Just Civil Disobedience: Building a Framework for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience

Abstract

The most drastic difference between theories on just war and civil disobedience is that the latter holds no commonly accepted framework. Well-developed in historical and contemporary scholarship, the principles of just war theory are widely accepted as the framework to use when considering the justness of war. Though writings on civil disobedience have alluded to or begun the creation of tentative frameworks, a full-fledged framework has not been established. Rather, these frameworks are scattered and tend to follow one of three patterns: (1) the literature does not refer to a framework whatsoever; (2) the literature suggests principles that could belong to a framework; (3) or the literature speaks to a framework, but denounces its effectiveness or necessity. Literature belonging to one of these categories lacks the legitimacy of just war theory. My argument seeks to fill the gap existing in this literature by creating a framework for just civil disobedience. This framework will use the principles of just war theory and principles taken from other literature and philosophy to address when and how it is justified to disobey the government through the use of non-violent civil disobedience.