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Overview
For centuries, almost everyone has believed that we must allow the government and its representatives to act without interference, no matter how they behave. We may complain, protest, sue, or vote officials out, but we can’t fight back. But in When All Else Fails, Jason Brennan argues that we have every right to react with acts of “uncivil disobedience” when governments violate our rights. We may resist arrest for violation of unjust laws. We may disobey orders, sabotage government property, or reveal classified information. We may deceive ignorant, irrational, or malicious voters. We may even use force to defend ourselves or others. The result is a provocative challenge to long-held beliefs about how citizens may respond when government officials act unjustly or abuse their power.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691211503 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 12/08/2020 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Resistance
THE FOURTH OPTION
You see the police pull over a black man driving a silver Hyundai. The police explain to the man — let's call him Richard — that only moments ago, he went slightly past the white line at a stoplight before he stopped and took a right turn. (His blinkers were on.) The police demand that Richard step out of the car. He does so quietly and calmly. As he steps out, one officer immediately flips Richard around, bends his arm, and slams Richard against the Hyundai. He then flips Richard around again, and starts punching him in the face and kicking him in the groin. As Richard screams and puts his arms up to protect himself, the other officer joins in. Soon they have Richard prone on the ground, but continue to punch, hammer, and kick him, and smash his face against the ground. All the while — as Richard simply tries to hold his arms up to protect his face — they yell, "Stop resisting!" Even when Richard is completely subdued, lying prostrate with his hands behind his back, with two large officers pinning him down, one officer continues to punch him in the back of the skull.
For all you know, they are going to kill, maim, or severely injure him. He's done nothing to warrant that. A thought occurs to you: you're armed. You could intervene, perhaps saving Richard's life.
May you do so? This book defends a controversial answer: yes, in this case, the police are rightful targets of defensive violence. You would be justified in attacking the officers to save Richard.
EXIT, VOICE, AND LOYALTY
In the real world, almost every day, the people who hold power in democratic societies — including presidents, bureaucrats, judges, police officers, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents, and even democratic voters — use their power in deeply unjust and irresponsible ways. Thus, one pressing question for political philosophy is what ordinary citizens are licensed to do in the face of injustice.
In the famous book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, political economist Albert Hirschman analyzed three major ways that a firm's customers or an organization's members might react to bad behavior on the part of the firm or organization. They might "exit," meaning that customers might stop buying their products or members of the organization (such as employees) might leave. They might exercise "voice," meaning that they might complain to people in the organization itself, such as people who hold power over the organization, or the public at large. Finally, they might be loyal — that is, they might have a tendency to stick with the firm or organization despite their flaws. Hirschman does not say that loyalty is always an alternative to voice or exit. Instead, loyal behavior can augment one's voice or threat of exit.
Many philosophers and laypeople seem to believe that when we react to political oppression and injustice, our options are limited to voice, exit, or loyalty. Some think that we have obligations to participate in politics, protest, engage in political campaigns, and push for social change through political channels. Others think that such actions are merely praiseworthy. Most think that we have the option of keeping quiet or emigrating to another country. In general, they tend to assume or conclude that when a government issues an unjust command, behaves unjustly, or passes an unjust law, we may only comply, complain, or quit. Usually, we should obey that law, or if we break the law in protest, we should be prepared to bear the consequences of doing so, including accepting punishment. They typically tend to agree that we may not fight back against government agents, especially agents of a democratic regime.
Consider the question of defensive assassination or defensive killing. Andrew Altman and Christopher Wellman say, "Surely, it would have been permissible for somebody to assassinate [Joseph] Stalin in the 1930s." But if so, is it not also permissible to take similar action against a government official if it is the only way to stop them from harming the innocent? If you may assassinate Adolf Hitler to stop him from invading Poland, are you also permitted to do the same to a president in order to stop him from invading the Philippines, or ordering the genocidal slaughter and forced relocation of an ethnic group? If you may kill a Gestapo agent to stop him from murdering innocent people, may you do the same to a police officer who uses excessive violence?
As I noted, philosophers and laypeople often assume or argue not. They assume or argue that in liberal democracies, only nonviolent resistance to state injustice is permissible. They assume that we must defer to democratic government agents, even when these agents act in deeply unjust, harmful, and destructive ways.
This view is puzzling. The prevailing view is that when it comes to government agents, defensive violence, deception, destruction, and subterfuge are governed by different moral principles from those that govern defensive violence and subterfuge in other contexts. This presupposes that it makes a difference to the permissibility of lying to, deceiving, sabotaging, or killing an aggressor in self-defense or the defense of others that the aggressor is wearing a uniform, holds an office, or was appointed by someone who was in turn elected by my neighbors. According to the prevailing view, my neighbors can eliminate my right of self-defense or the defense of others by granting someone an office. This is especially puzzling because almost everyone today recognizes that the law and justice are not the same thing; laws can be deeply unjust.
