Violent Consequences of Nonviolent Acts

In Section 55, Rawls defines civil disobedience as “a public, nonviolent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government” (320). According to Rawls, his theory of civil obedience applies to a nearly just democratic society for “citizens who recognize and accept the legitimacy of the constitution” (319). In this blog post, I want to explore the boundary between violent and nonviolent acts, considering the fact that nonviolent acts have consequences that can be described as violent.


Rawls says that his theory of civil disobedience allows for the civilly disobedient act to breach a law that is not the law against which the act protests. For example, if an individual were to protest against a law that imposes a penalty fee on anyone who attempts to enter into a same-sex marriage, he can engage in civil disobedience without entering into a same-sex marriage. Rawls believes this is important because the penalty for committing the unjust law might be unreasonable to expect a protesting individual to accept, or the unjust law might be difficult to violate directly (it might pertain to an action that would be taken on foreign territory). So, instead of entering into a same-sex marriage, an individual protesting the unjust law penalizing same-sex marriage could violate other laws. Rawls names examples of this indirect civil disobedience–disobeying traffic ordinances and trespassing (320). I contend that these very violations could result in violence.


If, as Rawls suggests, an individual seeking to protest an unjust law penalizing same-sex marriage disobeys traffic ordinances instead of entering into a same-sex marriage, violent results may occur. Though the civilly disobedient act of speeding or refusing to stop at a stop sign is nonviolent, it may result in physical harm to humans. This is because the traffic ordinances themselves were established in the interest of protecting public safety. When these laws are broken, there can be violent consequences. 


If, as Rawls suggests, an individual seeking to protest an unjust law penalizing same-sex marriage trespasses on private property instead of entering into a same-sex marriage, he may be met with violence. Though walking onto private property and refusing to leave is nonviolent in itself, property laws are such that the individual who owns the private property is entitled to defend his right against trespassing with force. In the United States, individuals are entitled to use firearms against trespassers. This could obviously have violent consequences. 


Given that these examples proposed by Rawls himself could have consequences that entail the physical harm of human beings, can they truly be said to be nonviolent? Can an act that has a chance of causing violence be categorized as nonviolent? Almost every nonviolent violation of the law carries a chance of causing violence. In Rawls’s view, is an act of civil disobedience only justified if the nonviolent act does not happen to cause violence in that instance? If that is Rawls’s view, then the exact same act of civil disobedience could be justified at one attempt and not justified at another attempt due to chance.


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