Socrates was condemned to death in 399 B.C. for corrupting the youth, while Martin Luther King Jr. was thrown into jail in 1963 C.E. for not having a permit to parade. Even with the incredibly large time difference, we see many similarities throughout both of their ideologies. We will be concerned with the definition of what is considered a just or unjust law, and how that relates to whether a man is simply living, or living a “good life.” Both Socrates and King would refute the argument that King’s actions were “unwise and untimely,” I will argue that even in different situations, they both demonstrated that there is no wrong time for an act of good or justice.
King argues that “an unjust law is a law out of harmony with the moral law” (MLK 627). This implies that an unjust law is a civil law that is not consistent with the moral law. We define a moral law as one that is held upon a higher standard than a societal law, it is a law of God that is ultimately the distinction between “right” and “wrong” doings. It could be argued that there is no way of determining when a moral law is broken, therefore there is no defining line between when a law is just or unjust. However, King also goes further into detail by saying that “Any law that uplifts human personality is just, and any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” (MLK 627) Even though this does not define what exactly a just law is, it does implicate at least one guideline to be followed when determining if a law is just or not. Degrading human personality involves making one person feel inferior to another person. An example is segregation (MLK 627). It separates two different groups of people in unequal ways, which belittles the lesser group. It could be argued that even though one group feels degraded, the other group feels uplifted, and that qualifies as a just law. This argument, however, neglects the fact that having justice at the price of injustice negates itself, and in turn is not actually...