King also believed that any law that uplifts human personality was just and any law that degrades human personality was unjust. He used this argument to explain why segregation was an unjust law. He states that segregation damages the soul of that one segregated against, thus making it an unjust law. ... Martin Luther King, Jr. claims that the answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws, just and unjust. How can you classify what laws are just and which are unjust? ...

• Word Count: 794
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

The solution was to undo or change the unjust laws through peaceful protests. ... A key concept King used to describe this is a "law is unjust on its face and unjust in its application." ... King says a law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority, when in reality they cannot vote on the law. King says we have a moral responsibility to obey just laws, and a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. ... It is not new to see the person who breaks an unjust law so openly idolized as a hero. ...

• Word Count: 831
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

The solution was to undo or change the unjust laws through peaceful protests. ... A key concept King used to describe this is a "law is unjust on its face and unjust in its application." ... King says a law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority, when in reality they cannot vote on the law. King says we have a moral responsibility to obey just laws, and a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. ... It is not new to see the person who breaks an unjust law so openly idolized as a hero. ...

• Word Count: 831
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. ... An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. ... Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. ... An unjust law is a law that tries to degrade the human personality. ... So how is one to challenge the unjust laws? ...

• Word Count: 1116
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

King describing two types of laws, just laws and unjust laws. King goes into great detail defining his versions of just and unjust laws. ... Any law that degrades human personality is unjust". ... "Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. ... Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all". ...

• Word Count: 1011
• Approx Pages: 4

Socrates in his old age has been subjected to the Law of Athens. He knows for a fact that the law is unjust in its doing; but, his main quarrel against Crito is that he cannot just escape and disobey the law. ... The peculiarity about the excerpt dealing with law is that the law is personified to this humanly figure. ... Martin Luther King Jr. preached that everything must be done within the law and to the law, but nothing against the law. ... "Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. ...

• Word Count: 974
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Socrates and MLK Jr. both dealt with the question, "Is it just to break an unjust law?" ... Neither man used violence in his means of showing his dislike for certain unjust laws and yet both were punished for their actions and beliefs. ... If people are not satisfied with the terms of the law, it is not just and should not be forced upon the public. ... Socrates does not even think he has disobeyed a law in the first place and MLK Jr. consciously disobeys those laws he thinks to be unjust. ... MLK Jr. stresses that if the minority has no part in devising the law, then it is unjust and shou...

• Word Count: 316
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

King uses the excuse that his actions were just since he was fighting an unjust law. He defines segregation and unjust laws like this "Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. ... It is the nature of unjust laws that make them prone to be broken. ... He believes that anything done to battle an unjust law is just and must be done. ...

• Word Count: 733
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

He defines two different types of laws, just and unjust. ... This means that if a person who cannot vote has a law passed that is unfair toward them, then the law is unjust and should be challenged. ... Any action taken should be peaceful and state exactly what is unjust about a law. ... All of the criteria for the law that was passed by Creon as being unjust was there. ... Her action was nonviolent and was acting out against an unjust law. ...

• Word Count: 1177
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

He provides clear explanations of "just" and "unjust" laws. King defines "Just" laws as a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God" (159). "Unjust" laws is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law (159). As times back then, being religious was important, King identifies "unjust" laws almost as a contradiction to God's laws and "just" laws was not. ... King directed the moral laws to his audience to convince them that what the white men is doing is unjust. ...

• Word Count: 940
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

In the selections "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King Jr. and "Ballad of Birmingham Jail" by Dudley Randall, these authors identified the hardships the black community were forced to endure, and the sacrifices they committed in an effort to overturn unjust laws. ... During his imprisonment, he wrote an extended letter as a response to his social concern of unjust laws implicated on the black community. ... King mentioned how this group of religiously-devoted individuals faced hungry lions for failing to "[...] submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman ...

• Word Count: 675
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography

Socrates believes that any person who would disobey these laws creates a deliberate attempt to weaken the laws, as well as the society that imposed them. ... In his essay "Civil Disobedience", Henry David Thoreau writes, "Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?" ... The purpose of civil disobedience, in other words, is to call attention to an unjust law, and crusade until it could be amended. ... Furthermore, people who participate in acts of civil disobedience who are ...

• Word Count: 1527
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so," founding father Thomas Jefferson expressed. ... "One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws," nobel peace prize winner, civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed. ... Citizens of good moral sense should vigorously oppose unjust government arrangements through peaceful resistance. ... An unreasonable law is not a law, in the full feeling of the word. ... Lawful positivism and the natural law theory of positive law are opponent perspectives about what is law and wha...

