"Civil disobedience may be defined as a principled, purposeful and public disobedience of the law" (Goodwin, 1992, p319).

Historically, the doctrine of civil disobedience has variously been advocated or employed by anarchists, anti-colonial nationalists, and even disenchanted liberals. In this essay I shall look primarily at the theories advanced to justify civil disobedience by Rawls, Thoreau and Gandhi, and I shall briefly consider some opposed to such actions. However, before considering the justifications, and the resultant opposition, it is necessary to clearly define ‘civil disobedience'.

As illustrated in the latter of the opening quotations, civil disobedience can be defined threefold: principled (that is, not selfish); purposeful, with the purpose of achieving a change in the law; and public, due to the need for publicity. An addition to this, according to Goodwin, the person who undertakes a civilly disobedient act is bound to accept any punishment that results from the act (Goodwin, 1992, p319). For Rawls, civil disobedience is essentially non-violent when used as tool for reform in a ‘nearly just society', partly due to its public nature, but primarily as

"It expresses disobedience to law within the fidelity of law, although it is at the outer limits thereof" (Rawls, 1971, p106).

This notion of ‘fidelity to law' explains the willingness to accept ensuing punishment, and also illustrates another feature of civil disobedience, not that the system in general (for the most part, a ‘nearly just' liberal democracy) is at fault, merely one part of the system requires revision. Indeed, the very term civil disobedience distinguishes it from other, uncivil methods of disobedience, such as violence or revolution.

Before examining the justifications of civil disobedience, it is helpful to supplement the above definitions with some contextual examples. Civil disobedience throughout history has taken on various forms: from one man's refusal to pay taxes to fund a war (Thoreau), to large groups of the population refusing to pay the Poll Tax in Britain; from large sections of a colonised nation refusing to obey British laws, yet accepting the ensuing imprisonment (as led by Gandhi), to international environmental pressure groups occupying oil rigs (Greenpeace). A recent law passed in Britain, the Criminal Justice Act, somewhat lends itself to civil disobedience, as it seen by many to be a grave restriction on a great many liberties, yet removes the very right to protest in many cases, a supposed feature of all liberal democratic societies.

How then have scholars sought to justify the phenomenon of civil disobedience? For Rawls, there are three points by which one can justify civil disobedience, the first of which is concerned with the particular wrong on which the civil disobedience is focusing upon, for example legislation denying basic rights to minorities, or non-egalitarian taxation laws. The second point forwarded by Rawls is that reasonable recourse to law, or other established method of appeal, has failed, "The legal means of redress have proved to no avail" (Rawls, 1971, p110), therefore civil disobedience is seen as a last resort. The third condition relates to, and even supersedes the other two, and although Rawls admits the first two conditions are usually justification enough for civil disobedience, this would not be the case if other minorities also had similar claims to warrant civil disobedience, as too much unrest may irreparably disrupt the existing liberal democratic constitution (which to Rawls is nearly-just), and demonstrates a lack of respect for the rule of law.