argue that we should reject the Orthodox View in favour of a view that is both more inclusive with regard to the ethics of resistance and more nuanced with regard to the ethics of counter-resistance. Most importantly, in the first part of the dissertation, I argue that we should reject what I call the Orthodox Resistance Thesis, which holds that political resistance is sometimes justified in reasonably just societies but only when it involves civil disobedience. I argue that we should embrace the more inclusive view that uncivil disobedience - illegal resistance that falls short of the relevant standards of civility - is also at least sometimes justified in reasonably just societies. I present four arguments for this key claim. First, I argue that, just as the purported grounds of our political obligations are often taken to support civil disobedience (as opposed to obedience) in special circumstances, so too the purported grounds of our political obligations sometimes support uncivil disobedience (as opposed to civil disobedience) in other special circumstances. Second, I argue that one important and undertheorized kind of uncivil disobedience - political vandalism - is justified when and because it amounts to a form of appropriate counter-hate speech. Third, I argue that responding appropriately to the demands of fairness sometimes permits (and even requires) uncivil disobedience as opposed to civil disobedience since the targeted costs imposed by uncivil disobedience on responsible parties are sometimes more consistent with the demands o…
author: Lai, Ten-Herng
language: en_US
date published: 2020
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:07:35Z
provider: Australian Catholic University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Australian Catholic University

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/205504