Abstract

This dissertation argues that Martin Luther King, Jr. provides an important contribution to social and political philosophy, especially under the prevailing conditions of advanced industrial democracy in the United States of America. To make the case, King's philosophy of nonviolence is reconstructed using four concepts crucial to his last writings: equality, structure, nonviolent direct action, and justice. Each concept, in turn, is situated within the critical, theoretical tradition of the African American struggle for liberation. Thus, along with King's work, the writings of Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph, Ralph Johnson Bunche, and Howard Thurman serve to demonstrate how a philosophy of nonviolence may be developed through traditional categories of social and political philosophy. Thus, I argue that King's philosophy of nonviolence culminates in a profound theory of justice, because it poses a philosophical challenge to the specific forms of systematic inequality which pervade the American experience. As one works to reconstruct racism, poverty, or war, justice is that vision of fellowship which sustains our commitment to ensure everyone's health, wealth, and happiness. This theory of justice achieves its lasting value because it is uncommonly able to criticize the many ways in which we evade a wholehearted vision of "genuine fellow feeling." The epilogue of this study calls for the integration of American philosophy by showing how the African American genealogy of nonviolent critical theory shares many points of contact with American pragmatism, as represented by Charles Peirce, William James, Josiah Royce, or John Dewey