The conditions under which breaking the law is morally justified have been articulated across traditions with surprising consistency: the law being violated is genuinely unjust, legal channels have been genuinely exhausted, the violation is public rather than covert, the actor accepts the legal consequences, and the action is proportional and nonviolent where possible. What all accounts share is the insistence that this is not a license for mere preference — the tradition of justified law-breaking is also a tradition of exacting self-scrutiny about one's actual motives. Juana understood that claiming the right to dissent comes with the obligation to be rigorously honest about whether you are genuinely serving justice or merely your own will.
Juana