A Critique of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Version of Natural Law Theory

Paradoxically, Martin Luther King, Jr., in his "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," initially uses classical natural law theory to defend his actions, but immediately thereafter contradicts a fundamental tenet of this theory and relies on a "weaker" version of natural law. In doing so, King must attempt to formulate a theory which justifies his illegal actions in view of his moral obligation to obey the law. King's failure to distinguish between legal obligations and moral obligations yields a logical paradox in his final formulation of natural law theory. However, King's theory need not be completely rejected if his argument is slightly modified to reject the moral obligation to obey laws.

King initially uses classical natural law theory as his rational basis to defend his actions. This theory has two main component claims according to Murphy and Coleman (Sourcebook, I-35), the first being, "Moral validity is a logically necessary condition for legal validity- an unjust or immoral law being no law at all" followed by, "The moral order is a part of the natural order-

King uses two other arguments to identify unjust laws: just laws must be equally binding to all persons, and just laws must be created by fair processes. Both of these arguments are relegated small paragraphs in the overall letter, but are crucially important to justify breaking the law. King seems to have failed to realize the importance of these statements, which will be dealt with later on.

The paradox which King creates with his arguments is, ironically, a moral paradox. Once King abandons Augustinian natural law theory and accepts the rightful existence of laws he is forced to create a justification for breaking those laws he deems as unjust. In order to do so King must view his own moral objection to the law and desire to break the law as a trump in the Dworkian sense over his moral obligation to uphold the law. To justify breaking the law therefore requires that King violate one or the other moral obligations he feels he is under. If the law and its implicit legal obligations are viewed as incorporating moral obligations, as King would like it to, then there can never be a moral obligation to break the law. Thus King is forced to paradoxically argue that he is following "a moral obligation to break unjust laws" while simultaneously advocating a moral responsibility to uphold the same law.

King's further defense of his version of natural law theory expounds upon application of equality, and seems to parallel Justice Scalia's argument. Thus King follows his theory by citing examples of what constitutes a just or unjust law based upon certain moral criteria. He states, "An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself." This argument for equal treatment is similar to Justice Scalia's argument that, "And one of the most substantial of those competing values,... is the appearance of equal treatment." Scalia goes on to say that people are willing obey a set of arbitrary and irrational rules peacefully so long as the application of those rules is equal. On this point both Scalia and King seem to also agree. King writes, "a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself." King argues that a law upheld and applied by the majority of the people equally to all people is a just law.

moral duties being in some sense "read off" from essences or purposes fixed (perhaps by God) in nature." According to this theory, morality ‚ law, but law = morality by definition. Thus for King to use this theory, two requirements are implicit. He must assert that an unjust law is not really a law, and he must provide a moral theory to distinguish just and unjust laws. King first quotes St. Augustine, "an unjust law is no law at all," to emphasize his agreement with the first claim. He then includes the "law of God" as his moral theory to provide the framework upon which to judge the law.

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Approximate Word count = 2963
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)