Short Critique of Martin Luther King Jr’s Criteria for Just Laws and Legal Obedience
In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther King Jnr proposes that we ought to only obey just laws. He also proposes three criteria to assess whether any code is indeed ‘just’. In this essay, I will first introduce his argument in two stages. Based on these two stages, I will then dissect the question into two parts. This essay primarily focuses on the first part, as I mainly take issue with the conjunctive nature of King’s criteria, and argue that King’s proposed criteria for just laws are not defined clearly enough to be generalized. I then extend this critique to show that his criteria for just law can be internally contradictory and lead to a dilemma. Following from this discussion, in the second part, I point out that King’s way of establishing moral obligation to obey or disobey laws is currently too inadequate to be applied more generally, as more nuances needs considered before establishing negative moral obligation.
King’s argument begins by making a distinction between “two kinds of laws” – just and unjust laws. He first asserts that if a law is just, we are legally and morally obliged to obey it. Conversely, if a law is unjust, we have “a moral responsibility” to disobey them. The grounding for this assertion seems to be rooted in Christian morality, in that he appeals directly to St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all”. Before progressing, however, one needs to recognise that a slight nuance in King’s conception of unjust laws versus St. Augustine’s. In King’s conception, although we should disobey unjust laws, it is not equivalent to completely disregard its legal status, as St. Augustine’s quote seems to suggest. In contrast, King argues that when we disobey unjust laws, we must stand ready to face consequences. In this essay, we focus only on the moral obligation to disobey these laws, without touching the legal aspects.
Having made the distinction, he then logically then proceeds to detail three criteria in assessing whether a law is just or unjust. Criterion A is that just laws need to square with the moral law or the law of God, such that they ‘uplift human personality’. Criterion B for just law is that it must be binding for both the imposing majority and the receiving minority. In other words, a law is just if it applies equally to everyone once entered into force. Thirdly, King introduces a democracy requirement C, which says that a law is just only if those governed have an effective say in creating the law. Specifically, King makes clear that the means to obtain this ‘effective say’ is through universal right to vote[1].
Based on his two-stage set up of the argument, two questions need to be answered[2]. Firstly, whether these criteria are indeed sufficient and necessary conditions for just law. Secondly, whether making a distinction between unjust and just laws is a good way of deciding what laws ought to be obeyed.
Before answering the first question, it is important to understand the relationship between these three criteria more precisely. In the text, King present these three criteria as conjunctively necessary for a law to be ‘just’. That is to say, if any of the criteria is violated, we ought to consider the law as unjust. King himself implies the jointly necessary nature of these criteria as he invokes the example of parading without permit law. Although he considers this law to be just under normal circumstances, he argues that this law “becomes unjust” when used to maintain segregation and violate First Amendment rights, which contradicts criterion A.
Having established that criteria A, B and C are jointly necessary for laws to be just under King’s conception, question arise when we attempt to determine whether a criterion is sufficiently fulfilled and thus established (as true). This is an especially problematic issue when considering there are some laws in the modern age which satisfies a criterion in some respect but violates it in some other areas. Consider the Patriot Act, a law introduced by a democratically elected legislature and applies equally to everyone in the US. This law seems to satisfy criteria B and C. Yet, issue arise when considering whether it satisfies criterion A, that is, whether it squares with the Moral Law. On the on hand, the Patriot Act allows the US government to gather intelligence on US citizens, violating privacy and personal freedom, which are sensible constituting elements of ‘human personality’. On the other, an argument can be made that this law is used to protect the lives of Americans against severe threats to life and freedom, particularly in the post-9/11 climate. As such, Patriot Act can be considered as a law that uplift some parts of “human personality” at the cost of some other “human personality.”
There are two potential replies to this issue. Firstly, we can take an absolutist stance on the criteria, and hold that since some parts of criteria A is violated, we ought to recognise that Patriot Act failed to fulfil criteria A, and is therefore unjust. However, this absolutist stance risks erasing any potential positive contributions to ‘human personality – including protection of lives and liberty – that this law could bring. Moreover, those who values civil liberty and live more than personal privacy could even argue that “on aggregate”, this law ultimately does more to “uplift” human personality than it brings down. This is the second way of replying to the issue, that there is a subjective judgement involved in assessing each criterion.
Although the second response is a more practical route, King does not provide any guidance as to how such balancing should be done. More fundamentally, he does not clearly define what exactly constitutes “human personality”. In King’s writing, he primarily used the phrase to mean value of equality and respect of humanity[3]. Yet, such a definition is incomplete for practical purposes if we want to extend his criteria to more general contexts.
Further, the potential conflicts within each criterion point to a more general problem that the three criteria could sometimes contradict each other, which makes King’s criteria a shaky foundation for deciding what laws to obey. Consider the COVID-19 pandemic, where the UK introduced nation-wide lockdown laws to protect public safety. Since there is universal suffrage and the law applies equally to everyone, criteria B and C is satisfied for all people in the UK. Further, for majority of the UK population who interacts with others frequently, may reasonably conclude (under the framework presented in the previous paragraph) that this law does more to ‘uplift human personality’ than degrade it, given the trade-off between threat to life and liberty to socialise. Hence, for these majority, the law is perfectly just under King’s assessment criteria. However, for those few living in remote villages and face virtually no threats from the virus, they may come to a reasonable conclusion that the law degrades their human personality, as it does more harm to their liberty than the risks it averts. Thus, for these people, lockdown laws are unjust by King’s criteria.
It is critical to note here that we can no longer rely on the ‘balanced judgement’ approach demonstrated previously to argue there is some kind of ‘net positiveness’ in these laws such that the law should be treated just. Instead, since King’s criteria are jointly necessary for a law to be recognised as just, our only option is to treat these laws as unjust and accept our moral responsibility to disobey them.
However, disobeying lockdown laws is not a morally “attractive” option to take on a societal level. By acting on their moral responsibility to disobey lockdown laws, people who consider lockdown laws unjust will inadvertently incur higher risks of infections for themselves and those they interact with, thus threatens the lives of more people. Conversely, we can attempt to justify criteria A for lockdown laws based on its ability to uplift human personality “on a societal level”. However, accepting this position is also morally problematic, as it would be legitimising the sufferings of those minorities in our case. Since King believes strongly in the supremacy of the “Moral Law”, neither route would have been attractive to him.
How do we resolve this conflict? We must consider whether the dichotomy between just and unjust laws is indeed the best way to determine what laws to obey. In my view, establishing positive or negative moral obligation[4] based on King’s ‘just-based formula’ is inadequate. As demonstrated in the case above, in certain scenarios, if we wanted to respect the formula and establish moral obligation on an individual level, then there may be moral contradictions on a societal level. Conversely, if we want to argue for the application of the formula and establishment of moral obligation on a societal level, then we risk doing injustice to individuals.
Issues with this formula originate from the conjunctive nature of the criteria for just law, and the absoluteness of King’s claim on moral obligation. The requirement for establishing positive moral obligation is very strict, as a law needs to fulfil all three criteria. But the requirement for negative moral obligation is very slack, as breaching any of the criteria necessitates negative obligation. A problem with this approach is that by labelling a law as unjust, we lose sight of the extent of injustice it carries. A law that egregiously violates all three criteria is treated the same as a law that just barely violates one of the criteria, and the formula confers the same, strong moral obligation to disobey these laws.
One way to resolve this is by accepting a degree of relative strength of how unjust a law is and allow some balancing. If we adopted this route, then the conflict raised above can be resolved, in that the minorities can accept lockdown laws as unjust. At the same time, they can recognise that since lockdown laws barely violate only one criteria, the moral obligation to disobey these laws may not outweigh other moral obligations, such as obligations to protect others in the society.
On the flipside, however, by introducing a spectrum of justness, we create a very arbitrary definition of justice and vague boundaries, that justice is ticking some or all of the three boxes. This calls into question whether the distinction between just and unjust law is meaningful at all, and risks contradicting with King’s strongly-held belief in the clear distinction between the two. Thus, how to resolve the tension between this and the potential solution that this essay points to would be an interesting topic for further investigation.
In conclusion, I have demonstrated that King’s conjunctive criteria for just laws lacks enough detail to be applied more generally, and that these criteria may contradict each other. By considering a case where these criteria come in conflict, I pointed out the dilemma that follows and argues that King’s way of establishing moral obligation to obey or disobey laws is inadequate. In the concluding part of the essay, I briefly point to one possible solution and the issues it entails for future research.
References
King, M. L. (1963, April 16). Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Retrieved from AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER - UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
[1] In the original text, King argues that “A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law.” He also goes on to point out his grievances against “all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters” in Alabama.
[2] For ease of logical flow and understanding, I have reordered the question from King’s writing.
[3] I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.
[4] Positive obligation refers to obligation to obey a law; negative obligation refers to obligation to disobey a law.