Dissertation

Rethinking Resistance

Lim, Chong Ming

2020

Overview

This thesis is a collection of four discrete essays on the topic of political resistance. While the contents of the individual essays are disparate, they are nonetheless connected by substantive and methodological themes. I discuss these issues, and the broader framing of the thesis, in the Introduction. The first essay, Clarifying Our Duties to Resist, examines a prominent argument according to which the moral principles that ground individuals’ duties to comply in just conditions also ground their duties to resist injustice in unjust conditions. I argue that this argument does not apply to conditions where injustice is entrenched and normalised. The second essay, Differentiating Disobedients, considers the question of the ways in which morally motivated individuals should differentiate themselves from criminals when they engage in political resistance or disobedience. I argue that the category of morally motivated disobedients is potentially more inclusive than has been commonly assumed. The third essay, The Legitimate Targets of Political Disobedience, address the question of what individuals can legitimately target during their acts of political disobedience. I defend a novel principle that allows us to make fine-grained differentiation between legitimate and illegitimate targets. The fourth essay, Vandalising Tainted Commemorations, adjudicates a contemporary disagreement about what we should do about commemorations of people or events implicated in injustice. I offer a qualified defence of vandalising tainted commemorations, as a strategy that adjudicates the demands of the two dominant yet opposing views on the issue. In a final note, In Lieu of A Conclusion, I review the work that has been done, and identify several areas for future work.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Injustice