Punishing Protest

生活在自由民主国家的人有权抗议他们社会的政策和做法吗？如果是这样的话，这种抗议权利的法律和道德限制是什么？而且，自由社会通常对参与私下或公开抗议的人采取的各种方式有多大的合理性？在我惩罚抗议的工作中，我思考了作为一个自由社会负责任的成员意味着什么。继苏格拉底和约翰·斯图尔特·密尔等哲学家之后，我认为，负责任地参与自由民主并不意味着简单地遵循那个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”一词指的是对某一行动的某种态度或意图。有问题的行动不必公开。一个人不需要通过自己的行动来传达自己的态度。如果一项行动是以真诚和严重不同的态度采取的，那么它就有资格被称为抗议。要充分讨论可辩护的抗议活动，我们需要考虑广泛的国家批准和未批准的活动。例如：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她决定执行未经授权的程序；3)军官出于良心拒绝服从命令；4)病人拒绝接受输血或接种疫苗等医疗服务；5)雇员参与合法或非法罢工；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、公开鼓吹非法抗议、激进公开言论、煽动、有组织的暴力抗议和骚乱。尽管有几本哲学书籍批判性地研究了特定类型的抗议活动，但据我所知，没有一本哲学专著分析了我们在自由政体中抗议的各种方式在道德和法律上的可辩证性。除其他事项外，我要提出的论点是，从事适当限制形式的非法抗议活动的人士，应获得若干法律上的抗辩。我将支持两种辩护，一种是必要性辩护(公众抗议者很少成功使用过)，另一种是良知要求辩护。此外，我质疑针对抗议的典型法律和政治回应的正当性，包括审查、阻挠、污名化、强迫遵守、惩罚、国家惩罚和军事行动。这部作品试图让我们更全面地理解我们在自由社会中进行和应该进行抗议的许多方式，并解释为什么在自由政权中抗议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.