No declaration of human rights will ever be exhaustive and definitive. This will always go hand in hand with the state of moral consciousness and civilization at some point in history. And for this reason, even after the great victory achieved at the end of the eighteenth century by the first written declaration of these rights, it remains a major interest of humanity that such declarations be renewed from century to century. For this reason, Dworkin argues that a judge should endeavor to interpret a case something like this: to the extent that a definition of law can be given, it must include the idea that the essential function of law is to “attain [social] order by subjecting people`s behavior to the guidance of general rules by which they can direct their own behavior” (Fuller 1965, 657). Well, why, if people without an external and supernatural basis for their behavior are not supposed to be able to function well, are so many people so capable of following and enforcing traffic rules? It should be obvious from the most occasional observation that humans are quite capable of setting up systems and operating on them. Now, let`s bring another being into the picture, a being who, although he has many needs and interests in common with Adam, has a few that are slightly different. We will call her Eva. Interesting things are starting to happen at this point. Because on the one hand, we have two people with similar goals who are able to work together for a common cause. On the other hand, we have two people who have to compromise with each other so that each can satisfy each other`s unique desires. Thus, a complex interpersonal relationship develops, and rules are established to maximize mutual satisfaction and minimize the effects of evil.
With the rules, we now have good and evil. And this fundamental recognition of the need for cooperation ultimately leads to laws and ethics. We want to catch the bad guys and promote justice. But how can this happen if we don`t raise our voices and denounce immoral behavior, even if it`s legal? Perhaps our willingness to give people a pass when they do bad things, even if they are legal, undermines the likelihood that people will follow the rules, let alone the spirit of the rule. But does this completely solve the theist`s problem? No. For one can still wonder how it is possible for people to behave morally, to agree on moral rules and laws, and to generally cooperate with each other when there is no divine impulse in this direction. Haven`t modern philosophers, especially analytic philosophers, argued that moral statements are essentially emotional statements with no rational basis? And haven`t they irrevocably separated “is” from “should” so that no foundation is possible? In this context, how is it that people manage to agree on a multitude of moral and legal principles, often from culture to culture? And, what is even more interesting, how is it possible that legal and moral systems improve over the centuries if there is not the rational or theological basis that modern philosophers have so effectively removed? Without foundation, some objective criteria, it is not possible to prefer a good moral system to a bad one. If both are equally emotional and irrational, they are both equally arbitrary – any choice between them is only the product of random inclinations or deliberate whims. No election could be defended rationally.
In fact, however, these rights and powers may be empty. Police can be hostile, courts can be biased, elections can be rigged – and the remedies available to individuals can be useless against these evils. Civil disobedience is not as easy as other actions in which people courageously defend their principles. These are violations of the law. And the law cannot make any provision for its violation, except to make the perpetrator punishable. That is why President Kennedy found himself in such a delicate situation last spring at the time of the black protests in Birmingham. He gave many signs that as an individual, he sympathized with the goals of the protesters. As a political leader, he probably realized that these goals could not be achieved without dramatic actions that crossed the line of illegality.
But as chief executive, he could not give permission or approval for such actions. An answer that covers all the questions that this question raises cannot be given here, and a set of principles cannot be proposed that allow anyone to make automatic and infallible judgments about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of certain acts of civil disobedience. Such judgments require detailed knowledge of the facts of certain cases, and this knowledge is often not available to the outside world. Nevertheless, it is possible to highlight some of the main problems raised by civil disobedience, some of the most common mistakes made in thinking about these issues and, at least broadly speaking, the approach a man would take to these issues. To begin with, it is important to distinguish two types of theories that are called natural law. The first is a theory of morality, which is roughly characterized by the following theses. First, moral statements have what is sometimes called an objective status in the sense that such statements carry an objective truth value; that is, moral statements may be objectively true or false. Although moral objectivism is sometimes equated with moral realism (see e.B. Moore 1992, 190: “The truth of every moral statement lies in its correspondence with a moral reality independent of thought and convention,” the relationship between the two theories is disputed. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (1988), for example, considers moral objectivism as a kind of moral realism, but not as the only form; According to Sayre-McCord, moral subjectivism and moral intersubjectivism are also forms of moral realism. Therefore, strictly speaking, the moral theory of natural law engages only in the objectivity of moral norms. Now, it is quite right, I believe, that in a democracy there is a stronger argument for obedience to the law, including the wrong law, than in a dictatorship.
People who must abide by the law have probably been consulted, and they have legal channels to voice their protests and work for reforms. One way to define democracy is to say that it is a system whose purpose is to provide alternatives to civil disobedience. However, if you apply them to the kind of situation in which CORE finds itself, for example, these generalizations seem to me to become cruelly abstract. A more interesting argument has recently been taken up by Brian Bix (1996). Echoing John Finnis (1980), Bix rejects Aquinas and Blackstone`s interpretation as conceptual naturalists, arguing instead that the claim that an unjust law is not a law should not be taken literally: imagine for a moment that we have the Earth, lifeless and dead, floating in a universe without life and death. There are only mountains, rocks, gorges, winds and rain, but no one can judge good and evil anywhere. Would there be good and evil in such a world? Would it make a moral difference if a stone rolls down a hill or not? Richard Taylor actually argued in his book Good and Evil that a “distinction between good and evil could not even theoretically be made in a world we imagined free of all life.” So, are there such actions? Are there actions that are morally just but prohibited by law? In short, the goals of those who disobey the law must be at the heart of what we consider morality before we can say they have the moral right to do what they do. .