ABSTRACT
Gandhi was broadly speaking in the liberal tradition, but he had a duty-based ethics, whereas the mainstream liberal view tends to be rights based or goal based. This chapter compares his views on civil disobedience to those of some contemporary liberal thinkers and concentrates mainly on the comparison with Rawls. There are interesting similarities and dissimilarities between Rawls and Gandhi on civil disobedience. Gandhi believed that civil disobedience 'to be civil has to be open and non-violent'. Rawls defines civil disobedience as 'a public, non-violent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with a aim of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government'. The Rawlsian model contains assumptions that render civil disobedience redundant. Rawls confines civil disobedience to instances of 'substantial and clear injustice' and assumes a state of near justice where all share common principles of justice and respond to appeal of their sense of fair play.
