For this week’s Symposium, we will be discussing Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
I Have a Dream speech by Martin Luther King .Jr HD (subtitled) (Links to an external site.)
Below is a video that contains a reading of the letter accompanied by still images that document the time at which he wrote this letter from his cell in the Birmingham jail. I have also included a PDF of this famous letter for you to reference in your initial post.
For your primary post, after reading through and/or listening to this letter, identify one sentence in it that you think falls within the general territory of deontology. Put this sentence into a statement then use the same method from the first discussion for this week (the four steps – Maxim, Universal Law, The World, Contradiction, and the Conclusion) to see if the sentence passes the test of morality (if the sentence does not yield any contradiction) and would be seen as a moral law according to deontology. Finally, reflect on what you’ve done by considering whether a utilitarian would agree with your deontological conclusion and explain why this is the case.
Here is a link to the Letter, and a video that explains the circumstances leading up to King’s confinement in the Birmingham jail, as well as a reading of the actual letter (note that there is some minor inconsistency in the language from time to time with the various individuals reading different passages so if you’re listening and reading along this may be a bit jarring).
https://ashford.instructure.com/files/7652566/download?download_frd=1&verifier=PdUPmLXSYqcn3PBmZFlbPIhhu1k563HodRXpzgfX
