Episode 20: On Civil Disobedience

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In the Beginning, there was ... Philosophy.

Friedel Weinert (Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Bradford)

33 episodes

4 days ago

These podcasts are devoted to selected topics in Political Philosophy, and the History and Philosophy of the Natural and Social Sciences. In the Introduction I explain that my starting point is philosophical problems, rather than, say, the history of great thinkers. Each episode of Political Philosophy deals one topical issue: The issue of Power; the notion of (Republican) Liberty and the problem of Social Justice and the contrast between Open and Closed Societies Episodes in History and Philosophy of science will deal with the notion of time, scientific revolutions and the nature of science.

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Episode 20: On Civil Disobedience

In the Beginning, there was ... Philosophy.

23 minutes 23 seconds

10 months ago

Episode 20: On Civil Disobedience

In the last episode on Human Rights, I left open the question of whether Civil Disobedience should count as a fundamental human right. A good example of this debate occurs in the film The Great Debaters (2007). After having defined civil disobedience (following the philosophers John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas), I argue that it should count as a fundamental human right - under specified conditions: it should be a non-violent, public and political act, undertaken by a group in society whose fundamental human rights are under threat. I discuss the role of civil disobedience in both democratic systems, in which it can play an active part, and in totalitarian regimes, in which it mainly plays a passive part. Civil disobedience can be seen as the right for fight for one's rights.

Literature:

- M. Walzer, Obligations: Essays on Disobedience, War and Citizenship (1970)

- J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971: Ch. VI)

- J. Habermas, 'Civil Disobedience', in: Berkeley Journal of Sociology 30 (1985): 95-116 (translated form the German original in: Die Neue Unübersichtlichkeit, 1985: 79-99)