Abstract

Previous interpreters have presented Kant's political thought as classically liberal, concerned with advancing positive freedoms for the individual. This study challenges such views with a comprehensive reinterpretation of Kant's thought which gives full consideration to his formal, a priori approach to political justice. Politics, for Kant, is that activity which protects the freedom of individuals by safeguarding them, through the power of the state, from the coercive will of others. Kant's moral restriction on political practice is the same as that which the categorical imperative makes on all actions. Kant holds that each individual must have the freedom to pursue ends of his own choosing. This freedom is protected by the requirement that in politics no ends be set for individuals which they would not rationally be able to set for themselves. Kant states this condition in three different ways, all of which draw upon the same vision of rational agency. The three different principles, the Rechtsgesetz, the principle of publicity, and the idea of the original contract, make the formal restriction on politics that only those laws and policies which limit freedom according to a universal law are morally acceptable. Notably absent from Kant's vision of politics are any material conditions of justice such as are held necessary by most liberals. Kant's thought is not that of a full-fledged liberal, and his theory would recognize as just governments which were despotic by liberal standards.