How to Write Better Essays

9 But should the government be free to intervene and restrict your

freedom when your actions cause harm to yourself only, e.g.

smoking, wearing crash helmets?

10 Give an account of the ideas of those who have made important

contributions to the debate:

Socrates

Henry Thoreau

Peter Kropotkin

Martin Luther King

John Rawls

The plan

Question

Are there any circumstances where the individual is justified in refus-

ing to obey a law?

1 Problem: Government encroachment on our freedoms v. the danger

of social breakdown if individuals are allowed to pick and choose

the laws they will obey and those they won’t

2 Government with no popular legitimacy – lacks majority support:

Refusing to obey the law =justified

• authoritarian governments, e.g. South Africa/apartheid

3 Government is legitimate:

(a) But the majority tyrannises a minority:

Refusing to obey the law =justified

e.g. Germany – Nazi Government – 1935 Nuremberg Laws

e.g. USA – 1960s Civil Rights – segregation – M. L. King.

(b) Problem =when government is legitimate and the law conflicts

with individual conscience and principles

e.g. Quakers refusing to pay that proportion of their taxes

that is spent on nuclear weapons, because of pacifist

principles

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