Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: Direct action is an attempt to disrupt a contentious practice, rather than an effort to communicate opposition to that practice to others. It has received much less philosophical attention than the related but distinct notion of civil disobedience, which means that we lack comparable insight into its nature, justification and role in more-or-less democratic societies. This article contends that direct action can be legitimate in democracies if it is carried out in line with what is described here as an ethic of responsibility. This ethic imposes duties upon citizens to moderate the coercive and violent dimensions of their activism, while also restricting the use of direct action to the most serious and urgent cases of harm.
Source: Raisons politiques
DOI: 10.3917/rai.069.0013
Author: William Smith
Institution: Chinese University of Hong Kong
Language: French
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2796303682