Preview

Civil Disobedience: Subjectivism Vs. Cultural Relativism

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1086 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Civil Disobedience: Subjectivism Vs. Cultural Relativism
What form of civil disobedience would work best against a nation that functioned under a social contract that make racism, sexism classism, and ageism legal? I believe the best form of civil disobedience that would against this type of social contract would be egoism. With this form of civil disobedience anyone would do what he or she feels is best for them, and in the end they will find what is best for them is what is best for all. The two other options for civil disobedience Subjectivism and Cultural Relativism have many short comings that would be less useful in dealing with a social contract like this. These short comings would make using these beliefs useless and in some case reinforce the social contract of this kind of society. Subjectivism …show more content…
If racism, sexism, classism and ageism were legal, then this would become the norm and apart of the cultural. The laws of the land are one of many things that make up a cultural. If laws are just a part of a cultural as the types clothes or food, then people who follow cultural relativism would treat racism, sexism, classism and ageism as part of the cultural and the norm. This in itself would make using cultural relativism as a form of disobedience useless. This would not be true if there is another cultural living among the cultural of the society that view racism, sexism, classism and ageism as legal. If another cultural that does not believe racism, sexism, classism and ageism should be legal, then they could be disobedient by following their cultural and viewing racism, sexism, classism and ageism as wrong and hatful. Of course if they followed cultural relativism to the tee then they would have to respect other cultural, which in the end would not work against this kind of society. Cultural relativism does require people of a another cultural to respect the culture’s custom’s and laws. This also would make using cultural relativism as a form of disobedience …show more content…
People who following ethical egoism do and view things that are in their best interest. The real argument is to decide what really is in the best interest for someone that follows ethical egoism. It does seem in the person’s best interest for them to not go against the society because that could cause legal troubles. But it also may be in the person’s best interest to treat other with respect because they could lash out at them, attach or hurt them. I believe that a person following ethical egoism would choose not to follow the society and would not choose to be racist, sexist, classist and ageist because it is in their best interest not to be hurt. I believe if giving the choice people who follow ethical egoism would choose what is best for them at the given time, and not worry about things that could happen later. If given the choice of possibly placing their selves at harm by being racist, sexist, classist and ageist or going against the society I believe in most cases they would choose to go against the society. People with tent to pick the less of two evils when place in between a rock and a hard

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    This quote is very interesting because it is saying that a man who gives everything that he can to somebody is considered no more than a poor servant. But the man who gives up only part of what he can give is thought of as a charitable man. This is a very intriguing statement that most people would not understand.…

    • 562 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What is civil disobedience? It can be defined as the active nonviolent refusal to obey a law that is deemed to be unjust (Boss, 2012). DeChristopher, a climate-change activist, was convicted of bidding on oil and gas leases in a 2008 federal auction. A jury found that he defrauded the federal government, running up a $1.8 million tab he could not pay (The Salt Lake Tribune, 2011). As a result of DeChristopher’s civil disobedience, the oil and gas leases he bid on were later deemed inappropriate for drilling and withdrawn from future auctions.…

    • 919 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To be human is to be disobedient. For good or evil. disobedience has been the one constant, universal trait that characterized human beings since the beginning of time. Behind every great human achievement is an act of disobedience, a rejection of the conventional wisdom, a defiance of authority, or a decision, a choice made to take the path less travelled. History is replete with men and women who by their disobedience changed history, often for the better, though sometimes for the worse.…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Civil Disobedience means to peacefully refuse or comply with specific laws you personally do not agree with, and accepting the consequences by not following said laws. Throughout history you see Civil Disobedience from great people such as Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, “later in life” Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela. Each of these great historic people contributed to Civil Disobedience, trying to equalize African Americans in a Caucasian set world. As a whole our instinctive feeling is to divide up things that are different, one of those things being race.…

