“A Community of Rational Beings”. Kant’s Realm of Ends and the Dinstinction between Internal and External Freedom
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Herlinde Pauer-Studer
Abstract:
This paper proposes a new account of the relationship between Kant’s ethics and Kant’s philosophy of right. I reject the claim of some philosophers that Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals cannot offer a foundation for Kant’s philosophy of right. While I agree that the basic principles of Kant’s philosophy of right cannot be deduced from Kant’s ethical Categorical Imperatives, I try to show that we find in Kant’s Groundwork the normative resources for grounding his philosophy of right. My thesis is that Kant’s conception of a realm of ends, as he develops it in the Groundwork, provides a common normative source for Kant’s ethical Categorical Imperatives, on the one hand, and the Universal Principle of Right, on the other. Agreement on common universal principles, which is crucial for Kant’s notion of a realm of ends provides, I will argue, a justification of the ethical Categorical Imperatives and the Universal Principle of Right.
Acknowledgement
For helpful critical discussion I thank Ulrike Heuer, Ben Bramble, Christoph Hanisch, and Sorin Baiasu. Special thanks to J. David Velleman for valuable comments. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the Conference “Freedom and Coercion” at the University of Vienna in November 2013. I thank the participants of this conference, especially Paul Guyer, Heiner F. Klemme and Arthur Ripstein, for helpful discussion and critical responses. Research for this paper was funded by the ERC Advanced Research Grant “Distortions of Normativity”.
© De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Special Issue Freedom and Coercion. Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy
- Editorial
- Abhandlungen
- Right’s Complex Relation to Ethics in Kant: The Limits of Independentism
- The Twofold Morality of Recht: Once More Unto the Breach
- Kant on Democracy
- Kant’s Political Philosophy as a Theory of Non-Ideal Normativity
- Enactable and Enforceable: Kant’s Criteria for Right and Virtue
- “A Community of Rational Beings”. Kant’s Realm of Ends and the Dinstinction between Internal and External Freedom
- Common Possession of the Earth and Cosmopolitan Right
- Just War, Regular War, and Perpetual Peace
- Buchbesprechungen
- Motivationen für das Selbst. Kant und Spinoza im Vergleich. Hrsg. von Anne Tilkorn
- Karl Leonhard Reinhold: Gesammelte Schriften. Kommentierte Ausgabe. Hrsg. von Martin Bondeli. Bd. 1: Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermögens. Hrsg. von Martin Bondeli und Silvan Imhof. Basel 2013.
- Giuseppe Motta: Die Postulate des empirischen Denkens überhaupt
- Christoph Gottfried Bardili. Kleine Schriften zur Logik. Mit Einleitung und ausführlichem textkritischem Kommentar herausgegeben von Rebecca Paimann.
- Mitteilung
- Prämierung von Studienabschlussarbeiten durch die Freiburger Kantstiftung
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Special Issue Freedom and Coercion. Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy
- Editorial
- Abhandlungen
- Right’s Complex Relation to Ethics in Kant: The Limits of Independentism
- The Twofold Morality of Recht: Once More Unto the Breach
- Kant on Democracy
- Kant’s Political Philosophy as a Theory of Non-Ideal Normativity
- Enactable and Enforceable: Kant’s Criteria for Right and Virtue
- “A Community of Rational Beings”. Kant’s Realm of Ends and the Dinstinction between Internal and External Freedom
- Common Possession of the Earth and Cosmopolitan Right
- Just War, Regular War, and Perpetual Peace
- Buchbesprechungen
- Motivationen für das Selbst. Kant und Spinoza im Vergleich. Hrsg. von Anne Tilkorn
- Karl Leonhard Reinhold: Gesammelte Schriften. Kommentierte Ausgabe. Hrsg. von Martin Bondeli. Bd. 1: Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermögens. Hrsg. von Martin Bondeli und Silvan Imhof. Basel 2013.
- Giuseppe Motta: Die Postulate des empirischen Denkens überhaupt
- Christoph Gottfried Bardili. Kleine Schriften zur Logik. Mit Einleitung und ausführlichem textkritischem Kommentar herausgegeben von Rebecca Paimann.
- Mitteilung
- Prämierung von Studienabschlussarbeiten durch die Freiburger Kantstiftung
