Animal liberation activists recently terrorized a UCLA neurobiologist into abandoning his research on primates.¹ Let us grant for sake of argument that experimentation on animals is indeed a grievous wrong. Can that justify the activists’ actions? Violent activism and extra-legal “direct action” may appear to be justified in the fight against grave injustices. I wish to argue, on the contrary, that such political vigilantism is generally not justified in a liberal-democratic society. This view derives from procedural liberalism, according to which the metapolitical level of due process has primacy over one’s first-order, substantive political ends.² As citizens, our first loyalty must be to upholding the liberal-democratic institutional order. Consequently, if one is in a sufficiently just and responsive democratic system then one is obliged to work within this system, rather than undermining it through radical action for the purpose of coercively implementing one’s first-order objectives – no matter how important they may seem.

1. Procedural Liberalism

Our pluralistic society is home to various conflicting conceptions of the good. This raises the problem: “How is it possible that there may exist over time a stable and just society of free and equal citizens profoundly divided by reasonable religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines?”³ In order to render the competing theories compatible in practice, we must place strict limits on their public influence. In particular, we must together construct a neutral political sphere, in which these disagreements can be played out peacefully through processes that secure the allegiance of all. A tolerant social contract is of course instrumentally rational for the less powerful groups, who might otherwise be crushed in an all-out battle for dominion. But what shall we say of the powerful? If they could impose their will successfully, to achieve what they believe to be good, why should they refrain? On the assumption that your moral views are correct, why tolerate pluralism at all? Isn’t this effectively to tolerate immorality?

These are hoary old questions. Locke pointed out that coercion cannot reach one’s innermost convictions, so attempts to purify souls or eliminate thought-crime would be in vain.⁴ Still, many moral doctrines remain that are concerned with outward behaviour and this-worldly consequences. Here we might better adopt a Millian theme, and defend a pluralism of ideas and experiments of living as the most reliable route to truth and value available to such fallible creatures as ourselves.⁵ Of course, one cannot tolerate absolutely everything, or society would soon fall apart. But the preconditions for civil society – including laws against unprovoked violence, and so forth – should prove agreeable to every reasonable political agent, no matter their personal moral views. Even if we disagree about how best to live, still there should be a broad consensus on the minimalistic question of how to live together, i.e. what must be done in order to construct a viable society. Further, we may hope to secure consensus on how to deal with persisting disagreements in a fair and legitimate way – say through a liberal-democratic process that includes public deliberation and the free exchange of reasons.

At this point we may identify two contrasting political ideals. The dogmatist approaches the political arena with pre-defined objectives, and aims simply to see these implemented. On this view, the public sphere is a battleground, and political opponents are the enemy. Their objections are seen as obstacles to be overcome; dissent is to be quashed. The fallibilist, by contrast, approaches the political arena with a more open mind. She may have firm opinions, but she is committed to the possibility of revising them in face of recalcitrant evidence. On this view, public debate is a collaborative endeavour, in which citizens work together towards the common goal of discerning and implementing the common good. Objections and disagreements offered in good faith are to be welcomed as potential learning opportunities in the disinterested pursuit of truth. Again, even fallibilists might well expect others’ objections to be misguided, but the crucial point is that they allow for the contrary possibility, and so are committed to the invitation and fair assessment of opposing reasons – and hence to the possibility of changing their mind.

Fallibilism strikes me as by far the more attractive position of the two. The respect it affords to one’s fellow citizens seems especially admirable. It is also the more epistemically responsible, since we are rarely if ever justified in holding beliefs with absolute certainty. Importantly, upon recognizing our own fallibility, we are arguably obliged to continue moral inquiry and the challenging of our existing views – for it would be most irresponsible to coercively impose our views on others without first taking due care to ensure that we were not mistaken. We should thus seek to establish institutions for guiding political action, which can be recognized in the abstract – without presupposing any particular first-order views – as following reliable procedures for inquiry. The instituted process should, for instance, be responsive to reasons and as unbiased as possible. Despite its flaws, I will assume that democratic deliberation is the best available option.⁶ Without delving into any empirical details, I will also assume that the admittedly sub-optimal procedures of Western liberal-democratic societies come close enough for our purposes.

