Under What Circumstances Should Someone Break The Law?

Breaking the law is rather a difficult thing to discuss. One can break the law very easily. Drive at thirty-one in a thirty zone and you've broken the law, look at something you shouldn't on the Internet, and you've done it as well. It many places in the world, smoking in a non-smoking zone will break the law. These things seem relatively minor compared to rape, murder and armed robbery, but the law is blind to the difference.

One could argue philosophically that one should break the law, when the law itself is unlawful. When a law prevents the right thing to be done, you have a moral right to uphold your own personal universal ethical principles. The law is a social construct, an agreement reached by other human beings, when this is abused, one has the moral right to make a stand and if necessary break that law. That doesn't mean one can simply break the law when one chooses, because one has principles, but when the law seems to ignore universal ethics.

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Only when you are willing to suffer the consequences if you are caught.

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