Show how the work of these two thinkers can be combined to help identify the nature and scope of our responsibilities as members of a flourishing community.

This essay will be based on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and Philip Hallie’s essay “From Cruelty to Goodness.” If you think it would be helpful, as these two authors do, use a contemporary or historical example of injustice or institutional cruelty to help illuminate your case. Here are some key concepts that you should incorporate and explain in your essay: the differences between an unjust and a just law; the central feature of personhood that is violated by unjust laws; how unjust laws are examples of what Hallie calls institutional cruelty; the nature of our moral responsibility to unjust and just laws; the difference between legality and morality; the difference between a negative and a positive peace; the three different responses an oppressed group can take toward injustice (complacency, combat, compassion); and the similarity between Dr. King’s account of non-violent direct resistance (the “third way” of costly love) and Hallie’s notion of hospitality as paths to fulfilling our positive ethical obligations towards others. Conclude with your own assessment of this approach to participating meaningfully in a flourishing community.