Untangling the ethics of campus protests

I wish our world was one in which values and principles were arranged in perfect alignment, without any risk of conflict. But that is not the world in which we live. Too often values of equal importance pull in equal and opposite directions. Too often the choice is not between “good” and “bad”.

That would be far too easy. Instead, we find ourselves having to choose between, say, “truth” and “compassion” – as when we are asked to answer a question – all the time knowing that that a truthful response will devastate someone we love. Too often, our best choice is nothing better than the “least bad” option before us.

The increasingly heated debate about the scope for legitimate protest, on university campuses, in response to the war between the State of Israel and Hamas, is a case in point. Those protesters who invoke the right to freedom of speech and political action to justify their conduct rely on an important principle.

But so do those who claim the right to pursue their studies free from persecution due to their identity and without fear for their physical, psychological and emotional safety.

So, if both “sides” of the argument have legitimate grounds for asserting their position, does that mean that there is a type of “ethical stalemate”?

Not if we take the claims of each group seriously.

Let us begin with those who wish to protest. Whether “pro-Israel” or “pro-Palestine”, in a liberal democracy, like Australia, protesters have a legitimate expectation that they will be able to exercise their civil and political rights in conditions of safety. That is one reason why there is an almost visceral public reaction whenever police or other authorities use either indiscriminate or disproportionate force to bear against protesters.