Civil disobedience  - The Role of Educators in Prevention and Intervention of moral reasoning and civic action

1.     Rational and objectives

Civic engagement can consist in civil disobedience. Questioning existing laws and regulations is a crucial task in a functioning democracy, and a functioning democracy must be able to deal with this questioning. How­ever, according to Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King (the main thinkers about civil disobe­dience) and others, civil disobedience can be ethically justified only under the following con­ditions:

a)     A thorough moral-ethical justification: To what degree is this law or rule unjust? It is important that it is not only unjust to me personally (i.e., I feel treated unjust), but that the lack of justice is in some way general, that is that several people are concerned. It is advisable, therefore, to consult other competent people and to justify the decision for them before acting – however, in some cases there is no time for this.

b)    Violence must be avoided if ever possible. There are situations in which the protagonist has to decide on actions that may involve violence (e.g., destroying an airplane that threatens to fall on a football stadium full of people).

c)     In most cases it is also required not to flee from the legal consequences of the disobedi­ence, e.g., to admit to have done so, to stand trial and, in case of conviction, to accept the sentence. However, if the laws governing the court are unjust in themselves (e.g., death penalty for opposition), one cannot require the protagonist to stand trial. It must be underlined, though, that deliberate acceptance of the sentence does not mean accept­ing the law. Gandhi and Martin Luther King went to jail although they did not support the underlying laws.

2.     Learning outcomes

·   Knowledge about the possibility and of practical examples of civil disobedience;

·   Sensitizing about issues of civil disobedience, including sensitivity when civil disobedience is a possibility (see the statement of Hannah Arendt above) or even a duty (see the statement of Martin Luther King above);

·   Acquiring competence to argue about civil disobedience situations (informed moral decision-making) with reference to appropriate values at stake for and against either option (civil dis­obedience yes or no) at least for concrete (personalized) situations, if not in general;

·   Knowledge and competence to apply appropriately the three principles a to c above, includ­ing recognizing when civil disobedience is inappropriate (rule a), what issues need to be taken into account when deciding to practice civil disobedience (rule b) and what the consequences have to be faced in the case of civil disobedience (rule c);

·   Understanding the position of someone of different opinion with respect to agreeing or disa­greeing with civil disobedience in the specific situation (empathy while possibly still disa­greeing);

·   Understanding the role of civil disobedience in a democratic society (see the statement of Rawls above) and that civil disobedience might be necessary;

 

Suggested Activities:

Activity 1:   Look at this short video clip on  Civil disobedience: Thoreau and Civil Disobedience : 

"It is better to have your head in the clouds and know where you are, than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them and think that you're in paradise."

Divide into groups with one group arguing for this quote and the other against this quote.

Then they need to choose again and explain why they chose that position

Categorize the different types of civil obedience and disobedience

 

Activity 2:

1. Have the students discuss their opinion about civil disobedience and under what situations and conditions would they be willing to be civilly disobedient? 

Listen to the following talks:

1. Ted Talk:  Matt Damon on Civil Disobedience: 
2. Martin Luther King Jr. Speech Civil Disobedience and obeying Just vs. Unjust laws :  

Lead a discussion about how the students’ own attitudes differ or agree with the ones presented in these video clips.

Activity 3

Students should find original texts from Thoreau, Gandi and Martin Luther King and present two ideas from each which they agree with and which they do not agree with.

Recommended reading for the VaLe and Dilemma-Based Learning Models:

• · Patry, J.-L., Reichman, R. G., & Linortner, L. (2017). Values and Knowledge Education (VaKE) for Lifelong Learning in Applied Fields: Principles and General Issues. In H. E. Vider­gor & O. Sela (Eds.), Innovative Teaching Strategies and Methods Promoting Lifelong Learn­ing in Higher Education: From Theory to Practice (pp. 187-213). New York, NY: Nova Sci­ence Publishers.
• Patry, J.-L., Weinberger, A., Weyringer, S., & Nussbaumer, M. (2013). Combining values and knowledge education. In B. J. Irby, G. Brown, R. Lara-Alecio & S. Jackson (Eds.) and R. A. Robles-Piña (Sect. Ed.), The handbook of educational theories (565-579). Charlotte, NC: In­formation Age Publishing.