This assumption is contestable, so let me offer a brief sketch of what to say if it turns out to be false – i.e. if our current political system is thoroughly corrupted and unreliable (as is plausibly the case for many countries in the developing world). In this case, I suggest that a citizen’s first priority must be the institution of an adequate political process. This may require, and hence justify, full-scale revolution. Procedural liberals should support this, so long as the revolution isn’t used to push in substantive first-order policies by radical (extra-procedural) means. Just institutions must be established first, and then any first-order proposals channeled through them.⁷

I should emphasize that the concern here isn’t with legality per se. If a tyrant has the power to pass any laws they want, unbounded by procedural “checks and balances”, this still counts as ‘radicalism’ – in opposition to ‘liberalism’ – as I am using the terms. Also, note that democratic formalities may prove insufficient for procedural justice, if dissent is silenced in practice. Again, procedural liberals could consistently support the replacement of unjust procedures, even by force if necessary. Assuming they succeed in setting up a legitimate system, we can now return to the question of whether it’s ever justifiable to violate it.

2. Universalizability

A key motivation behind procedural liberalism is that society would descend into anarchy if everyone flouted the law whenever they disagreed with it. We generally want others to respect the rule of law, no matter whether they personally agree with the particular laws in question. We wish to condemn religious extremists who bomb abortion clinics, no matter their righteous motives. So it would be hypocritical to make an exception only for ourselves, or the causes we happen to believe in. As stated, this criticism is overly crude, and leaves open an easy answer for the radical: they do not claim moral permission to break whatever laws they like. Rather, they think we should oppose unjust laws – a perfectly universalizable claim – and they implement this general principle as best they can, in relation to the particular laws they believe to be unjust.

We may grant the radical the desirability of universal perfect compliance with the rule ‘flout all and only unjust laws’. But it is not realistic to think that humble mortals are capable of following this rule perfectly. As has long been recognized in relation to naïve utilitarianism, the direct and deliberate pursuit of such a difficult goal is likely to backfire terribly. So we need to take human error into account when assessing moral guidelines, and hence specify them in terms of the decision-procedure that one is to attempt to follow, without presupposing perfect success. I suggest that when we do this, radicalism is no longer universalizable. At least, the decision-procedure ‘flout all and only laws that you consider to be unjust’ is plainly indefensible, since it would serve to legitimize “righteous” terrorism such as abortion clinic bombings. We cannot universalize a decision procedure that would allow one to act coercively whenever they believe it would do the most good. So we cannot rationally act in such a way ourselves; we must first subject our proposals to the same tests that we would reasonably demand of others. Can radicals base their decisions on a more reliable procedure?

3. The Epistemic Question

We’ve seen that adherence to the political process is important in order to restrain the many people with conflicting views of the good – not all of which can be correct – and who want to impose their views on others. We might criticize such impositions on formal grounds, say for showing disrespect to one’s fellow citizens, or otherwise violating the attractive metapolitical principles that tell us to conduct our politics cooperatively and in good faith. But we might also seek to criticize the impositions on abstracted substantive grounds, by pointing to the sheer probability that their moral views are mistaken. Any given radical group will no doubt insist that all the others are horribly mistaken. But then what makes them so special? If the various radical groups are epistemically on a par, then – since nobody thinks that all are adequately justified in their beliefs – it must be that none of them are justified. But are they all on a par? What we need here is some way to adjudicate political conflicts so as to reliably distinguish good proposals from bad ones. And that is precisely what the liberal-democratic process is supposed to provide.

