Civil disobedience can be defined in many different ways: in its crudest form, “civil disobedience is the refusal to conform with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines, as a peaceful form of political protest due to moral objections to such laws.” While Henry David Thoreau was the first individual to directly illustrate the theme of civil disobedience in his 1849 essay, “Civil Disobedience,” the actions taken by Socrates in the Apology and the Crito may contradict the supposed morality of breaking the law. plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Martin Luther King Jr. further expresses the righteousness in these vigilante behaviors with his protests against black segregation laws and in "A Letter from Birmingham Jail." But is civil disobedience really justified? Is total contempt for government really appropriate? What would be the result of civil disobedience on a larger scale? Despite the arguments made by Thoreau and King, I am justifying, like Socrates, that civil disobedience is never acceptable. Socrates has an interesting position in this essay because he has not inherently broken any laws in his mind. In Plato's Apology, Socrates, the scheming gadfly, was accused by Athens of having corrupted the minds of the young with his philosophical teachings and of undermining the gods. Socrates somehow “argued” his thesis. He also states that an oracle at Delphi stated that there was no one wiser than Socrates. Socrates says: “I am wiser than this human being. Probably neither of us knows anything noble and good, but supposes that he knows something when he doesn't know it, while I, just as I don't know, don't even suppose that I know. I will probably be a little wiser than him precisely in this: that whatever I do not know, I do not even suppose that I know it” (Plato 70). He is implying that he is the wisest because he knows he is not the wisest. However, he is still determined to be guilty towards Athens. While this may or may not be true, he accepted his punishment wholeheartedly because he believed that the citizen owes his existence to the laws. On the other hand, the concept of civil disobedience takes the priority of selfish benefits: “No act of civil disobedience can be morally justified, because such an act is fundamentally immoral, as it presupposes the superiority of the individual over social interests. The civil disobedient acts out of self-respect, in deliberate defiance of the will of his community, and this can never be right” (Cohen 134). When in prison, in Plato's Crito, Socrates demonstrates the meaning of this quote when he is given the opportunity to escape. He states, “And even he who has suffered injustice, therefore, must not do injustice in return, as many suppose, since one must in no way do injustice” (Plato 107). Socrates realizes that committing an injustice because of injustice would call into question everything he stands for as a philosopher. He explains to Crito that if citizens chose to disobey and break laws they don't like, the laws would no longer have any value and the city would devolve into chaos. Eventually, he is warned that if he were to leave prison, he would be an unwelcome fugitive. How could he continue his teachings if he had committed an injustice himself? Crito accepts the terms and Socrates is immediately put to death by ingesting hemlock. Perhaps we should speak of "selfish disobedience" rather than civil disobedience: those who commit civil disobedience do not care about the law, but only about others.goals and personal gain: a callous disregard for the lawful rights of all those around them. I am reasoning that Martin Luther King Junior is one of these callous individuals whose protests were made out of selfish interests: "In essence, the letter was a proclamation of black self-sufficiency" (Reider).it is a direct statement by Jonathan Riedner, a critic of King, in an article titled “Dr. The righteous fury of the king." Reider also states in his writings that King thoughtlessly views the American dream through black eyes: this is why his references should be taken so lightly. King describes blacks as “tools for someone else's dream.” How can King make this statement and yet continually wonder why blacks were given nothing: "Don't you ever think we'll be given anything in this struggle? But they didn't give us any land... and they didn't" gave us nothing” (Reider)! Give, give, give: King seems like a teenager with an unwarranted sense of entitlement. Even Socrates would tell King that it is unfair to put the laws he wants fourth at the expense of society's current laws because, in fact, it owes its existence to the laws as they now exist. Socrates has the utmost respect for the gods, in fact, it is up to interpretation whether his immediate loyalty is with the gods or the city, "...the laws of Hades will not welcome you there...then forget it , Crito, and let us act thus, by this is the way that God leads” (Plato 114). King also believes in the vertical order. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” says: “A just law is a created code by man who agrees with the moral law or law of God” (King). Although both men appear to worship a higher power, the key difference is that Socrates knows that he must obey the laws of Athens to respect the gods King, d On the other hand, he thinks it is a "moral responsibility" of men to break unjust laws. This contradicts what we might read in Romans 13:1-2: “Everyone must submit to the governing authorities, for there is none. no other authority than that which God has established. Whoever rebels against authority rebels against what God has established." King should have taken a more Socratic approach to his protests if he wanted to stay in line with what the vertical order is. All in all, selfish disobedience is the pursuit of personal interests with callous disregard for the overall well-being of the community and should never be justified. This statement, however, raises another question: what do you do if you do not believe the rightness of the laws in society or within your community? Thoreau presents readers with three options: obey, modify, or transcend, “There are unjust laws: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we seek to modify them, shall we obey until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them immediately? " Thoreau, in summary, says that most believe they must wait until they have convinced the majority to change them because if they were to act in opposition, “the remedy would be worse than the disease”. He advises transcending the laws: moving away from the machine ( government). However, by acting on transcendence, one acts in deliberate disrespect for the law, “civil disobedience undermines respect for the law and allows the civil disobedient to take the law into their own hands” (Cohen 142). he idea of ​​a vigilante: someone who enforces laws without authority because he believes current officials are inadequate. “A Call for Unity” by the priests of Birmingham, Alabama, calls for honest and open action in negotiation to prevent just this kind. of behavior: “When rights are consistently denied, a lawsuit should be.