MLK Jr. On Morality, Utilitarianism,

MLK Jr. On Morality, Utilitarianism, Socrates

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Morality, Utilitarianism, and Socrates

Martin Luther King, Jr. was perhaps the most prominent civil rights activist in U.S. history. His work spanned many issues of social justice and pushed him tirelessly to combat such varied problems as racial segregation, poverty, and worker's rights. He was a theologian and activist, not a moral theorist, but his work and speeches make clear his most important views on morality.

At the core of his moral beliefs was the idea that systemic social inequality of any kind must be eradicated. At the time in the U.S., racial segregation was a rule of law. Whites and blacks were forced to ride different buses, attend different schools, and use different facilities. King deplored segregation because it implied that African-Americans were lesser citizens, relegated to a lower sphere on the ladder of status. In addition, African-Americans were often mistreated violently, looked down upon, mired in poverty, and disabled in freedom due to oppressive social restraints. All of this was encompassed in his idea of moral injustice. He sought to raise consciousness, claiming that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Injustice he claimed was "any law that degrades human personality,"

which meant it was out of harmony with divine moral law.

King believed it was the government's moral duty to guarantee the liberty and equality of its citizens. If the government failed, he thought it was a person's moral duty to demand freedom and equality, and to disobey unjust laws. In a letter from jail, he wrote, "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

Yet he was profoundly convinced, because of the influence of Gandhi, that freedom and social equality must be demanded through peaceful means. King repudiated violent methods. He promoted the principle of non-violent civil disobedience, which meant such things as peaceful marches, passive resistance, boycotts, and protests against injustice. In his Nobel Award speech, he states that the award is "a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time -- the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression."