Punishing Protest

生活在自由民主国家的人们有权利抗议他们社会的政策和做法吗？如果是这样，这种抗议权的法律的和道德限制是什么？自由主义社会通常对参与私人或公共抗议的人做出反应的各种方式有多站得住脚？在我的著作《惩罚性抗议》中，我思考了在自由社会中做一个负责任的成员意味着什么。追随苏格拉底和约翰·斯图尔特·穆勒等哲学家，我认为负责任地参与自由民主并不意味着简单地遵循该社会的既定规范和政策。负责任地参与意味着以尊重支撑这种社会的真正价值观的方式行事。这可能需要一个人抗议违反这些价值观的政策。“抗议”一词指的是对某项行动的某种态度或意图。有关行动不一定是公开的。一个人不需要通过行动来传达自己的态度。当一个行动是以真诚和严重反对的态度采取时，它就有资格成为抗议。全面讨论可辩护的抗议要求我们考虑广泛的国家批准和未经批准的活动。示例包括：（1）法官决定不对明显有罪的人定罪，（2）医生拒绝执行授权程序或决定执行未经授权的程序，（3）军官出于良心拒绝执行命令，（4）病人拒绝接受输血或接种等医疗服务，（5）雇员参加法律的或非法罢工，6）集体抵制，以及各种其他活动，如游说、辞职抗议、移民、抗议投票、拒绝投票、公开宣传非法抗议、激进的公开言论、煽动、有组织的暴力抗议和骚乱。虽然有几本哲学著作批判性地研究了抗议的具体类型，但据我所知，没有一本哲学专著分析了我们在自由主义政权下抗议的无数方式在道德和法律的辩护性。除其他事项外，我会指出，从事适当限制形式的非法抗议的人，应可获得某些法律的辩护。我将支持的两种辩护是必要性辩护（公众抗议者很少成功使用）和良心要求辩护。此外，我质疑典型的法律的和政治反应抗议，包括审查，阻挠，污名化，强制遵守，惩罚，国家惩罚，和军事行动的合法性。本书旨在更全面地理解我们在自由社会中所做的和应该做的许多抗议方式，并解释为什么抗议在自由政权中应该得到容忍和保护。

Do people who live in liberal democracies have a right to protest against the policies and practices of their society? If so, what are the legal and moral limits of this right to protest? And, how defensible are the various ways in which liberal societies typically respond to people who engage in private or public protest? In my work Punishing Protest, I consider what it means to be a responsible member of a liberal society. Following philosophers like Socrates and John Stuart Mill, I argue that participating responsibly in a liberal democracy does not mean simply following the established norms and policies of that society. Participating responsibly means acting in a way that honours the genuine values that underpin this kind of society. And this can require that one protest against policies that contravene those values. The term 'protest' picks out a certain attitude or intention toward an action. The action in question need not be public. One need not aim to communicate one's attitude through one's action. An action qualifies as protest when it is undertaken with an attitude of sincere and serious disagreement. A full discussion of defensible protest requires that we consider a wide range of state sanctioned and unsanctioned activities. Examples include: 1) a judge's decision not to convict an obviously guilty person, 2) a doctor's refusal to perform an authorised procedure or her decision to perform an unauthorised procedure, 3) a military officer's conscientious refusal to follow an order, 4) a patient's refusal of a medical service such as a blood transfusion or inoculation, 5) employees' engagement in a legal or illegal strike, 6) collective boycotts, as well as various other activities such as lobbying, resignation in protest, emigration, protest voting, refusal to vote, public advocacy of illegal protest, radical public expression, incitement, organised violent protest, and rioting. Although several philosophical books critically examine specific types of protest, there is no philosophical monograph that I am aware of that analyses the moral and legal defensibility of the myriad of ways in which we protest in liberal regimes. I shall argue, amongst other things, that certain legal defences should be available to persons who engage in suitably constrained forms of illegal protest. Two defences I shall support are a necessity defence (which public protesters rarely have used successfully) and a demands-of-conscience defence. In addition, I question the justifiability of typical legal and political responses to protest including censorship, obstruction, stigmatisation, forced compliance, penalisation, state punishment, and military action. This work seeks to offer both a fuller understanding of the many ways in which we do, and should, protest in liberal societies and an account of why protest should be tolerated and protected in liberal regimes.