Is it morally right to break an unjust law?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It depends on why you break that law. I do not think it is morally right to break a law only because you think that law is unjust. However, it is morally right to do an action that is morally right even if it means breaking an unjust law. Indeed, depending upon the circumstances, it is possible for it to be morally right to break a just law, as no law can be so perfect as to deal with every possibility with equity. That is one reason why the English legal tradition has both courts of equity and courts of law.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It depends on why you break that law. I do not think it is morally right to break a law only because you think that law is unjust. However, it is morally right to do an action that is morally right even if it means breaking an unjust law. Indeed, depending upon the circumstances, it is possible for it to be morally right to break a just law, as no law can be so perfect as to deal with every possibility with equity. That is one reason why the English legal tradition has both courts of equity and courts of law.

I like this interpretation, but it doesn't set up any sort of objective standard independent from the law by which we can judge actions. By your logic (correct me if I'm wrong), morality and legality are completely independent concepts, and it's possible for there to be no correlation whatsoever between the two in a hypothetical society. How do we prevent people from breaking the law and justifying doing so by saying that the law conflicts with their own personal interpretation of morality?

Why should we have any expectation that such prevention is possible, let alone desirable?  That seems as naive to me as any expectation that breaking an unjust law should be without consequence.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Why should we have any expectation that such prevention is possible, let alone desirable?  That seems as naive to me as any expectation that breaking an unjust law should be without consequence.

It's desirable to prevent because if everyone is allowed to break the law if it violates their subjective views of morality, then the law loses all of its effective power. This means the law can no longer be enforced, as anyone would be able to claim a moral objection at any time. A system with laws that can't be enforced is not different in any practical way from a system with no laws at all-- aka Anarchy.

On the subject of whether or not it's possible, I'd say no. So I still think that the best way to ensure that society continues to function is to stop telling people that they can break laws that they personally deem unjust or immoral.

I thought I made clear that I did not hold that breaking unjust laws either would be or should be without consequence or enforcement. Indeed, in classical examples of civil disobedience, such as those of Ghandi and King, those who broke unjust laws expected they would receive the consequences of doing so. They did so in expectation that receiving such consequences would help convince society at large that the laws they broke were unjust.