Martin Luther King Unjust Analysis

668 Words3 Pages
Martin Luther King wrote in his Birmingham News letter that some people may ask “how can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” A democratically structured society should include a system of rules that should protect and be in favour of everyone. Those system of rules would than be regarded as just laws. King writes of his definition of a just law saying that “a just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.” If a law ceases the rights of another person or advantages one person over another, that law should be regarded as unjust. King writes according to St. Thomas Aquinas in his letter that “an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.” King is very prominent on making…show more content…
Although he was unjustly accused, he was very steadfast on beleieving that even a faulty law should not be broken, and still respected. A society should be a collection of people who feel comfortable understanding and welcoming eachothers values, knowing that it is morally right. If you feel as if the values placed in society are wrong, than you have the right to disregard them. Socrates heavily believed that if you're born into a society than you are born under its values and laws, thus you must obey them. He states that “will they not say: you, Socrates are breaking the covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure.” Even though Crito thinks it would be better for him to escape, Socrates thinks that it would be foolish for him to leave the city because he believes that if he escaped he would be betraying Athens, so he'd rather die for the law instead of saving his life. Socrates argues that they may say “having had seventy years to think of them, durning which time you were at liberty to leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants appeared to you to be unfair.....and now you runaway and forsake your agreements.” Socrates really was not aware that it is possible to do wrong thorugh both action and inaction. He was quite focused on abiding by the law because he was worried of casting a bad example on the youth saying “for he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely ro be corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind” , not understanding that by remaining passive he showed that he is ignorant and is not aware that he has a commitment to himself first instead of some law. Socrates believed that every law set out by the system is there for the common good of society. Although, that's the way it should be, that doesn't mean that
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