A Duty to Resist: When Disobedience Should Be Uncivil

313 Pages·2018·11.073 MB·English

by  Candice Delmas

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A DUTY TO RESIST
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A DUTY TO RESIST
When Disobedience Should Be Uncivil
Candice Delmas
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© Oxford University Press 2018
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Delmas, Candice, author.
Title: A duty to resist : when disobedience should be uncivil /
Candice Delmas.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2018. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018000829 (print) | LCCN 2018016706 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190872229 (online course) | ISBN 9780190872205 (updf) |
ISBN 9780190872212 (epub) | ISBN 9780190872199 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Direct action. | Civil disobedience. |
Government, Resistance to.
Classification: LCC JC328.3 (ebook) | LCC JC328.3.D436 2018 (print) |
DDC 303.6/1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018000829
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments  vii
Introduction: Political Obligation(s)  1
1. Principled Disobedience  21
2. In Defense of Uncivil Disobedience  47
3. Justice and Democracy  72
4. Fairness  108
5. Samaritanism  136
6. Political Association and Dignity  168
7. Acting on Political Obligations  198
Conclusion  223
Postscript: Resistance in the Age of Trump  229
Notes  255
Index  285
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have seen the light of day without David Lyons,
my graduate advisor and friend. In a little- read article on Henry
David Thoreau, “Political Responsibility and Resistance to Civil
Government,” David deplored philosophers’ neglect of “the idea that
political responsibility can include a duty to disobey” and defended
this duty on the basis of two common arguments for political obliga-
tion. His engagement with the subject was brief, just two pages, but
they influenced my own intellectual focus. I cherish the time I spent
studying with David. His generosity and passion for social justice
inspire me.
I thank my colleagues at Northeastern University for their feed-
back, support, and congeniality. I have the pleasure of working
there with members of the Philosophy and Religion and Political
Science Departments, and gained much from these interdisciplinary
interactions. I wrote large portions of the book while a Dworkin-
Balzan Fellow at the New York University (NYU) School of Law’s
Center for Law and Philosophy in 2016– 2017. I am grateful to NYU
Law and the Balzan Prize Foundation for their generous support.
I thank Liam Murphy, Samuel Scheffler, Jeremy Waldron, Moshe
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Acknowledgments
Halbertal, and Katharina Stevens for their kindness and stimulating
conversations. I am most indebted to Daniel Viehoff for his construc-
tive feedback.
The book revisits material initially published elsewhere: 
“Disobedience, Civil and Otherwise,” Criminal Law and Philosophy
11, 1 (2017): 195–2 11; “Civil Disobedience,” Philosophy Compass
11, 1 (2016):  681–6 91; “Political Resistance for Hedgehogs,”
in The Legacy of Ronald Dworkin, ed. Will Waluchow and Stefan
Sciaraffa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 25– 48; “False
Convictions and True Conscience,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies
35, 2 (2015): 403– 425; “Samaritanism and Civil Disobedience,” Res
Publica 20, 3 (2014): 295– 313 (Springer); and “Political Resistance: A
Matter of Fairness,” Law and Philosophy 33, 4 (2014): 465–4 88. I am
grateful to Wiley, Springer, and Oxford University Press for permis-
sion to use parts of this material.
I thank the organizers and attendants of NYU Law’s Global
Fellows Forum, the University of Richmond’s Political Philosophy
Learning Community, and the American Society for Political and
Legal Philosophy Conference at the APSA meeting in San Fransisco,
for their constructive critical engagement with my arguments. For
comments on individual chapters and sections, I thank Sean Aas,
Guy Aitchison, Amna Akbar, Juliet Hooker, Robert Jubb, David
Lyons, Gabriel O’Malley, Avia Pasternak, and Amélie Rorty. I am
most indebted to William Smith and Robin Celikates for their helpful
reviews of the book and support for my project. I also wish to thank
the third, anonymous reviewer for detailed feedback. I am grateful to
Kimberley Brownlee, whose work I have long admired, for her men-
torship. Thanks to Samantha Hirshland for her research assistance
and to Isaac Shur for indexing the book. To Simon Waxman I owe
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Acknowledgments
sharper arguments and better flow. I am grateful to Lucy Randall at
Oxford University Press for her editorial work.
 Thanks to my family in France—my parents, Stéphane and
Chantal Delmas, and my brother Gregory—and my friends in Boston
(especially Helena de Bres) for their love and support. Thanks to
Rose Mwobobia for giving me the peace of mind I needed to write
the book. I dedicate it to the loves of my life: Gabriel, Marcel, and
Augustin.
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