If an act of civil disobedience—willfully breaking a specific law in order to bring about legal reform—is done out of...

shunhe on September 13, 2020

Hi @maonuo,

Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at this principle. If there’s an act of civil disobedience done out of just self-interest, it’s not justified. But if your conscience requires it, then you are justified in performing an act of civil disobedience. So we need a case where someone’s conscience requires it and you are justified, or there’s an act of civil disobedience done out of only self-interest that’s not justified. We can diagram these sentences:

Act of civil disobedience done out of just self-interest —> ~Justified
One’s conscience requires one to perform an act of civil disobedience —> Justified ?
So now let’s take a look at (C), which tells us that Georgette performed an act of justified civil disobedience. How can we conclude that? Only if the one’s conscience requires it. We can’t conclude that an act of civil disobedience is justified based on the first statement, that would be a mistaken negation. So does it say anything about Georgette’s conscience? No. We only know that Georgette acts out of concern for her fellow inmates. We know that it’s not out of self-interest alone, but we can’t say

~Done out of just self-interest —> Justified

from the first statement. Now take a look at (D), which tells us that Maria’s deliberate violation was an act of justified civil disobedience. This is true, because we’re told her conscience required her to do so, and this satisfies the second statement! So (D) conforms to the principle and is correct.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.