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I'm not sure what you mean by "necessary" in "... submission to punishment is not necessary ...". Do you mean "necessary to be considered civil disobedience"?

I'm not sure what you mean by "necessary" in "... submission to punishment is not necessary ...". Do you mean "necessary to be considered civil disobedience"? In that case, yes, I agree with you. To state that baldly, my whole point is that what Snowden is doing is _not_ Civil Disobedience, and that calling it that cheapens his actions. Talking about "previous practitioners of civil disobedience" seems to imply that he is practicing civil disobedience, which I clearly (at least, I thought clearly) stated that he was _not_ doing. A significant part of civil disobedience is that by standing up and violating an unjust law (or the unjust enforcement of a just law), and being subjected to punishment for it, makes people (who are fundamentally good and decent) see that it does not make sense to punish people for doing something that shouldn't be illegal. This is an attempt to compensate for people's natural instinct to meekly obey unjust laws, and to bring out societal and eventually legal change. Snowden is not saying that government secrecy laws are unjust. If he were to do so, he might find that he has very little support (from those good and decent people). Many people feel that the government has an obligation to keep some things secret. What he appears to be protesting is the specific government program that he leaked, not secrecy laws.

jessriedel 13y ago
> Do you mean "necessary to be considered civil disobedience"? No, I mean necessary to be justified. As I've tried to make clear, I'm not interested in arguing about the semantics. I think practitioners of civil disobedience stress that acceptance of punishment is necessary to justify disobedience because (1) the laws passed by democratic governments are valid (even if unjust) and (2) because acceptance of suffering for your cause calls the public's attention. I've never heard it argued that the mere fact that you are technically being punished for a just law (in the case of indirect disobedience) gets you off the hook for accepting the punishment. Hence my MLK traffic example. Personally, I would add that acceptance of punishment reduces your ability to deceive yourself into thinking you're disobeying for the greater good, rather than just for your own personal gain or fame. Being a conscientious objectors during the Vietnam war is justified if you accepted the alternate role upon being drafted, or if you accept imprisonment. But do you think fleeing to Canada is justified? After all, most people agree that the government has a right to draft soldiers in times of national emergency.
- kijin 13y ago
  Those are good reasons for some practitioners of civil disobedience (CD) to submit to punishment, but I don't think your reasons support the thesis that submission to punishment is a necessary condition for CD to be justified. Your reasons are mere strategies for CD practitioners to maximize publicity and minimize self-deception. Submission to punishment may be a good strategy for avoiding violence, increasing publicity, and overcoming personal weakness, but that's all there is to it. The most effect strategy depends on the circumstances. If Snowden can maximize publicity by playing cat-and-mouse with the U.S. government for weeks, maybe that's a good enough reason for him to resist being arrested by U.S. authorities. The implications of personal conscience also depends on the small print. People might agree with your general argument for the draft, but at the same time deny that the Communist takeover of Vietnam was anything close to a national emergency. After all, the eventual defeat in Vietnam did not cause the U.S. to cease to exist. Many contemporary political philosophers seem to take Gandhi and MLK as examples, but I'll take Hobbes and Locke any day over them: as soon as the state steps over the limits of its strictly circumscribed powers, you are under absolutely no obligation to obey the parts of its law that exceed the limit. You may voluntarily choose to obey the punishment part for one reason or another, but that's just your choice and it's irrelevant to the legitimacy of your cause. (Hobbes said that death row inmates have the right to try to escape from prison, because in his theory, the state was never authorized to execute people.)
  - jessriedel 13y ago
    Note that my reason (1) is not a strategy. Also, taking reasonable steps to prevent self-deception is a moral imperative, not (in this case) a strategy for accomplishing a goal. To not take such steps is to be complicit with the self-deception, which is wrong. > If Snowden can maximize publicity by playing cat-and-mouse with the U.S. government for weeks That's a completely different claim than the one being discussed (that Snowden is justified to avoid punishment per se), and hinges on a question about Snowden's motivations which for which there's no evidence. Your points about MLK and Gandhi possibly being wrong are fine. Arguing about that is way beyond the scope of this thread. EDIT (resonse to kijin): Snowden's motivations are obviously relevant if you're justifying his avoiding of punishment because of the publicity issue. If Snowden think going to trial would maximize publicity but is still avoiding punishment because he's a wimp, and it just so happens that avoiding punishment ends up giving him more publicity, the latter fact does not justify his actions. It's not a requirement for promoting justice that you are sinless. But I would claim it is a requirement that take reasonable steps to prevent self-deception during the particular justice-promoting act. If someone steals a loaf of bread to feed their family, and also takes a nice watch for themselves along the way, I am prepared to say that that theft was not justified. I don't need to look into the family situation. Also, most people doesn't dispute that the espionage law is just, they dispute whether PRISM is just and whether Snowden was justified in violating the (just) espionage law to expose PRISM.

