Civil Disobedience Debate

The fact that our country allows decisions to be made on a majority level is not just at all. Socrates was jailed for corrupting the young, a charge that if took place today under the same circumstances would equal out to Henry David Thoreau’s actions of not paying taxes. Moreover, it was not so important that Socrates did not break the law because he did not escape, as it was that he and Thoreau chose their moral values over the law. So the question is, do we abide by the laws that elected officials that we vote for make for all of us and live unjustly, or do we live justly in a manner and spend our lives like Thoreau did writing essays and trying to make people see how this way of living will make the world a better place?

Socrates also believed like Thoreau that nothing is more important than a person’s morals. Therefore in that sense Thoreau is not breaking the laws by which he lives. He said that people who value democracy are moral sellouts. He implies that it will make the people think if it is worth arresting and wasting time on a just man. Socrates would run into the same problems that Thoreau did if he had lived in a democratic nation with the laws that we have. Socrates was not trying to break the law; instead he was trying to help the young to understand the just way of living. Well maybe not exactly but my point is both of these men believe in the same way of living their lives and if they are prosecuted or punished for that than they are considered to just by their beliefs, and to them their doing the right thing. If they would both be punished for the way they lived they would be in following their moral beliefs, in which would make their behavior just by their standards. In Socrates’ era there were not as many laws to be broken and there were no real true forms of government like we have today. Individualism was a main point in Thoreau’s theories. These men both lived by the same moral values, however, the fact that they lived in different societies and eras makes the argument seem virtually invisible.