How Are Bedau Responsible For His Actions

When it comes to the pretension of Civil Disobedience and what can be seen as acts of indirect and direct civil disobedience. H.A. Bedau and Henry David Thoreau come to mind because of how they both saw things in a different light, but at a meaningful level they both thought the same about the government even through they expressed their ideals in completely different ways. Their ideas cross on many different paths as to which even Bedau talks about Thoreau in his essay in regards to being “responsible” for your actions. The main premise of Bedau’s argument in his essay of “civil disobedience and personal responsibility for justice” is too compare the idea of what is civil disobedience and who is responsible for the actions. Bedau spends a

great deal of time talking about Thoreau’s essay in a negative tone of which was his own interpretation. Bedau directly correlates the idea that those who commit civil disobedience must do so in a direct manner and not by means of indirect methods. Thoreau’s essay explains why he chose not to pay taxes because he didn’t condone the actions of the government and didn’t want to partake in supporting the injustice that is the government. They together believe that the government is to blame for a lot of unjust acts that are committed and the government should be responsible for the outcome. They have many ideas that are arguing the same idea yet a lot of theological differences that set them apart.
Henry David Thoreau wrote the essay “civil Disobedience” to shed light to his perspectives on government, war, and injustice. Thoreau starts first off by talking about how the government isn’t righteous in anyway and that the best form of government is one that governs the least. He believes in the aspect that if you do not believe in what the government is doing, you should just not participate in it (meaning voting or paying taxes.) The government is supposed to be on our side and be ruled by the conscientious and not the majority, because the majority may be the most but they could also be non-virtuous. The government has always been ruled by who has the most numbers because they have the most power, but we individuals give power to the government through our actions, we are the sovereign ones. War is going on during his time period and he completely disagrees with the concept of the Mexican-American war. The government misconstrues people’s thoughts about how to go about the Hispanics in order to get the majority on their side. War and soldiers came into play in order to keep up the appearance that the Hispanics needed to be attacked so we can keep the peace on our side. The government emphasizes how being a soldier is the ultimate American dream and following orders is righteous, but Thoreau believes that too much respect for law can lead to people doing unjustifiable things like unjust laws or worse fighting for the wrong reasons. The greatest injustices come from those thoughts. People then want wars to be started and want to fight and do things that are truly unjustifiable to prove their loyalty when they are actually the pawns in a chess match. Thoreau willingly knowing the consequences of not paying his high taxes for the war put out his notion that this is wrong. The ace of indirect civil disobedience that took place is one that some philosophers thought to be wrong. Thoreau’s ideology was later analyzed by other fellow civil disobedience advisories
H. A. Bedau wrote “Civil disobedience and personal responsibility for injustice” where he talks mainly pertaining towards why acts of Civil Disobedience are taken. He believes that there are direct and indirect civil disobediences that make up peoples actions, whether they are justifiable or not. Bedau believed that using indirect civil disobedience was a waste because it wouldn’t get your point across enough, whereas direct civil disobedience was a more direct path towards action against the injustices. Bedau mentions Fortas and Griswold quite a bit in his essay to draw more prospects into the ideas of indirect civil disobedience. Following the preaching of Fortas and Griswold brought up the idea how the only people that are able to commit civil disobedience are those that are directly affected by injustice. “ In a democracy… every citizen bears a measure of personal responsibility for misgovernment, bad laws, or wrong policies… unless he has played his full part in trying to get a better government into power, better laws on the statue book, and better policies adopted.”(Pg. 54 Griswold) Griswold states this in his theory about civil disobedience, which is whom Bedau uses to compare to Thoreau. It is in this text we can see the huge differences in approach between Thoreau and Bedau. Thoreau has an idea that being indirect and non-violent is a good thing because it shows that he is caring enough to put forth an effort but not to have enough to cause problems for others. It is also known that Bedau believes in a more direct approach because using indirect civil disobedience will not get your idea across to the majority who is ruling because the act isn’t one of prominent effect.
Many differences in the ideology between Bedau and Thoreau, but to the heart of their ideas are how they view indirect civil disobedience. Thoreau was under the notion that if he merely didn’t partake in the injustice that it wasn’t his responsibility for the outcome. Thoreau supported his fellow man and neighbors, but he wouldn’t pay the high tax for the war that was going on. The indirect methods that Thoreau used to be disobedient to the government, he states as “…I am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen now.” (Pg. 44 Thoreau) Whereas Bedau thought that indirect civil disobedience was an act of rebellion and in no retrospect a justifiable action because it wasn’t a more direct plan of action. Bedau writes “…so long as our government obeys the mandate of the constitution’ and provides full ‘facility and protection’ for dissent within the law. Therefore, indirect civil disobedience ‘is never justified in our nation.”(Pg. 55 Bedau) The theology Bedau uses is one based on directness. These men had so many ideas that correlated in the same direction, but the justification difference is to great to confirm that they thought the same. Bedau tends to tear down Thoreau’s principle and to which he states, “It fails to bring out explicitly the nature of the linkage between individual and the government in virtue of which vicarious responsibility is established. And it fails to contain injunction to act out of concern for ones responsibilities.” (Pg. 60 Bedau) Bedau believes that Thoreau’s principle has no definite truth or facts to back up his argument and so it can tend to be easily falsified.
Bedau Makes an exquisite compromise to Thoreau’s ideas, were in which he doesn’t criticize Thoreau, but more or less compliments him on his willingness to accept responsibility for his actions instead of blaming others and denying the fact of his actions.

