Civil disobedience is transgressive ethical action performed in a political context. It is transgressive because it involves breaking the law; on occasion, it also involves transgression of prevailing norms and entrenched values. My concern in the following is primarily with civil disobedience in the context of modern democracies, be they liberal democratic, neo-republican, or radical democratic ones. The normativity specific to the modern democratic context, structuring and shaping it in its many variants, is defined by a complex interplay of ethical ideas of freedom, equality, and human interconnectedness. By “ethical” I mean the idea and conduct of a good human life in association with other entities, human and non-human. I hold that an ethically good life calls for a reflective attitude by individual humans toward their particular ideas of the good, in which reflection is guided by a concern for ethical truth.1 Its concern for a better society as a precondition for a better life makes civil disobedience a mode of ethical action.