A Critique of Martin Luther Ki

A Critique of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Version of Natural Law Theory

Paradoxically, Martin Luther King, Jr., in his "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," initially uses classical natural law theory to defend his actions, but immediately thereafter contradicts a fundamental tenet of this theory and relies on a "weaker" version of natural law. In doing so, King must attempt to formulate a theory which justifies his illegal actions in view of his moral obligation to obey the law. King's failure to distinguish between legal obligations and moral obligations yields a logical paradox in his final formulation of natural law theory. However, King's theory need not be completely rejected if his argument is slightly modified to reject the moral obligation to obey laws.

King initially uses classical natural law theory as his rational basis to defend his actions. This theory has two main component claims according to Murphy and Coleman (Sourcebook, I-35), the first being, "Moral validity is a logically necessary condition for legal validity- an unjust or immoral law being no law at all" followed by, "The moral order is a part of the natural order-

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King's version of natural law theory serves to illustrate many of the moral and legal issues involved with breaking the law. Since by definition a moral obligation is voluntary, whereas a legal obligation is not, King's reasoning would result in chaos whenever the legal obligations coincided with moral obligations. " According to this theory, morality ‚ law, but law = morality by definition. Thus King is forced to paradoxically argue that he is following "a moral obligation to break unjust laws" while simultaneously advocating a moral responsibility to uphold the same law. This placement of moral over legal obligation basically forces legal obligations to conform to the moral requirements. " As Murphy and Coleman point out, there is nothing to be gained by failing to acknowledge the existence of a law, even a law deemed to be unfair, evil or irrational. Adopting and defending any form of natural law theory is difficult, and King goes a long way to resolving some of the inherent issues. It is interesting to note that this argument is precisely what Justice Frankfurter protested in his dissent (West Virginia State Board of Education v. On this point both Scalia and King seem to also agree. "

King realizes the absurdity of claiming that a law doesn't exist simply because it is unjust. This hearkens back to the problem that for King, moral obligations which can make an appeal to reason serve as the basis for legal obligations. Thus when King makes the claim that, "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws," he is referring to what he considers to be an obligation equal to or even higher than the legal obligation to obey laws. This argument makes the most sense and can, in fact, solve the paradox, as will be seen. "

King then defines a just law in third way, defining a just law as a law created by fair processes. " (I-40) The nature of this statement is to directly oppose his previous argument that an "unjust law in no law at all.

Common topics in this essay:
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Approximate Word count = 2963
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)

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