Civil Disobedience, Law and Morality: An Examination of Justice Fortas' Doctrine (From Civil Disobedience, P 107-124, 1989, Paul Harris, ed. -- See NCJ-121683)

• NCJ Number: 121688
• Author(s): A Gewirth
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: University Press of America
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This analysis of the discussion of civil disobedience by former United States Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas concludes that the problems with Fortas's analysis results largely from his contradictory effort to view the rule of law both as an absolute value and as having only a conditional justification that is dependent on the conformity of law to moral criteria.

Abstract

Fortas's analysis makes it clear that he, like most others, is neither an absolute legalist nor an absolute individualistic moralist. However, the problems involved in his analysis should be attributed to the definition of civil disobedience. This definition is inconsistent, because it requires that the civil disobedient both approve and disapprove the violation of certain laws. It is also immoral, in that the acceptance of punishment for disobedience entails acquiescence in laws that are regarded as immoral. The Fortas analysis shows that invoking moral criteria to justify an institution makes it necessary to evaluate the institution's operations in terms of their conformity to those criteria. In addition, invoking one set of moral criteria to justify an institution and another set to justify violation of that institution produces a contradiction unless some general principle is set forth that makes clear the connection between the two sets of moral criteria. 9 reference notes.