【Flyer杀G】小组-7.22作业.Issue17

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17. "There are two types of laws: just and unjust. Every individual in a society has a responsibility to obey just laws and, even more importantly, to disobey and resist unjust laws."

          The statement above can be summarized into three folds: (1) All of laws can be classified into two groups: just and unjust. (2) Every individual has to take the responsibility to obey the just law and people are entitled to disobey and resist the unjust laws. (3) It is more important for people to resist than obey the unjust. However, the triple folds rely on such a basis problem that whether the all kinds of laws can be classified into the two groups. Clearly it cannot. Therefore, I generally disagree with the statement above.
          To begin with, the laws cannot be categorized into two sets based on the viewpoint of just, because people cannot even clarify what the justice is. In a long time, the philosophers are obsessed with the debate between Kant and Hume about the originality of the human ethics, which is almost related to all the ethic issues of humans. In other words, till now, people could not easily find out such a criterion to determine whether the behavior is just or not. Or else, those phliosophers, from John Mill to  Robert Nozick, will be glad to take a rest.  It is inappropriate to let citizens themselves pontificating the justice or morality of any law. Considerable ethic cases implied more of paradoxes than justified claims.
          Moreover, without the persuasive universal criterion of moral judgment, it is not so easy for common people to choose between obey and resist, because even just law could be enforced in an unjust way. Common folks, who are engulfed with errors of enforcement, have to face more the dilemmas about the laws. Even the most developed institutions, nowadays, could not always fulfill the lowest level of justice in every case, which is not putting any innocent ones to jails and not letting any criminal go. If attorneys are not capable of proving the O.J Simpson is murder, then letting him go even if he hypothetically admitted the crimes in his book afterward. On the other hand, if a citizen is mistakenly overcharged more tax because of the government fault, not paying will lead the charges of the prosecution, punishment and disgraceful records of tax evasion and he/she has no more time to appeal the wrong, the only reasonable choice is to take this little unfortunateness firstly. Should we consider the enforcement of the law in this story as justice? Should we orchestrate a revolution against the law?





        Also, no more reasons could support the claims of fighting against the unjust laws is more important. What the pathetic is judging the justice of resisting is even more difficult than laws. During a violence revolution against the tyrannical government and its cruel laws, is it appropriate to punish the rulers and their fellows with even more severe violence? On one hand, less violence attacking the old rules and rulers will leave a more possibility of being suppressed or pacified in turn. More violence may cause more harms about country which deviated from the original purpose of revolution and even incur uncontrolled cycling rounds of revenges among different forces, as what we can see in Palestine and Israel. Even though the violence can be restricted in a narrow way or even totally abandoned, the huge scale protestation may still palsy the whole country and all the public functions. More crimes and chaos will take their places, which are horrible risk and loss of the country. The successes of peaceful protestation really take a limited ratio of all in the history.

        In a developed administration of justice and democratic politic system，people have their civil rights to express their claims and more opportunities of legally changing the improper laws, resisting may not be so appropriate as it seems. If and only if people are deprived the right of legislation and possibility of changing their situation, does the resisting seem somewhat reasonable. As for the themes about justice, I am reminded of the famous saying of Wittgenstein:”where of we cannot speak, there of we must be silent”.