Disobedience and Its Objects
When John Rawls reinvigorated the contemporary philosophical debate about civil disobedience with his 1969 essay, The Justification of Civil Disobedience, 1 he also largely set the terms for subsequent discussions of that subject. Rawls, of course, went on to refine and further defend his account of the nature and justification of civil disobedience in A Theory of Justice; 2 but the basics of the account remain the same as in his earlier essay. Rawls's theory of civil disobedience is firmly embedded in his overall theory of justice, and he discusses civil disobedience only as an issue in near-just societies – which for Rawls means constitutional democracies whose basic institutional structures 3 are mostly "well-ordered" by the correct (Rawlsian) principles of justice, but which still contain some serious injustices. 4 According to Rawls, the natural duty of justice (along with what he calls the "duty of civility" 5) requires that we comply with those laws that apply to us in * Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Law, University of Virginia.