    • 758 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The debate was thrust into a hotbed of discussion during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. In 1964, Morris I. Leibman was an avid anti-civil disobedience activist. He argued that there is no reason for any citizen to find an excuse to break the law because when people agree to enter society, they accept the rules that society establishes. Once you break these laws, there is no purpose to society existing in the first place. He argues that if you give leeway to certain circumstances in the law, where do you draw the line? In his mind, civil disobedience is deplorable and believes it’s the wrong way to create change. Continuing with this train of thought, Herbert Storing argued that civil disobedience would likely die out because of its irrelevance to today’s problems. He found it’s attempt to combine revolution and conventional political action into one as a blend of ideas ineffective in its approach for change. Both of these men wrote their responses to civil disobedience at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. and both agreed that black people deserved equal opportunity under the law, but they felt that civil disobedience was a regressive tactic…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Disobedience is a very controversial topic due to the fact that history represents such a wide range of extremities of this ideology. Disobedience can be perceived in many different ways and it can either help or destroy the structure of society. An example of disobedience in society that has proved very successful in the past is civil disobedience. Throughout history, civil disobedience has made a huge impact on the U.S. government and is responsible for several popular social reforms. Many of the world’s most inspirational leaders used civil disobedience to reconstruct society and develop remarkable social change. Examples of these leaders include Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Susan B. Anthony, and Rosa Parks. These people were able to…

    • 1780 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    At the beginning of “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau, he states that “‘That Government is best which governs least’, and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically”. This opening statement likely best captures Thoreau’s opinion of an ideal government; one which is involved minimally in making decisions for the people, yet is wise enough to prevent society from falling into an unguided system that may run astray. Thoreau views that all aspects of society are corrupted or incompetent in one way or another, and that the root of these problems stems from the inability for the government to do its job correctly.…

    • 673 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Civil disobedience is by definition on dictionary.com, “the refusal to obey certain laws or governmental demands for the purpose of influencing legislation or government policy, characterized by the employment of such nonviolent techniques as boycotting, picketing, and nonpayment…

    • 237 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To sum things briefly, the exercise of civil disobedience is not only a positive impact on a free society; it is the very ideology that a free society is founded upon. Without support for disobedience, a government breaks the agreement that it represents. By this reasoning, without the right to peacefully oppose a law while also accepting the consequences, a society cannot truly identify as…

    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Peaceful resistance to rules and regulations among society goes down historically as something so inevitably iconic as an occurrence known as civil disobedience. It is no doubt that civil disobedience, the act of opposing a law deemed unjust and peacefully disobeying it henceforth, spurs such great controversy in our society. Civil disobedience impacts society in a positive manner that does not hinder nor deteriorate the good name of the just nation that is home, but moreover poses as an influence for what is better accepted by humans as lawful.…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    tells, "No one will ever convict me for a traitor" (Page 61). In a nonviolent…

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Each person is born and grow into having morals and knowing what’s right from wrong, but what if people are just following orders and just obey simply because the “authority” demands it. This community needs challenges and changes or else there wouldn’t be any justice. If Martin Luther King Jr didn’t take a stand for what he believed in, there would be a different world out there and still have different colored schools and treat people differently just based on their skin. Disobedience is needed; challenges should be taken everyday into consideration. There is an experience called the Milgram experience that was conducted by Yale Unviersity psychologist Stanely Milgram. He…

    • 1007 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    History will reveal the major part civil disobedience has played on overcoming governmental injustices. Today, people know Gandhi’s Salt March to Martin Luther King’s demonstrations. Gandhi’s actions helped gain India’s its independence and King’s tactics were instrumental in winning rights for black people in the United States. Others situations include the successful protest of 1998 rioters in Indonesia against the despotic system of government under the Suharto regime.[3] In the US during the early 1900s strikes organized by mistreated workers led to the introduction of labor unions, end of child labor and improved job benefits.[4] Those in the opposite mindset believe that civil disobedience is counter-productive and that the court system should combat unjust laws. However what all these causes listed above has in common was that, “there was no other avenue open to redress grievances” making civil obedience the only way to protest…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead was the provider of this quote, and it connects directly to the idea of civil disobedience. In order to change the world, people have to take action. Standing idly by and allowing injustice to occur, even if the majority fails to see the injustice, will not change the tides of history.…

    • 524 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1960, the Civil Rights Act was finally mandated into law, this law was implemented to enforce prosecution for anyone that committed a crime regardless if they tried to escape. It also included that of school segregation, to which by-laws were set-forth by the court system to stop schools from engaging in committing the act of races’ being separated into different groups due to color, creed, or origin. the United States and all over the world there have been many differences in opinion when it comes to morals, laws, and what is considered “fair” in the eyes of society. As a result, Civil Disobedience played a huge role in the historical changes that we have seen over many unforgettable years that impacted how we as citizens live today. Civil Disobedience is defined as “the building of the reliance that proletariat have the authority to defy the ordinance under undoubted prestige” (Shaefer, 2010-2012, p. 187). Civil Disobedience has raised awareness and demanded change in the sensitive areas of discrimination, violent crimes, racial comments,…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays