Civil disobedience* is one of the easiest topics in political philosophy.

Civil disobedience is at base the conscientious decision to break a law on the grounds that it’s unjust. It may or may not be accompanied by active public resistance and displays, a willingness to submit to punishment, attempts to cause change, and so on.

First question: When is civil disobedience justified? Answer: That’s kind of easy. It’s now (and has been for a while) more or less the standard view in political philosophy that none of the theories of state authority/political obligation work. The standard view is that while certain states may exist and enforce laws, we don’t have duties to obey the state per se. If so, then it follows trivially that we may conscientiously break any unjust law, unless there is some countervailing reason not to. It’s odd that most of the papers written on civil disobedience just assume that states have authority when that is an unpopular view in political philosophy, and, I’ll add, for very good reason.

Second question: When must you submit to punishment for breaking an unjust law? When should you try to overturn the law? Answer: Generally, you don’t have to. I’ll recount a conversation I had with a lawyer about this:

Lawyer: Ok, I’ll grant that you can sometimes disobey the law, but shouldn’t you then accept punishment?

Me: Wait a minute. First, you guys all got together and past an unjust law, thus abusing the power of government and wrongfully threatening me with violence. Now, when I rightfully disregard your immoral actions, you assert I acquire a duty to submit to punishment and to try to change the law. That seems wrong. After all, you–the lawmakers–acted badly, not me. Why does your wrongdoing burden me? I’m not the one obligated to fix the problem; you are. And I’m not obligated to accept punishment, since you shouldn’t have passed the law in the first place.

Active resistance with the goal of changing the law can be supererogatory, but because it is so burdensome, it’s generally not required.

*Notice that the Brownlee article here gets off the ground only if states have authority to require obedience to unjust laws.

UPDATE: One minute version: Theories of civil disobedience are theories about special exceptions to state authority and duties of citizens in these special circumstances. But since states don’t have authority, we don’t need theories of civil disobedience.