Thus, if the process is functioning adequately, we should find that it generally approves good proposals and rejects bad ones. This means that if you cannot rationally persuade well-meaning fellow citizens to your position, chances are that this is because you’re in error. Of course, we are engaged in a very high level of abstraction here – in any particular case, there could be reasons that defeat the democratic presumption. For example, the populace might be demonstrably biased or ignorant in some crucial respect. But then, bringing this to their attention should, ideally, suffice to overcome it, unless we are to despair of our fellow citizens as fundamentally unreasonable. Still, the possibility must be granted that a small group of educated radicals might transparently be in a better epistemic position than the general populace with regard to determining the common good. So if they knew this to be so, could that justify radicalism?

The worry, of course, is that many other radical groups mistakenly believe themselves to be in such a position. They are subjectively every bit as certain in their “knowledge” as the correct group is. So the question remains how to distinguish them. However, it’s important to note that, in principle, the ability to distinguish the two situations need not hold symmetrically. Although the justified believer must be able to distinguish their position from that of being unjustified, the converse need not necessarily be the case. As Sosa writes: “Suppose I could now about as easily be dead, having barely escaped a potentially fatal accident. Obviously, we cannot distinguish being alive from being dead by believing oneself alive when alive, and dead when dead. But that is no obstacle to our knowing ourselves alive when alive.”⁸ Similarly, we may at times be so muddle-headed that we do not even realize it (for example while dreaming). But the possibility of overlooking such a deficit does nothing to undermine our introspective appreciation of wakeful clarity. As a general rule, our positive awareness of an introspective property is not threatened by the fact that we would be unaware of lacking the property. The full force of one’s actual awareness and appreciation suffices to guarantee that the property is really there. It’s no reflection on your actual situation if others (perhaps including your counterfactual selves or counterparts) are less discerning.

Perhaps the justified radical is in a similar position. She has a deep appreciation of the moral-political facts, we may suppose, and it’s not her fault that others lack such discernment. Even though others are in such a poor epistemic position that they don’t even realize it, this fact does not reflect on the epistemic situation of the fully-aware radical. She, at least, is in a position to tell the difference, even if the others aren’t.

But there are generally tests that one can do to confirm one’s positive awareness and clarity of thought. For example, it may help to focus one’s attention on the details of the property allegedly observed – presumably the deluded will find themselves unable to perform this feat, and thereby become aware of their deficit at last. So we should want to put our political beliefs to a similar ‘test’, which they should have no trouble passing if they’re really as self-evident as we believe. The justified radical will be able to specify the justificatory grounds of her proposals with clarity and logical rigour lacking in the attempts of her opponents. Others might offer justifications that they personally find equally convincing, but only because they are unaware of their flaws.

Are these two situations really subjectively discernible though, even asymmetrically? Is fine-grained conclusive justification, or complex rational insight, the kind of property that is open to introspective awareness? Or must the asymmetry argument be restricted in application to more black-and-white cases (e.g. death vs. life, or muddled dreaming vs. wakeful clarity)? Is it really true that moral justification is internally accessible, so that the phenomenal experience or subjective ‘what it is like’ quality of having true moral-political beliefs is different in kind from what it is like to have defensible but ultimately misguided beliefs on these topics? This seems implausible. So the subjective position of the radical – no matter how convinced they may feel that such-and-such is an intolerable moral outrage – is insufficient to justify coercive action. Their beliefs must pass a more objective test. Whatever test is appropriate here is presumably the test that should be instituted in the political system. So this leads us back to procedural liberalism.

Although there does seem to be a problem for radicalism here, it may not be purely epistemic in nature. After all, it seems reasonable to retain one’s political beliefs even in the face of democratic defeat. (On the view I defend, one must accept the outcome of a just process, but one need not agree with it.) We might explain this away by suggesting that the high stakes involved in political action demand more stringent justification than is required for mere belief. These differing prescriptions may also be grounded in a utilitarian manner. Given the fallibility of mainstream opinion, the advancement of social knowledge might be best served by having individuals persist in trying to support their discredited views – even when this is individually “irrational” in the sense that any given dissenter is statistically unlikely to ultimately prove correct.⁹ Such behaviour is at least collectively rational, so we have reason to support epistemic norms that would allow individuals to retain beliefs that are too ungrounded to serve as a basis for coercive action.

