Essay On When Is It Justified To Break The Law

Laws are regulations established by authorities, such as the government and are enforced by the police to make sure that the laws are upheld. Laws are enforced to preserve safety, supervise actions of individuals and work for the better good of society. Without the laws, chaos would spread across the world. However, there are times when each and every one of us finds a law to be unjust and would love to see that law change. Throughout the history of mankind, civil disobedience hasn’t been very uncommon. A long-standing debate about civil disobedience ever since the birth of Greek philosophy is: When, if ever, is it justified to break the law?

Greek Philosopher Socrates believes that breaking the law is never justified, but you can try to persuade …show more content…
It is justified to break the law, particularly when the law being broken is unjust and immoral. An example of unjust and corrupt laws is the laws made in Nazi Germany. (King, 4) Plenty of these laws obliged people to report Jews for them to be terminated from Society. To oppose and break Nazi’s manmade law and help the Jews would be the moral and right thing to do. As a result, I assume that the only answer to the question of when is it justifiable to break a law is when that law violates more fundamental laws that maintain key human rights. In the case of the Nazi’s manmade laws, when conforming to such laws, the obeying citizens would become criminals who do more harm than good by the act of capturing, torturing and killing Jews and other innocent human beings. On no ethical grounds can such a law that violates every basic human right can be ever justified. Obeying such a law as the one made by the Nazis would be immoral and absurd. So, as opposed to what Socrates believes, obeying the laws can cause plenty of harm. Someone who leads a life of virtue and wisdom shouldn’t inflict harm on others, even if it meant breaking the laws. Thanks to a few brave people who did not abide by the law and dared to fight for their rights, the world is now a better place. Without Gandhi, India wouldn’t be independent. "We should never forget that everything Adolph Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything Hungarian freedom fighters did in …show more content…
As political philosopher Montesquieu puts it “the spirit of the law is justice. The letter must be broken at some points to achieve it.” Justice is defined in the dictionary as being consistent with what is morally right. Unfortunately, what is considered as legal is not always consistent with what is morally right. For sure, a huge amount of laws are made to ensure that people have their fundamental human rights, safety, equality and freedom. Any law that contradicts the fundamental human rights, such as the Nazi laws, South Africa during the apartheid era and the fugitive slave act never ought to be obeyed. Not all these unjust laws have been as obvious or as extreme as the Nazi-enacted genocide. For example, segregation laws in the United States are another example of morally unjustified laws that unmistakably violate basic human rights and freedoms by discriminations against people with certain skin colors. Having laws that do not permit individuals to eat in the same places as others or ride the same buses because of their skin color only increased the discrimination, harm and injustice caused by citizens who obeyed them. By obeying manmade laws that break more important laws that manage more long-lasting, abstract rights such as basic