Abstract
This article responds to the four contributors to the book symposium on Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience. Those four contributors are Thomas Hill Jr, David Lefkowitz, William Smith, and Daniel Weinstock . Hill examines the concepts of conviction and conscience (Chapters 1 and 2); Smith discusses conviction and then analyses the right to civil disobedience and my humanistic arguments for it (Chapter 4); Weinstock explores democratic challenges for civil disobedience (Chapter 5); and Lefkowitz assesses the merits of a legal demands-of-conviction excuse for civil disobedience (Chapter 5). This ‘Reply to Critics’ addresses them in turn.
Highlights
This article responds to the four contributors to the book symposium on Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience
Let me begin with a familiar opener to a Reply to Critics, which is no less heartfelt for its familiarity, and that is to express my gratitude to the four contributors to this book symposium on Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience: Thomas Hill Jr, David Lefkowitz, William Smith, and Daniel Weinstock
Hill examines the concepts of conviction and conscience (Chapters 1 and 2); Smith comments on conviction, but analyses the right to civil disobedience and my humanistic arguments for it (Chapter 4); Weinstock discusses democratic challenges for civil disobedience (Chapter 5); and Lefkowitz assesses the legal excuse for civil disobedience which I call the demands-of-conviction defence (Chapter 5)
Summary
First, the conceptual terrain of conscientiousness as sincere moral conviction, and the terrain of conscience as genuine moral understanding. The committed dissenter must walk a tightrope between having sufficient confidence in her view that she is willing to bear the risks of defending it through suitably constrained, communicative disobedience, and having sufficient modesty about her epistemic position and moral understanding that she is genuinely open to hearing competing views in a spirit of respectful, dialogic engagement. If her views gain traction over time, she may feel more secure in her adherence to them, but must still appreciate Mill’s important dictum that we not presume that we are infallible.
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