When is Compliance Complicity?

· essay

Introduction

Compliance is the adherence to the laws and regulations of a state with non-compliance often entailing some form of punishment. Complicity means the participation or enablement of unethical or immoral activities, which necessitates moral responsibility. Two premises are required for the discussion in this essay. First, the laws and regulations in question that one must comply with must be deemed unjust or immoral (in which the moral standard will be determined later) in the first place as if you comply with a just law, there’s nothing to be complicit for. Second, a distinction must be made between voluntary and forced compliance. Voluntary compliance signifies when a person chooses to agree to and follow an unjust law, regardless of the possible consequences of non-compliance. For example, if someone tells you to throw a rock at a window and you do it without question of what they would do to you if you didn’t, you chose to voluntarily commit a harmful action; thus voluntary compliance always denotes complicity. Forced compliance, on the other hand, is the topic of this essay where people comply because of the possible punishments they could receive. So, with these definitions, the question of the essay becomes: “Is an individual complicit in following unjust laws if they were forced to comply by their state?”. This essay will argue that compliance with unjust laws is always complicity by delving into the moral frameworks of judging actions as well as why coercion does not absolve one of complicity as long as they recognize the legitimacy of the state.

Moral Frameworks

The decision of compliance is often made by the individual weighing the possible risks with the strain the action takes on their moral compass. However, when determining their complicity, it is the observer’s responsibility and it requires moral frameworks of political philosophy to do so. This essay entertains the three major moral frameworks: utilitarianism, Kantian deontology, and John Locke’s social contract theory.

1. Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialist theory that determines that to be morally correct, decisions must be made for the greater good.1 The theory aims to create the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people, which makes for a state of impartiality where everyone’s happiness counts the same.2 An example to demonstrate this would be the famous trolley problem where a utilitarian would pull the lever to save five people in the snap of a finger.

In utilitarianism, if one can sacrifice their life to save the lives of two others, it would be morally correct for one to do so. Consider the example of Edward Snowden, a former NSA agent turned whistleblower when he leaked classified documents that revealed the existence of global surveillance programs in 2013.3 Snowden knew of the risks of doing so and fled the country to Hong Kong and then to Russia for asylum. If Snowden were to be captured and convicted, he would be sentenced to treason and espionage with others, such as the ex-CIA director James Wooly, calling for a death sentence.4 Snowden knew he would destroy and risk his life for whistleblowing, but he did it despite the overwhelming risks because he needed “to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them”.5 Snowden realized the global impact and the discussions over privacy that he will bring by leaking the information will do more good than the harm that he will receive on a personal basis.

2. Kantian Deontology

Kantian deontology is the moral theory that all rational beings are worthy of respect and dignity and we have obligations to maintain them. In deontology, there are universal moral codes that may never be broken (such as don’t lie, don’t kill), despite the possible consequences. While some may argue that within deontology stands the moral maxim that “one should not break the law”, it should be noted that there are several issues with this argument, the main one being that compliance with the law is conditional on the justness and rationality of the laws themselves.

Kant’s principle of universalizability states “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”6 This means that one must act as if the maxims of one’s action were to become through one’s will a universal law of nature. For example, the proposition “it is permissible to follow laws that discriminate against others based on race” cannot be universalized without contradiction. This is because such a law undermines the central notion of Kantian ethics to have equal respect and dignity for all rational beings. Moreover, following such a law contradicts Kant’s principle of humanity, which is to treat every person as ends themselves and not the means to other ends, as discriminatory laws use people as means to achieve, for example, the end of maintaining a racial hierarchy. Additionally, Kant’s principle of autonomy, which requires individuals to act according to laws they would rationally impose on themselves7, implies that laws must be rational and just. If you do not wish to be the recipient of discriminatory laws, do not follow discriminatory laws to do the same to others.

Consider a possible real life example. A Nazi soldier was forced to participate in the Holocaust by executing hundreds of Jewish prisoners through gas chambers. If they refused to do so, they would be sentenced to death for treason. The deontological moral maxim of “do not kill” violates their orders and to do the morally correct thing, German soldiers would refuse their order. In fact, this has happened – during the span of World War 2, one and a half million German soldiers were sentenced to imprisonment for refusing to follow such orders, and 30 thousand were sentenced to death of which 23 thousand were executed.8 Although it is uncertain whether all possessed this deontological framework, it is not unrealistic to say that people would disobey orders or break laws even in the face of imprisonment or execution.

