Principled Disobedience as Legal Obligation
17 Pages Posted: 19 Dec 2022
Date Written: August 31, 2022
Abstract
This essay is meant to contribute to the debate concerning the status and legitimacy that legal disobedience grounded in principles has in democratic regimes. The focus will not be on one specific variant of legal disobedience that is ethically and politically motivated, but rather on a basic template, or encompassing pattern, of lawbreaking that is undertaken as a matter of principle. After introducing that template, the argument will show that not only is there no necessary clash between one’s engaging in principled disobedience and one’s legal obligations, but also it may be the case that one has a legal obligation to embark in principled disobedience.
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Keywords: principled disobedience, legal obligation, Kant, Dworkin, civil disobedience
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