Civil Disobedience: Are We Morally Obliged to Obey Unjust Laws? Essay

Are we morally have to obey even unjust laws? This moral question addresses what we comm still whop as courteous disobedience. In order to properly discuss well-manneredian disobedience and whether or non it is moral to disobey laws, we must commencement exercise char scraperize civil disobedience. In Peter Singers book, Practical Ethics he begins to characterize civil disobedience as arising from ethical disagreement and aggrandisement the question of whether to uphold the law, even if the law protects and sanctions things we hold utterly improper? (Singer 292). total heat David Thoreau wrote an essay entitled Civil noncompliance that was published in 1854 in the collection of essays called Walden or Life in the Woods. Thoreau first wrote of civil disobedience in opposition to the Mexican War, but his words even-tempered hold truth and meaning for us today. In Civil Disobedience Thoreau explains his ideas about government and whether or not we should obey laws that d o not appear to the individual to be moral. Thoreau recognizes that there can be disgust to government, and simply because something is passed as law, does not make it right. He says The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally probable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it (Thoreau 1).With civil disobedience, we are discussing government and the law, and if we should uphold laws, even when they are not morally right and how, if we are to go against the law, should we do that? We should not have to obey laws that are unjust, but we also must find out at each individual instance where injustice is occurring and carefully localise how to act. Civil disobedience must remain civil and not lead violent. If disobedi... ...ly enough said, that a corporation has no conscience but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. legality never made a man a whit mor e than just and by means of respect for it, even the well dispose are made the agents of injustice (Thoreau 2).Violence is hard to justify when discussing civil disobedience. The whole idea behind civil disobedience is that it is a government agency to bring attention to an injustice without causing harm to others.Bibliography Singer, Peter.Practical Ethics. Second Edition. Cambridge University Press. 1993. Thoreau, Henry David.Civil Disobedience and Other Essays. Dover Publications, Inc. Dover Thrift Editions. 1993 The Sevagram Ashram. http//www.mkgandhi.org/sevagram/default.htm People v Pitts. Michigan No. 186260. LC No. 95-003317. 1997. http//www.milawyersweekly.com/micoa/186260.HTM