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.
What is character? It is that quality of man which is going to make a man, in an hour of strain, do the just and, if possible, the generous thing.
I learned that realism can come in all shapes and sizes. The world is big enough for different values to coexist.
I always have a high regard for the individual and have an insuperable distaste for violence and clubmanship. All these motives made me into a passionate pacifist and anti-militarist. I am against any nationalism, even in the guise of mere patriotism. Privileges based on position and property have always seemed to me unjust and pernicious, as did any exaggerated personality cult.
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.
I'm not sure if the passage of time affects our core identities so much as reveals them to us.
The more dignity is widely and freely available in a society, the less people want to be famous.
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