Thoreau declared that
if the government required people to participate in injustice by obeying “unjust laws
,” then people should “break the laws” even if they ended up in prison. “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly,” he asserted, “the true place for a just man is also a prison.”
How does Thoreau define unjust laws?
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience. “
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust
, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
What were Henry David Thoreau’s ideas beliefs?
Thoreau’s attitude toward reform involved his
transcendental efforts
to live a spiritually meaningful life in nature. As a transcendentalist, Thoreau believed that reality existed only in the spiritual world, and the solution to people’s problems was the free development of emotions (“Transcendentalism”).
Who does Thoreau believe is to blame for injustice?
Thoreau argues that the United States’ invasion of Mexico is immoral and that
Americans who support the government with their person (as soldiers) or property (through taxes)
are complicit in that injustice. He would further say that a person should go to jail rather than be responsible for that invasion.
What are 3 ideas Henry David Thoreau values?
It was created as a way for writers, thinkers, and philosophers to rebel against the norm, and its three essential values still followed today are
individualism, idealism, and the divinity of nature
.
What is Thoreau’s philosophy of life?
Thoreau’s philosophy says that
value is not inherently monetary and can be found anywhere
, especially in the beauty of the natural world. One who adopts Thoreau’s philosophies for beauty and value will inherently stand at odds with some of the ideals of society, pushing luxury and money.
What does Thoreau suggest is worse than disobeying an unjust law?
He disagreed with other American people who believed
the majority should change the law first
because it is a worse thing to disobey the law than to do what an unjust law says to do. Thoreau wrote that breaking the unjust laws is better: “Break the law. … However, Thoreau did not think people should be criminals.
What does Thoreau think of most people’s lives?
In Thoreau’s view, what kind of lives do most people live? They
lead lives of quiet desperation
. The first sentence of this excerpt from Walden is a well-known aphorism, or statement commenting on life. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
What does Thoreau value?
Thoreau’s
strong individualism
, rejection of the conventions of society, and philosophical idealism all distanced him from others. He had no desire to meet external expectations if they varied from his own sense of how to live his life.
What is the main idea of Walden by Henry David Thoreau?
The principal theme of Walden by Henry David Thoreau is
simplicity
. More specifically, Thoreau extolls the joys and satisfactions of a simple life.
What sort of life Thoreau would like to live upon?
Therefore, he put forward to live in
simplicity
, in which people can go toward a higher spiritual life and a primitive rank and savage one. He believed that if one simplified his life, “self-culture could be attained”
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because simplicity endowed people with power to face one’s life bravely.
How does Thoreau think we should live our lives?
Thoreau believed that
lives lived in civilisation resulted in unnecessary complexity
. To truly live simply and to live in harmony with our surroundings it is necessary to do what he did, which was to go into nature and live secluded from other humans and civilisation.
How does Thoreau contemplate what life could be amidst nature?
Henry David Thoreau, disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson, sought isolation and nearness to nature. … In his writings he suggests that
all living things have rights that humans should recognize
, implying that we have a responsibility to respect and care for nature rather than destroying it.
What did Martin Luther King Jr mean by just and unjust laws?
One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. … A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is
a code that is out of harmony with the moral law
.
Is it OK to disobey unjust laws?
In short, if anybody ever has a right to break the law, this cannot be a legal right under the law. It has to be a moral right against the law. And this moral right is
not an unlimited right to disobey any law which
one regards as unjust.
What is an example of an unjust law?
A law relating to the keeping of slaves
is an example of an unjust law. Unjust laws are laws that go against a type of higher law or ethical system. Generally, unjust laws are understood to be laws that violate natural law or another system higher than the law of a particular society.
