Ancient Civil Disobedience and the Ethos of Fidelity to Truth

Abstract

This paper concerns ancient conscientious disobedience, arguing its popular alignment with orthodox civil disobedience theory is misguided. This is due to a conflict of ethoi, namely, the fidelity to truth of antiquity and the fidelity to law of civil disobedience. It discusses two ancient narratives, Sophocles’ Antigone and chapter 6 of the Book of Daniel, to examine the legitimacy of their status as ancient paradigms of civil disobedience. Although the protagonists of both narratives conform to most requirements of civil disobedience, they lack the requisite protest intent. They intend to follow their religious duties, not change the law. This reveals a more profound disconnect from civil disobedience in the form of conflicting ethoi. Civil disobedience is founded upon the actor’s fidelity to law. An intent to protest is its most important expression, as it shows the actor’s concern lies in improving the justice of the legal system the law protested operates within. Antigone and Daniel’s lack of an intent to protest thus shows an absence of fidelity to law. Instead, both are motivated by fidelity to truth. They are solely concerned with following the dictates of their respective truths, a commitment so strong that it operates independent of whether their acts constitute disobedience to a mortal law. This paper then turns to two more ancient case studies: the story of the Hebrew Midwives and Socrates. While they were undoubtedly not civil disobedients, the fidelity to truth manifest in both reveals it to be the predominant ethos behind ancient conscientious disobedience. Hence, this paper concludes that civil disobedience does not align with most acts of ancient disobedience. But this does not undermine the gravitas of these ancient narratives. Instead, the best approach is to recognise that they remain potent instances and notions of conscientious, but not civil, disobedience.