At the foundation of principled nonviolence is the moral obligation of noncooperation with and/or resistance to injustice, oppression, tyranny, etc. I am interested in the various schools of thought, literature, that addresses the rational basis of this obligation. What are the reasons that ground this obligation? Why should we resist or not cooperate with injustice?
Surely this concerns Gandhi who employed this method against the British, in the idea that if the British struck thet would morally be in the wrong and lose face and credibility. They would hasten their own lose of power.
In another question, my own, I pointed out that such a position requires the co-operation of the opposed state-as an authortarian state would not worry about imprisoning or killing. It was therefore a legitimate form of protest in a state concerned with legalities and priorities.
In moral Philosophy, the first that come to my mind is the Golden Rule “Do (or don't do) unto others as you would have them do (or don't do) unto you.” . By this way, we can state that the injustice can reach you.
Another view are Dietrich Bonhoeffer sentence “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Showing disapproval through non-violence is not silence, but an act. Certainly the employment of violence provides an added template of violence.
Let me give an example. When the curiously-positioned clerics (murderous religious leaders-oh dear) issued a fatwa on Salmon Rushdie they created the template for external marketing of religious belief. Not far from that to the terrorists that now operate throughout the world, often but not always foreign to the country they go killing in.
Whereas peaceful acts can be separated, violent acts tend to be locked together.
It is important to also consider how this strategy may work in developing economies characterized by fragility and authoritarian rule.The results may differ from normal economies
“Injustice” is a form of tyranny. Where “moral obligation” is the freedom in the evolution of social harmony. Within the physical constructal law (the law of evolution, the latest discovered law in thermodynamics) evolution requires both dynamic channels of resistance and freedom to generate new configuration. Therefore, in social evolution the channels of tyranny is as important as those channels of freedom. Otherwise, if all things were equal, there will be no evolution.
Perhaps, the following may be of interest:
Book Scientific Proof of Our Unalienable Rights
You may want to look at Erica Chenoweth & Maria Stephan's work Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. They provide some prudential or pragmatic reasons why nonviolent resistance is to be preferred.
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