Smith College's Moodle

COURSE OVERVIEW
The idea that citizens are obliged to obey the laws under which they live is an old one, but it is not clear on what basis this obligation rests or if it ever obtains in the real world conditions of complex societies, imperfect regimes, and unintended consequences – let alone systemic injustice, social inequality, political domination, and other forms of oppression. Indeed, the practices of dissent, protest, disobedience, and resistance are at least as old – and are arguably no less foundational than obligation to concepts of political authority, legitimacy, and democracy. Moreover, examining the history of democracy seems to reveal that illegal, disruptive, and sometimes violent movements have played a significant role in contesting injustice, confronting inequality, and democratizing institutions. On the other hand, history also reveals to us the way that the upheaval of collective resistance can also give way to brutality, bloodshed, and chaotic destabilization.

How do we make sense of the idea of political obligation in the face of injustice? What role does disobedience play in political society? How do we make room for dissent, disobedience, and resistance while remaining attentive to the political, ethical, and moral risks that such actions carry? What are the political and ethical obligations to which we might be subject as citizens of a polity? What is the depth of obedience and what are the bounds of dissent? What is the nature of injustice, and what kinds of injustices demand dissenting action?

This course will take up these questions through an examination and discussion of core texts in political theory alongside works written by (and about) some of the most influential historical practitioners of civil disobedience: Henry David Thoreau on the subject of conscience in the face of chattel slavery; MK Gandhi on nonviolence in the fight for Indian independence; and Martin Luther King on segregation, law, and racial injustice. Throughout the semester we will consider the ethical and tactical problems posed by disobedience, protest, resistance, and action – and how theorists’ and practitioners’ views of injustice, responsibility, law, action, and ethics relate to their ideas about obligation, injustice, and disobedience. We will end the course by discussing the ethical and political stakes of civility, as well as violence and nonviolence.