Conscience and Conviction

The Case for Civil Disobedience
Erscheinungsjahr 2015
ISBN: 978-0-19-875946-1
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 278 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 430 g

Oxford Legal Philosophy publishes the best new work in philosophically-oriented legal theory. It commissions and solicits monographs in all branches of the subject, including works on philosophical issues in all areas of public and private law, and in the national, transnational, and international realms; studies of the nature of law, legal institutions, and legal reasoning; treatments of problems in political morality as they bear on law; and explorations

in the nature and development of legal philosophy itself. The series represents diverse traditions of thought but always with an emphasis on rigour and originality. It sets the standard in contemporary jurisprudence.

This book shows that civil disobedience is generally more defensible than private conscientious objection.

Part I explores the morality of conviction and conscience. Each of these concepts informs a distinct argument for civil disobedience. The conviction argument begins with the communicative principle of conscientiousness (CPC). According to the CPC, having a conscientious moral conviction means not just acting consistently with our beliefs and judging ourselves and others by a common moral standard. It also means not seeking to evade the consequences of our beliefs and being willing to

communicate them to others. The conviction argument shows that, as a constrained, communicative practice, civil disobedience has a better claim than private objection does to the protections that liberal societies give to conscientious dissent. This view reverses the standard liberal picture which sees private

'conscientious' objection as a modest act of personal belief and civil disobedience as a strategic, undemocratic act whose costs are only sometimes worth bearing.

The conscience argument is narrower and shows that genuinely morally responsive civil disobedience honours the best of our moral responsibilities and is protected by a duty-based moral right of conscience.

Part II translates the conviction argument and conscience argument into two legal defences. The first is a demands-of-conviction defence. The second is a necessity defence. Both of these defences apply more readily to civil disobedience than to private disobedience. Part II also examines lawful punishment, showing that, even when punishment is justifiable, civil disobedients have a moral right not to be punished.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Brownlee, Kimberley

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Kultur Interessengruppen, Lobbyismus und Protestbewegungen
• Rechtswissenschaften Öffentliches Recht Staats- und Verfassungsrecht
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Rechtsphilosophie, Rechtsethik
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtsphilosophie, Rechtsethik

Über Autor(innen)

Kimberley Brownlee is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. Her current research focuses on sociability, social rights, loneliness, and freedom of association. She is the author of Being Sure of Each Other: An Essay on Social Rights and Freedoms (Oxford 2020), Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience (Oxford 2012), co-editor of Disability and Disadvantage (Oxford 2009, with Adam Cureton), and
co-editor of The Blackwell Companion to Applied Philosophy (Wiley 2016, with David Coady and Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen).