One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ' an unjust law is no law at all.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of moral responsibility in relation to laws, distinguishing between just and unjust laws.
Martin Luther King Jr. articulates a profound view on the relationship between law and morality. He asserts that individuals are not only bound by legal obligations to follow just laws but also possess a moral duty to resist and disobey laws that are unjust. This perspective encourages critical thinking about the nature of legality and justice, suggesting that true righteousness emerges when one stands against oppression and injustice, aligning one's actions with ethical principles rather than mere compliance.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about civil disobedience during a social justice seminar.
This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
Israel... is one of the great outpost of democracy in the world
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.
I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.
Anarchism means all sort of things to different people, but the traditional anarchists' movements assumed that there'd be a highly organized society, just one organized from below with direct participation and so on.
The acceptance of all that God has given us and the willingness to let it go - to give it back to him at a moment's notice - that's true human freedom.
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so.
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