Who is paley in civil disobedience

The indictment of government for its reliance on expediency, its use of force, and its failure to recognize the moral imperatives of the conscience; the faculty psychology; the Lockean contract theory of government; the dangers of majority rule; the recommendation of non-voting, refusal to pay taxes, going to jail, and resignation from office as means of protest; no-governmentism; and the categorical imperative to obey the conscience absolutely when its demands came into conflict with those of the State--all can be found in the literature of the past and of Thoreau's day.

Collections Doctoral Dissertations. Full item page. A government founded on this principle cannot be based on justice. Why can't there be a government where right and wrong are not decided by the majority but by conscience? Thoreau writes, "Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator?

Why has every man a conscience, then? I think we should be men first, and subjects afterward. Too much respect for law leads people to do many unjust things, as war illustrates: Soldiers become only a shadow of their humanity; the government shapes them into machines.

Soldiers have no opportunity to exercise moral sense, reduced to the existence comparable to that of a horse or dog. Yet these men are often called good citizens. Similarly, most legislators and politicians do not put moral sense first, and those few who do are persecuted as enemies. The question then becomes how to behave toward the American government. Thoreau's answer is to avoid associating with it altogether.

Thoreau concludes,. He well deserves to be called … the Defender of the Constitution…. Such courts offer no protection to Thoreau, who refuses to respect their authority. But he takes his refusal one step further. He not only rejects unjust laws but also the men who enact them. Even well-intentioned politicians stand so completely within the institution of government that they never distinctly and nakedly behold it. Every politician who enacts a law chooses to do so; every agent who enforces a law chooses to do so.

If officials create or enforce a law with which they disagree, then they have surrendered their conscience to the state and should be held personally responsible for that decision. He denies the authority of government itself. Again, rejecting politicians may logically seem to imply the rejection of government; but, again, many reformers rejected politicians without rejecting politics.

Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform. Thoreau specifically addresses fellow abolitionists who called for the immediate cessation of slavery. To Thoreau, anyone willing to leave moral decisions to the will of the majority is not really concerned that right should prevail.