To test whether the problem is purely epistemic: suppose, per impossibile, that a radical could truly know, with conclusive justification, what the right course of political action is. Would they then be justified in following through on it, using coercion if necessary? I guess so, but this hypothetical is so detached from reality that we may not trust our intuitive grasp of it. Indeed, I suspect it is impossible twice over. Firstly, because such certain knowledge could never be found in a world as messy as ours. And second, because vigilantism would arguably not be “the right course of action” in the first place. This latter suggestion demands independent reasons – beyond the merely epistemic – for opposing vigilantism, and it is this question to which I will now turn.

4. Civic Respect

I earlier distinguished two approaches to politics, which I ascribed to ‘dogmatists’ and ‘fallibilists’, respectively. But the essential difference between them lies not in their epistemic assumptions, but – more importantly – their civic attitudes. The question that divides them is whether politics is a fundamentally combative or cooperative endeavour. I think it is the latter conception that we ought to adopt. Civic virtue requires that we approach the political arena with a commitment to deliberate with our fellow citizens in good faith. The democratic process establishes the rules by which citizens cooperate to reach political decisions. Hence, the vigilante who violates this process is effectively engaging in a unilateral act of civil war against his fellow citizens. The vigilante assumes that he alone has the moral clarity to “see justice done”. Instead of engaging with his fellow citizens, he dismisses them. They are seen as mere obstacles to justice: if he cannot convince them, he will coerce them. The vigilante’s attitude is thus seen to be fundamentally disrespectful towards his fellow citizens, denying them moral autonomy or political agency.

There may be rare occasions when such disrespect is warranted, however. For what are we to do when faced with a dogmatic sectarian majority that intentionally seeks to oppress minority citizens? In such a case, the majority has already forsaken civic cooperation. To preserve the value of respect, we must disrespect those who would betray this meta-political value. Hence, civic virtue should arguably lead us to defend threatened subgroups of our fellow citizens – by whatever means necessary – against those who would aggress against them. If a tyrannical majority has seized control of the democratic process, abusing it for nefarious purposes, then radical action may be legitimated in response. But it’s worth noting that this is not merely a first-order problem: rather, it is the political process itself that needs repair. If there is no hope of engaging the majority in reasoned discussion, then democratic procedures will no longer be responsive to reasons, and hence will fail to qualify as just procedures at all. So this concession to radicalism is consistent with procedural liberalism, understood as the prioritization of process over first-order substance.

Importantly, I hold that civic disrespect is not warranted simply in virtue of first-order political disagreements, no matter their importance. One might consider abortion to be a ‘genocide of the unborn’, or animal experimentation a form of ‘slavery’, and hence consider their defenders to be about as morally misguided as anyone could possibly be. Nevertheless, I suggest, civic virtue requires us to restrain these deeply held beliefs and concomitant attitudes. When engaging politically in the public sphere, we must self-identify as citizens first and foremost. Our commitment to civil society must trump all else. There is a sense in which we must be capable of bracketing our first-order concerns, to become an abstract citizen on a par with all others. This humble self-conception will guide our political action towards principles of cooperative reciprocity. We are led to treat our political opponents the way we would wish them to treat us. So when we believe them to be mistaken – even horrendously mistaken – we must respond with good-faith attempts to convince them of this (so long as we ought to retain any respect for them whatsoever). The coercive imposition of one’s moral views is not an option for the virtuous agent who would treat her fellow citizens with basic respect.

The crucial test for legitimate radicalism is thus whether one’s opponents have forsaken good faith and civic virtue, effectively initiating civil war by precluding any hope of reasonable co-operation. If the political sphere becomes a battlefield, then radicalism is justified as the only available form of self-defence. We need not submit to the arbitrary coercion inherent in civilly disrespectful political decisions. That’s no part of any “social contract” that citizens (tacitly or hypothetically) commit themselves to. On the other hand, citizens arguably are committed to abiding by the conclusions of a reasonably co-operative political process. The project of politics as collective decision-making would be fatally undermined if participants could simply refuse to accept outcomes with which they strongly disagreed. In short: political agents should always act in accordance with civic respect, unless their opponents have conspicuously forsaken this value already.

