The legitimate targets of political resistance
In public discourse, activists are often criticized for directing their acts of political resistance against this or that specific target. Underlying these criticisms appears to be a strongly held, though underarticulated, intuitive moral judgment that some targets are legitimate whereas others are...
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sg-ntu-dr.10356-1735702024-02-17T16:56:37Z The legitimate targets of political resistance Lim, Chong-Ming School of Humanities Arts and Humanities Defensive Ethics Disobedience In public discourse, activists are often criticized for directing their acts of political resistance against this or that specific target. Underlying these criticisms appears to be a strongly held, though underarticulated, intuitive moral judgment that some targets are legitimate whereas others are not. Little philosophical attention has been paid to this issue. My primary aim is to address this neglect. I specify a central part of this intuitive judgment – centering on persons and activities – and argue that there is a principled way to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate targets. This specification relies on a novel conception of political resistance, which focuses on its defensive rather than communicative aspect. I then extend the idea of forfeiture to argue that acts of political resistance are correctly directed when they are aimed at those activities of liable persons that cause injustice. My discussion contributes to vindicating our intuitive judgments about several controversial cases of political resistance. Nanyang Technological University Published version Research for this paper was supported by a Start-Up Grant (No. 021221-00001) from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. 2024-02-14T07:09:16Z 2024-02-14T07:09:16Z 2023 Journal Article Lim, C. (2023). The legitimate targets of political resistance. Philosophers' Imprint, 23(8). https://dx.doi.org/10.3998/phimp.717 1533-628X https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173570 10.3998/phimp.717 2-s2.0-85167603688 8 23 en 021221-00001 Philosophers' Imprint © 2023 Chong-Ming Lim. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. application/pdf |
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Arts and Humanities Defensive Ethics Disobedience Lim, Chong-Ming The legitimate targets of political resistance |
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In public discourse, activists are often criticized for directing their acts of political resistance against this or that specific target. Underlying these criticisms appears to be a strongly held, though underarticulated, intuitive moral judgment that some targets are legitimate whereas others are not. Little philosophical attention has been paid to this issue. My primary aim is to address this neglect. I specify a central part of this intuitive judgment – centering on persons and activities – and argue that there is a principled way to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate targets. This specification relies on a novel conception of political resistance, which focuses on its defensive rather than communicative aspect. I then extend the idea of forfeiture to argue that acts of political resistance are correctly directed when they are aimed at those activities of liable persons that cause injustice. My discussion contributes to vindicating our intuitive judgments about several controversial cases of political resistance. |
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School of Humanities |
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School of Humanities Lim, Chong-Ming |
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Lim, Chong-Ming |
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Lim, Chong-Ming |
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The legitimate targets of political resistance |
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The legitimate targets of political resistance |
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The legitimate targets of political resistance |
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The legitimate targets of political resistance |
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The legitimate targets of political resistance |
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legitimate targets of political resistance |
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2024 |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173570 |
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