Wednesday, December 19, 2007

"Reasonably Just"

"In a reasonably just (though of course not perfectly just) democratic regime, civil disobedience is, when it is justified, normally to be understood as a political action which addresses the sense of justice of the majority in order to urge reconsideration of the measures protested and to warn that in the firm opinion of the dissenters the conditions of social cooperation are not being honored."
~John Rawls, The Justification For Civil Disobedience
But for Rawls, civil disobedience is limited in a reasonably just democratic regime when it cannot urge reconsideration from the majority because it threatens the integrity of the reasonably just regime. There is of course no corresponding obligation or duty to regard what the reasonably just regime enacts itself is (in the end) just, just as there is no corresponding obligation or duty to regard what the majority enacts itself is (in the end) just.

'Justice for reasonably just regimes', I guess.

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