jessriedel 13y ago

> Do you mean "necessary to be considered civil disobedience"? No, I mean necessary to be justified. As I've tried to make clear, I'm not interested in arguing about the semantics. I think practitioners of civil disobedience stress that acceptance of punishment is necessary to justify disobedience because (1) the laws passed by democratic governments are valid (even if unjust) and (2) because acceptance of suffering for your cause calls the public's attention. I've never heard it argued that the mere fact that you are technically being punished for a just law (in the case of indirect disobedience) gets you off the hook for accepting the punishment. Hence my MLK traffic example. Personally, I would add that acceptance of punishment reduces your ability to deceive yourself into thinking you're disobeying for the greater good, rather than just for your own personal gain or fame. Being a conscientious objectors during the Vietnam war is justified if you accepted the alternate role upon being drafted, or if you accept imprisonment. But do you think fleeing to Canada is justified? After all, most people agree that the government has a right to draft soldiers in times of national emergency.

kijin 13y ago
Those are good reasons for some practitioners of civil disobedience (CD) to submit to punishment, but I don't think your reasons support the thesis that submission to punishment is a necessary condition for CD to be justified. Your reasons are mere strategies for CD practitioners to maximize publicity and minimize self-deception. Submission to punishment may be a good strategy for avoiding violence, increasing publicity, and overcoming personal weakness, but that's all there is to it. The most effect strategy depends on the circumstances. If Snowden can maximize publicity by playing cat-and-mouse with the U.S. government for weeks, maybe that's a good enough reason for him to resist being arrested by U.S. authorities. The implications of personal conscience also depends on the small print. People might agree with your general argument for the draft, but at the same time deny that the Communist takeover of Vietnam was anything close to a national emergency. After all, the eventual defeat in Vietnam did not cause the U.S. to cease to exist. Many contemporary political philosophers seem to take Gandhi and MLK as examples, but I'll take Hobbes and Locke any day over them: as soon as the state steps over the limits of its strictly circumscribed powers, you are under absolutely no obligation to obey the parts of its law that exceed the limit. You may voluntarily choose to obey the punishment part for one reason or another, but that's just your choice and it's irrelevant to the legitimacy of your cause. (Hobbes said that death row inmates have the right to try to escape from prison, because in his theory, the state was never authorized to execute people.)
- jessriedel 13y ago
  Note that my reason (1) is not a strategy. Also, taking reasonable steps to prevent self-deception is a moral imperative, not (in this case) a strategy for accomplishing a goal. To not take such steps is to be complicit with the self-deception, which is wrong. > If Snowden can maximize publicity by playing cat-and-mouse with the U.S. government for weeks That's a completely different claim than the one being discussed (that Snowden is justified to avoid punishment per se), and hinges on a question about Snowden's motivations which for which there's no evidence. Your points about MLK and Gandhi possibly being wrong are fine. Arguing about that is way beyond the scope of this thread. EDIT (resonse to kijin): Snowden's motivations are obviously relevant if you're justifying his avoiding of punishment because of the publicity issue. If Snowden think going to trial would maximize publicity but is still avoiding punishment because he's a wimp, and it just so happens that avoiding punishment ends up giving him more publicity, the latter fact does not justify his actions. It's not a requirement for promoting justice that you are sinless. But I would claim it is a requirement that take reasonable steps to prevent self-deception during the particular justice-promoting act. If someone steals a loaf of bread to feed their family, and also takes a nice watch for themselves along the way, I am prepared to say that that theft was not justified. I don't need to look into the family situation. Also, most people doesn't dispute that the espionage law is just, they dispute whether PRISM is just and whether Snowden was justified in violating the (just) espionage law to expose PRISM.