Instead of exit, voice, or loyalty, this book defends the fourth option: resistance. I'm using "resistance" to cover a wide range of behaviors. It includes passive behaviors such as noncompliance — that is, strategically breaking the law or ignoring the state's commands whenever you can get away with it. It also includes more active forms of resistance, such as blocking police cars, damaging or destroying government property, deceiving and lying to government agents, or combating government agents. My view is that such forms of resistance are often justified, even in response to injustice within modern democratic nation-states, most of which have relatively just governments overall.
GOVERNMENTS ARE MAGIC: THE SPECIAL IMMUNITY THESIS
The standard view, which almost everyone of every ideology seems to accept, is that government agents are surrounded by a kind of magic moral force field. They enjoy a special or privileged status when they commit unjust actions. The standard view holds both that government agents have a special permission to perform unjust actions — actions that we would judge evil and impermissible were a nongovernment agent to perform them — and that these agents enjoy a special right against being stopped when they commit injustice. Government agents somehow may perform unjust acts, and we're supposed to stand by and let them.
Maybe "let them" is a bit strong. Most people believe we may complain when government agents act badly. We may demand that other government agents punish their colleagues for their colleagues' bad behavior. Some philosophers go further: they think that when government acts badly, we are morally obligated to protest, write letters to newspaper editors and senators, and vote for better candidates. But, they think, we're not supposed to stop injustice ourselves.
We don't think that way about private injustice. If an attacker tries to harm you, no one would say that you have no right to fight back. You aren't required to lie down and take it, and then hope the police will later capture the attacker and bring them to justice.
Some political philosophers and laypeople would scoff. They claim that they have a far more constrained and reasonable version of the "government agents are magic" view. They deny that all governments, government agents, or political actors enjoy special permission to perform unjust actions. They deny that we must stand back and let government actors behave unjustly. Rather, they say, "In our modest view, only democratic governments, agents, and actors are surrounded by a magic moral force field that both removes their normal moral obligations and at the same time requires the rest of us to let them act unjustly. Of course, nondemocratic governments and their agents enjoy no such privilege."
To illustrate what I mean by the "government agents are magic" view, consider the following four thought experiments or examples:
A. Shooter in the Park
A masked man emerges from a black van holding a rifle. He starts shooting at children in a public park. Ann, a bystander, has a gun. She kills him before he kills any innocent children.
B. Drunk Partygoer
Rodney has too much to drink at a party. He runs around the house with a tiki torch, loudly yelling, "Look, everyone, I'm the Human Torch!" Four partygoers chase him outside to stop him from accidentally starting a fire. In their anger, they knock him down. They continuously kick his face and stomach, and beat him with bats and sticks. Ann sees that Rodney is subdued, and sees that the men beating him are carrying pistols, though they aren't using them. She pulls out her gun and yells for them to stop, but they ignore her. Finally, she pulls out her own weapon and shoots one of them in order to stop the beating as well as possibly save Rodney's life.
C. Health Nut
Health guru John sincerely believes that caffeine is unhealthy, causes laziness, and induces people to use hard drugs. John announces that in order to protect his neighbors and promote the social good, he and his followers will capture coffee drinkers, confiscate their belongings, and imprison them in John's filthy basement for years. Ann, who is too poor to move away from town, loves coffee. She secretly drinks it in the morning in her kitchen. One day, a follower of John breaks into her house and attempts to capture her. She struggles to defend herself, and in the process, kills him.
D. Terrorist
Cobra Commander, leader of the terrorist organization COBRA, uses a combination of bribes, subterfuge, and threats to get the leaders of the United States to do his bidding. He then gets the US military to perform an unjust invasion of another country. Ann, who is a private security guard, realizes that the individual she's protecting is secretly Cobra Commander and discovers his plot. Right before Cobra Commander issues an order that will kill hundreds of innocent civilians, she shoots him in the back of the head.
Normally it is wrong to hurt or kill other people. But in these examples, Ann may kill the wrongdoers because doing so is the most effective means to protect herself or others from suffering severe harm or injustice. If Ann had some sufficiently effective nonviolent means of protecting herself or others, perhaps she would be obligated to use those means instead. Since she doesn't, though, she's permitted to use violence to stop others from committing severe injustices. She's not required to allow the wrongdoers to commit their atrocities. She's not required to stand back and let them commit evil.
I expect most people believe it's permissible for Ann to kill the wrongdoers in these four cases. Probably only radical pacifists would say that killing is wrong.
Now consider four new cases (A'–D') that seem analogous to the first four (A–D). In these new cases, the only obvious major difference is that the wrongdoer is theagent, acting ex officio, of a government. (If you wish, go ahead and assume that the wrongdoer is the agent of a democratic government.) Note that the first three cases below are based loosely on variations of real-life news stories.
A'. Minivan Shooter
Ann witnesses a police officer stop a minivan with a female driver and three children in the back. Ann sees that the driver has nothing in her hands and her hands are on the steering wheel. The police officer emerges from his car and starts shooting at the van's windows. Ann has a gun. She fires at the police officer before he shoots any of the children.
