Beyond legalism: Hannah Arendt and civil disobedience

Abstract

In this article, some of Hannah Arendt's contributions to the reflection on the phenomenon of civil disobedience are discussed. Initially, is asked to what extent civil contestation can be identified with conscientious objection. Discussing this question allow to understand the development of Arendt’s argumentation that aims to highlight the political meaning of acts of civil disobedience, in opposition to the negative characterization of this phenomenon by lawyers in an attempt to include extralegal actions of contestation in the law. Indeed, this juridical view, which is based on idea that the contestation is reasoned on the morality of conscience, neglects certains aspects that are fundamental to the comprehension of civil disobedience according to Arendt, especially its public character, sharing of an active interest in the world and, finally, non-violence. In the second part of the article, explicit the influence of the philosophic tradition in the typical way of understanding civil disobedience, with Socrates and Henry Thoreau listed by Arendt as his interlocutors in this debate. With this argumentative path, intended to show some potentials of Hannah Arendt essay that contributes to update the discussion on the central political role of the act of diverging publicly.