Just And Unjust Laws Essay

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”, King talks about how to know the difference between just and unjust laws. He states, “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust”(Shafer-Landau 408). King believed that unjust laws promote disharmony and that these laws essentially destroy human personality, while just laws uplift personality. In his opinion, he believed that laws were characterized as just laws if they were helping to make an individual better as a person, if it did not meet those standards it was considered to be an unjust law. An unjust law is a “code that is out of harmony with the moral law”(Shafer-Landau 408) essentially meaning that an unjust law is a law that is
King felt that unjust laws were no laws at all and that they are laws that are meant to be broken. His opinion of just laws goes along with the moral law or the law of God. Unjust laws are essentially out of harmony with moral laws. He believed that “one who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty” (Shafer-Landau 409). In my opinion, I do agree with his definitions of just and unjust laws, and I do think that we should disobey the laws even if they are unjust because we have to be able to stand up for what we think is morally right and wrong, but also being aware of the consequences of breaking the law. King believed an individual should personally do what they think is right regardless of the consequences. But even if we do not completely agree with our countries’ unjust laws, we still have a responsibility as a citizen to obey them. He states, “One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”(Shafer-Landau