B'. Drunk Driver
Rodney, intoxicated after a night spent drinking, starts speeding on the highway. The cops try to pull him over. He ignores them, and then a high-speed chase ensues. When the cops finally pull him over, they do not merely yank him out of the car and arrest him. Rather, even after he is subdued and lying prostrate on the ground, they take turns clubbing him with their batons. Ann witnesses the beating and yells for them to stop. The police ignore her. Finally, she pulls out her own weapon and shoots one of them in order to stop the beating as well as possibly save Rodney's life.
C'. War on Drugs
Town leaders decide to make marijuana illegal, even though there is overwhelming evidence that marijuana is in every respect less harmful than alcohol — a drug that is legal for any adult to consume. Ann has a pot stash in her house. One night, the police raid Ann's house in a no-knock raid. She recognizes that they are police officers. She also knows that if they capture her, she will be imprisoned for a long time. Her government issues overly punitive sentences for drug possession and is unresponsive to citizens' demands to overturn the law. Ann resists arrest and escapes.
D'. Hawk
Ann, a secret service agent, happens to be in the situation room when she hears the president order the unjust invasion of another country. Right before the president issues an order that — as the generals and other experts in the room make clear — will kill hundreds of innocent civilians, she knocks him out.
People tend to judge these four new cases differently from the first set. They think intervening in self-defense or the defense others is wrongful in (at least some of) A'–D', even though it was permissible in A–D. At least at first glance, however, A–D seems analogous to A'–D', except that the wrongdoers are private civilians in A–D but are government agents acting ex officio in A'–D'.
Most people would endorse similarly differing judgments in other kinds of cases. I may lie to the Mafia to stop it from hurting innocent people. But I may not lie to the Canadian voters for the same end. I may hack into and sabotage the Mafia's computers, or sabotage its finances (if I'm in an accounting firm), to stop it from hurting innocent people. Yet I may not do these things to stop the German government from hurting innocent people. I may destroy the Mafia's gun stash to stop it from hurting the innocent. But I may not destroy the British Army's weapons even as it's about to start an unjust war.
Now without filling in all the details, one might think these different cases are not morally analogous. Maybe if we think carefully, we'll see that these cases are not much alike. Perhaps A–D is not really similar to A'–D'. So over the course of the book, we'll check to see if there are any important disanalogies.
Still, at first glance, there seem to be plenty of real-life examples in which governments, including democratic ones, commit horrifically unjust actions. If a private agent tried to perform these same actions, we would think it permissible to stop them, using deception, sabotage, or violence if need be. Yet for various reasons, people think that when governments and their agents perform these actions, we're supposed tolet them do it. They allow that we may, or perhaps demand that we must, complain afterward, but they say we must not stop them ourselves.
Thus, many people subscribe to what I call the special immunity thesis. The special immunity thesis holds that there is a special burden to justify interfering with, trying to stop, or fighting back against government agents who, acting ex officio, commit injustice:
The Special Immunity Thesis
Government agents — or at least the agents of democratic governments — enjoy a special immunity against being deceived, lied to, sabotaged, attacked, or killed in self-defense or the defense of others. Government property enjoys a special immunity against being damaged, sabotaged, or destroyed. The set of conditions under which it is permissible, in self-defense or the defense of others, to deceive, lie to, sabotage, or use force against a government agent (acting ex officio), or destroy government property, is much more stringent as well as tightly constrained than the set of conditions under which it is permissible to deceive, lie to, sabotage, attack, or kill a private civilian, or destroy private property.
In contrast, I reject the special immunity thesis in favor of the moral parity thesis:
The Moral Parity Thesis
The conditions under which a person may, in self-defense or the defense of others, deceive, lie to, sabotage, attack, or kill a fellow civilian, or destroy private property, are also conditions under which a civilian may do the same to a government agent (acting ex officio) or government property.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "When All Else Fails"
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Preface: Dangerous Philosophy ix
Chapter 1 Resistance: The Fourth Option i
Chapter 2 Defensive Ethics: The General Framework 28
Chapter 3 The Government Authority Argument for Special Immunity 60
Chapter 4 Other General Arguments for Special Immunity 93
Chapter 5 Just Say No: The Ethics of Following Unjust Orders 126
Chapter 6 Lying with Intent to Sabotage 155
Chapter 7 Vigilante Justices: What Judges Should Do in Response to Unjust Law 181
Chapter 8 Must You Resist? Some Closing Thoughts 206
Notes 239
Bibliography 251
Index 259
What People are Saying About This
“One of our most provocative philosophers argues that if we can use force to stop others from hurting people unjustly, we can also use force to stop the government from hurting people unjustly.”—Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg Opinion“This book is essential reading. . . . It should stimulate a debate that we need to have.”—Lisa Mckenzie, Times Higher Education“Provocative and entertaining. . . . When All Else Fails argues persuasively that even if a government agent or official is part of a popularly elected democratic regime, this doesn't magically confer immunity from defensive action when the agent or official engages in unjust, immoral actions.”—Matthew Harwood, Reason