Rawls' definition of civil disobedience:

'civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious (yet political) breach of the law, undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies.

1) public:
- Rawls argues civil disobedience must always be public
- must communicate with society their disagreements with the law + why they think it should be changed
- must be communicated publicly to work
- however, could argue that some acts don't need to be done publicly, as doing so might prevent them from actually working, e.g. you wouldn't announce that you're releasing lab rats bc you'd probably get stopped.
- thus, a flaw of one of Rawls' components for civil disobedience

2) non-violent:
- just because violence might not be justified, doesn't mean that all acts of violent protest are NOT acts of civil disobedience
- because not all acts of civil disobedience are justified
- depends on the type of violence: if violence is unfocused + widespread = riots/revolutionary acts... not civil disobedience
- but if there is a small amount of focused violence may = protest of morally wrong laws = civil disobedience

3) conscientious, yet political:
- motivated by sincere, serious views about what is immoral/damaging to society (like conscientious objectors)
- trying to do what they believe is right
-  but, differ from conscientious objectors - actually try to change some law or policy
- always a political aim
- e.g. suffragette movement- right for women to vote; MLK- equal rights for non-whites; student protests to end the Vietnam War
- contemporary examples: anti-abortion campaigns- trespass on abortion clinics; animal rights movement- releasing animals from labs
- HOWEVER, not all civil disobedience aims at changing the laws or policies of the government - e.g. protests against companies + universities (e.g. strict anti-rape policies to be implemented at universities)
- SO Rawls ignores civil disobedience against social institutions

4) breach of the law:
- always involves something illegal
- however, in most democratic countries civil disobedience is not illegal itself - the laws that are broken in the act of civil disobedience itself are the ones people are punished for e.g. trespassing in a laboratory)