• Word Count: 3194
• Approx Pages: 13
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

These unjust laws prevent women from living their lives to the fullest because it " distorts the soul and damages the personality " said MLKJ. These women are urged to speak "sedition " because "an unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law " MLKJ concurs with Gandhi. ... MLKJ said women have a "moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws "; in other words they don't "count ". ... Gandhi states "He never uses forec and never resists force when it is used against him " This is to show and prove your point; so you don't use force, you also follow the laws to denote...

• Word Count: 872
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Afterwards, Martin Luther King Jr. starts to explain the difference between when a law is either just or unjust. Many people fail to understand that as he says, "an unjust law is no law at all" quoting St. ... Then he goes right to the main point and says that any law that degrades human personality is unjust and there's no exceptions to it. ... He tells that he was arrested for parading without a permit but later says that this matter of civil disobedience is in a way denying citizens of their privilege of a peaceful protest, and then this becomes unjust? ... This in itself sho...

• Word Count: 959
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

He repeatedly referred to slavery whenever he began to talk about the government's unjust laws. ... King was locked up for protesting (nonviolently) and Thoreau was put in jail for not paying taxes to the government, which he felt, was unjust. ... He also recalled that civil disobedience was "practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks, before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire." ... King used minority as an example of an unjust law, when it is denied the right to vote. ... Both express...

• Word Count: 1097
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

However, he believed the pressure to exceed the limits of the law was undesirable. ... King writes," an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law" (815). To King, nonviolence does not mean passively accepting anything unfair or unjust. According to him, Black American must take nonviolent actions to break Segregation laws. ... Martin Luther King, Jr. organized a boycott of the bus system to ...

• Word Count: 461
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

He distinguishes between just and unjust laws addressing the clergymen's anxiousness over the black man's "willingness to break laws" by quoting St. Augustine "An unjust law is no law at all" [3]. To sum up his point he mentions Hitler's laws and how he would've broken them to help the Jews. ...

• Word Count: 591
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography

King then switches gears, noting that the clergymen are anxious over the black man's "willingness to break laws." He admits that his intention seems paradoxical, since he expects whites to follow laws that protect equality, while breaking others. He then speaks specifically of segregation, describing it as unjust and since it is a law that a majority forces the minority to follow while exempting itself from it, it is a law worth breaking. ... King adds that some just laws become unjust when they are misused. ...

• Word Count: 732
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

The term civil disobedience means the refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to induce change in governmental policy or legislation, characterized by nonviolent means. ... Martin Luther King Jr. had his own definition of civil disobedience, which was that civil disobedience is justified not only to deal with an unjust law, but that "everyone has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.... King and Gandhi's will to stand up even to the law for justice, but do it through civil disobedience instead of shooting someone or through bombs....

• Word Count: 688
• Approx Pages: 3

If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's anti religious laws" (682). This is an important part of the letter because King illustrates the idea that even though laws are to be obeyed, people need to make a distinction between just and unjust laws. If someone decides that a laws is unjust or morally wrong King explains it as their duty to openly go against it but then agree to the repercussions of their actions (682). ...

• Word Count: 842
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography

The commitment to his inner law led him to breaking the laws of the land. ... All of these men broke the unjust laws, but they did so "openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty" (King 1854). ... King knew that love and justice were lacking in laws of man. ... Harry Emerson Fosdick meant when he said "inner law is written on the heart, man-made laws assure justice, but a higher law produces love". ... Inner law or natural law would deem numerous aspects and actions of the above quotation to be unjust. ...

• Word Count: 1390
• Approx Pages: 6

Finally, King addresses the fact that he was urging people to break "unjust" laws. King says "One has not only the legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws.... Augustine "an unjust law is no law at all" he consciously uses this quote so to reference a source that would be of respect to the Clergymen but also to help support the fact that he believes that the manner in which he is breaking the laws is to better the community. King is considered to be a nuisance due to the fact that he was breaking ...

• Word Count: 1506
• Approx Pages: 6

Thoreau also thought that it is unjust to overrun and conquer a foreign country knowing that it is helpless. ... Thoreau believed that a person has a right to protest unjust laws by disobeying them. ...

• Word Count: 574
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

Civil disobedience is something millions of people around the world have used to make changes to an unjust system. ... When people practice civil disobedience, laws are often broken and boundaries are crossed. ...

• Word Count: 320
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School