Bedau then adds to it that the others who also protested in a form didn’t take responsibility and Thoreau took it all and that goes against the Thoreauvian principle. The one thing they both do see is good is how the government should act. Thoreau states, “That government is best which governs least… government is best which governs not at all.” (Pg. 28 Thoreau) Bedau also sees this as a good thing to where they both consider government the root of the problem. The injustice that they see all stems from the Majority or government itself, not looking at the full picture of everyone and their rights and what they believe in. Bedau makes the claim “ Anyone at all responsible for unjust acts, whether of his own or another’s, must act as so to acquit himself of the fault incurred by that responsibility.”(Pg. 62 Bedau) If an act deemed unjust occurs by fault of the government, they should be responsible for all outcomes (civil disobedience’s) that the sovereign people commit. All the problems that stemmed from Thoreau’s time period were government issues created by the majority to create more control for land and territory. The principles in which both Bedau and Thoreau don’t deem as being correct is how the majority controls the

sovereign people and misuses authority to create injustice amongst all. The responsibility for the actions the people commit should fall under the responsibility of the government itself, though the people committing the civil disobediences should also take some responsibility.
Belief systems between these two philosophers create a controversy of the rights of law. They both have ideological differences in what they interpret as being right and what they interpret as being wrong/ unjust, which makes it hard to speculate these writers believe the same logical answer. Though Bedau believes Thoreau’s principles and ideals crash within one another because of the lack of evidence to back them. Controversially the interpretation of Thoreau’s principle can be misconstrued, but as Bedau notes that without hard evidence anything can be interpreted as they please it to. Many of their similarities in the idea that the government shouldn’t be one that hovers over its people, but more of one that keeps out of the governing of others but more on the important matters that are beyond just daily life. They both believe that the protesting shouldn’t be violent because it can cause people to misinterpret what is factually being said and it causes people to look at the unjust problem the wrong way, much like how the media portrays events that cause controversy. They both tend to believe that government is the root of most problems. The government uses the Majority power to gain causation rights for certain actions, but do not take responsibility for the people’s actions that see what they do as unjust acts. The government assumes that the people that don’t see things their way should be held responsible for their actions though they are done for what is in the best interest of the whole.
The way Bedau went about critiquing Thoreau’s views just shows how intricate they thought.

These were all speculative claims, but they both had good intentions from their actions. The Civil disobedience topic is one of great controversy because there are different views on everything and not one person is truly right over another. Thoreau believed in his right that disregarding the actions of the government by not involving himself with them was a good thing but in truth he did nothing for his cause. Bedau didn’t believe that Thoreau was right in his act of civil disobedience and he proceeded to personify his beliefs to which, only people that are directly affected by injustice have the ability to commit civil disobedience. There are many things they disassociate with one another, but they come together to the same ideals when you think about life in their perspectives. They were Great Philosophers that had many great thoughts about how civil disobediences related to the real world about problems and instead of believing in the rightful act of violence amongst themselves, they thought it best to stay non-violent and to prevent others from thinking that violence was okay and that even though there is injustice amongst us that it shouldn’t be what holds you back from being disobedient. Civil disobediences aren’t a bad thing it can have rightful outcomes if it is portrayed in the correct

light.

Bibliography

Bedau, Hugo Adam. Civil Disobedience in Focus. London: Routledge, 2005. Print.