3. Locke’s Social Contract

After seeing how the two titans of morality that usually vastly differ both agree that compliance is always complicity, one can turn to a more specific framework. In political philosophy, the social contract is an agreement between the citizens and their leaders on the rights and duties of each individual.9 There have been many versions of the theory but one that is most applicable (some are inapplicable, such as Hobbes’s as there can’t be unjust laws from the sovereign as they determine the standard for justice) and incredibly popular is John Locke’s social contract theory. Locke proposes that the obligation to obey civil government under the social contract was conditional upon the protection of the natural rights of each person.10 Sovereigns who violated these terms could be justifiably overthrown. This ties in the idea of liberalism first developed by Locke, the political doctrine that holds protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to the center of politics. Liberals recognize the government in the protection of the freedoms of individuals, but also that the government itself could become a threat to freedom. Locke argues that if the government does not protect the natural rights of a person, then their laws and regulations should be broken to protect and enhance freedom; therefore, compliance with unjust laws is always complicity.

Coercion and Legitimacy

The logical counter-argument to the essay would be why one would hold moral responsibility to a person who was forced to act against their will. While this is a valid criticism, it must be noted that compliance by the state doesn’t necessarily mean acting against one’s will. This essay concedes that for coercion to completely absolve one of complicity, it must be completely against the entirety of their will, however, as Henry David Thoreau writes in the beginning of Civil Disobedience, “Law never made men a whit more just, and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice”.11 We not only obey the laws of the state but respect them and see them as authoritatives. We choose to see legitimacy within the government, and therefore we must be partly responsible for the actions we were coerced into making. If I recognize the legitimacy of the state and its laws, then I am not acting against my will and therefore am not complicit.12 The exception to this would be extreme totalitarian regimes in the examples of the dystopian novel 1984 where the government has complete and utter control of the individual through unjust laws and constant surveillance.

Footnotes

  1. Driver, Julia. “The History of Utilitarianism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford.edu, 2014, plato.stanford.edu/entries/utilitarianism-history/. Accessed 10 July 2024. ↩

  2. Schofield, Philip, 2006. Utility and Democracy: the Political Thought of Jeremy Bentham, Oxford: Oxford University Press. ↩

  3. Greenwald, Glenn, et al. “Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations.” The Guardian, 11 June 2013, www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance. Accessed 10 July 2024. ↩

  4. Tomlinson, Lucas (December 17, 2013). “Ex-CIA director: Snowden should be ‘hanged’ if convicted for treason”. Fox News Channel. Retrieved October 20, 2019. ↩

  5. Greenwald, Glenn, et al. “Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations.” The Guardian, 11 June 2013, www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance. Accessed 10 July 2024. ↩

  6. Kant, Immanuel (1993) [1785]. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Ellington, James W. (3rd ed.). Hackett. p. 30. ISBN 0-87220-166-X. ↩

  7. Kant, Immanuel (1993) [1785]. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Ellington, James W. (3rd ed.). Hackett. p. 43. 4:431. ↩

  8. Norbert Haase: Wehrmachtangehörige vor dem Kriegsgericht. In: R.D. Müller, H.E. Volkmann (Hrsg. im Auftrag des MGFA): Die Wehrmacht: Mythos und Realität. Oldenbourg, München 1999, ISBN 3-486-56383-1, page 481. ↩

  9. “Social Contract | Definition, Examples, Hobbes, Locke, & Rousseau | Britannica.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2024, www.britannica.com/topic/social-contract. Accessed 10 July 2024. ↩

  10. Tuckness, Alex. “Locke’s Political Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford.edu, 2020, plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/. Accessed 10 July 2024. ↩

  11. Thoreau, H. D. (2001 [1848]). “Civil Disobedience,” in Henry David Thoreau: Collected Essays and Poems, ed. Elizabeth Hall Witherell, pp. 203–24. New York: Library of America. ↩

  12. Zakaras, Alex. 2 See for Instance Caney. Vol. 514, 2014, p. 215, marcsandersfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Zakaras-Complicity-and-Coercion.pdf. ↩

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