However, even generally well-meaning citizens might prove stubbornly unreasonable on particular issues. That’s insufficient grounds for initiating civil war, I presume. Yet if civil war is not justified, then – I claim – neither is political vigilantism. Co-operation is still possible, so citizens ought not to undermine the social fabric through civilly disrespectful direct action. But then what can be done about those particular injustices to which society remains willfully blind? The ideal political system would incorporate a “failsafe” – some means of shocking the populace out of stubborn complacency when all the usual (read: legal) routes fail. Such a proposal faces two major challenges: to protect it against abuse from misguided vigilantes, and to reconcile it with fidelity to the rule of law. In the next section, I will argue that civil disobedience, properly understood, can meet both challenges.

5. Civil Disobedience

I will understand civil disobedience to be non-violent lawbreaking that is conducted publicly in symbolic protest of perceived injustice. It is “public” in two important senses, captured in Martin Luther King’s claim:

“One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that 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 law.”¹⁰

First, civil disobedience is public in the sense that the protesters do not hide their identity, and instead accept full responsibility – including any criminal punishment that may be forthcoming – for their lawbreaking. Second, it is intended as a form of communication with one’s fellow citizens, in contrast to vigilantism that seeks to coercively impose one’s desired objectives. Civil disobedience is thus primarily symbolic rather than instrumental. As Rawls explains, “it may be understood as addressing the sense of justice of the majority in order to urge reconsideration of the measures protested and to warn that, in the sincere opinion of the dissenters, the conditions of social cooperation are not being honored.”¹¹ This means that civil disobedience should be directed at public actors (including the citizenry in general) – the harassment of private actors is more akin to coercive direct action.¹²

These conditions help to protect against the two risks identified in the previous section. The symbolic and non-coercive nature of civil disobedience is consistent with civic respect for one’s fellow citizens and the rule of law generally. The protesters – unlike vigilantes – are not trying to “take the law into their own hands”. Instead, they martyr themselves against the criminal justice system, without causing undue harm to others, in hopes of appealing to the conscience of their fellow citizens. Democratic sovereignty is retained, as political power remains with the majority. The latter are not coerced, but simply invited – with purely moral force – to consider the concerns of the protesters.

By accepting full punishment under the existing laws, the protesters then reinforce their commitment to the rule of law. As Wofford writes, paraphrasing Gandhi, “we so respect the law that when we think it is so unjust that in conscience we cannot obey, then [we say] we belong in jail until that law is changed.”¹³ The threat of punishment also serves as a disincentive against unconscientious violations of the law. Together with the humble and fundamentally co-operative goals of civil disobedience as identified above, this helps to protect such protest against abuse, ensuring that little harm is done even by those with deeply mistaken moral convictions.

6. Objections and Replies

The position I’ve been defending in this essay may be clarified by exploring various objections that critics might raise. First, a political process may be inherently unjust, due to the disenfranchisement – whether de jure or de facto – of dissenting groups. Excluded minorities are surely not required to respect the laws that result from such a process. But procedural liberals can agree with this. The procedural liberal’s first priority is to establish and uphold just processes – and they may support radical action to this end, as explained in section 1.

A more serious objection begins from the observation that just procedures may yield horrifically unjust results. Sectarian majorities may democratically decide to engage in genocide, slaughtering a minority group with popular support, and paying no heed to the occasional outraged cries of dissent. Critics may ask: “Is crying really all that a procedural liberal would do in such a situation?” I suggest not. Democratic formalities are insufficient to guarantee a just political system. Procedural justice instead arises from the interaction of political institutions and political agents. As section 4 argued, citizens must exemplify civic virtue through their commitment to political cooperation, i.e. deliberating with their fellow citizens in good faith, towards the common good. To unilaterally abandon cooperative politics is – no matter one’s first-order ends – to commit a meta-political (or procedural) injustice. Indeed, such aggressive civic disrespect amounts to an act of civil war. I consider this the strongest argument against vigilantism. But it is worth noting that this also applies to sectarian governments that act entirely within the “law”. A democratic majority might decide to wage war against a disrespected minority. This is unjust as a matter of form, and so may be opposed without constraint by procedural liberals, who may act to restore a just system where civic respect reigns supreme.

Not all gross injustices are assured to take this form, however. Some will be found in the private sphere, and hence outside the scope of civic respect. For example, if – after due consideration of dissenting views – a democratic majority legally decrees that every first-born child will be tortured and sacrificed to appease the gods, this involves no civic disrespect. This is because young children are not public actors or ‘citizens’ as I use the term here.¹⁴ They lack political agency, so cannot be civilly disrespected. But the moral circle is broader than the political circle. We certainly owe children moral respect, and torture surely violates this if anything does! This example highlights that civic respect is but one value among many, and hence may be subject to trade-offs. Whilst the procedural liberal insists on giving it lexical priority, critics may use extreme examples – such as the above – to undermine such civic absolutism.

It seems to me that there are two lines of response open to the procedural liberal. One is to simply bite the bullet, and insist that coercive interference can never be justified in response to purely first-order atrocities. Instead, opposition must be directed through legitimate channels only (including civil disobedience as defined above), for as long as these remain available. Here the procedural liberal might reiterate my arguments from sections 2 and 3, pointing out that although isolated acts of political vigilantism may seem desirable, in reality acts never occur in isolation. As a general rule, the coercive imposition of first-order morals by private actors will plausibly be misguided more often than not. An holistic conception of rationality – concerned with global rather than local optimality – may then lead us to commit to a blanket ban on such interference.

Alternatively, one might build further restrictions into the account of procedural justice, e.g. requiring that political action be based on “public reasons” whose legitimacy could be appreciated by any reasonable agent.¹⁵ This would prevent citizens from legislating religious dogmas, for instance, precluding the human sacrifice scenario. But such a restriction would arguably rob procedural liberalism of its first-order neutrality, thus providing the devoutly religious with an excuse to oppose it.¹⁶ That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong – or so normative realists would claim. But if we instead hold that norms are grounded pragmatically, then the above point may suggest that we have more reason to endorse my broader conception of procedural liberalism after all. We could reasonably hope for it to attain broader support, and – despite the risk of unfortunate consequences if civic respect were to obtain without its moral counterpart – such a result would almost certainly be a good thing.

Conclusion

This essay has developed a theoretical framework that can illuminate the moral status of political vigilantism. Even if we sympathize with their cause, we may criticize the animal liberation activists mentioned at the start of this essay, for example, for taking the law into their own hands and thereby failing to show civic respect for the political agency of their fellow citizens. Moreover, vigilantism is not universalizable: a disposition towards such behaviour is apt to cause more harm than good. I have used these concerns as the basis for developing a form of procedural liberalism that places ‘civic respect’ at centre-stage. On this view, our first priority as political agents must be to uphold an institutional order within which we may deliberate together in good faith towards determining the best political outcomes. This allows us to draw a principled distinction between the procedural injustice of anti-democratic civic exclusions such as slavery, and the contested moral injustices that some contemporary activists allege in relation to our treatment of fetuses or non-human animals. I have argued, on this basis, that radical action may be justified only in case of the former kind of injustice. That’s not to say that we should simply ignore purely first-order moral injustices, of course. But our opposition to them must take a form that – unlike vigilantism – is consistent with civic respect. I have highlighted a conception of civil disobedience that is public, non-violent, and above all communicative in nature, which satisfies this civic requirement. Whether it will satisfy critics of procedural liberalism remains to be seen.

Bibliography

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