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Wrote another little essay for funsies. This one's about Kantian Ethics/Justice. Kant is one of my favorite philosophers to read, so I figured I would whip up an essay on him since I got pretty decent feedback on the last essay I posted about Epicurus.
On the Possible Permissibility of Civil Disobedience in Kantian Ethics
Immanuel Kant notoriously declares that citizens of a state are never permitted to actively rebel against or resist the authority of the government or its laws, and that no matter how tyrannical he becomes, the ruler of the state is never to be forcibly removed from power by the people. Many readings of Kant would take this to mean that the people of a state must always obey the people who have authority over them no matter what, since right can only exist outside of the state of nature within a system of public right, and part of what public right demands is that the people of a state submit themselves to lawful external coercion under the authority of the state. Thus disobeying the laws of the sovereign, in undermining public right, undermines the possibility of right itself and is therefore never permissible. However, this could be problematic in the case where a tyrannical government creates a law which commands its people to do something which conflicts with morality. In such a case, justice would apparently demand that citizens follow the law, where morality would demand that they do not follow the law. Therein lies the problem, since justice should never have such a conflict with morality. As such, I intend to show that although open and active rebellion may be strictly forbidden, the Kantian ethical system could possibly allow for, in some cases, the people's right to exercise civil disobedience.
According to Kant, we have a duty to act in accordance with right, since "the universal law of right. . .is indeed a law that lays and obligation on me" (MM 6:231) . Let us assume for the sake of argument that justice demands that we always obey the law regardless of the circumstances. Now let us consider a situation in which a tyrannical government passes a law which, for the sake of population control, requires every adult to murder one child. Justice would demand that those adults comply. However, it is clearly immoral to murder children since the moral law would forbid it. Thus morality demands that the people do not obey the law, whereas justice demands that the people must obey the law. It would appear that justice and morality contradict one another.
Such a contradiction cannot possibly exist in a system derived from pure reason, as Kant would argue, so there must be a solution for this inconsistency. That is to say that there must be a just way to avoid behaving immorally since there should be no moral way to avoid behaving justly. Kant even accounts for this possibility when he states as a categorical imperative, "obey the authority who has power over you (in whatever does not conflict with inner morality)" (MM 6:371). This is of great importance since it would seem to imply that Kant only holds obedience to the authorities as an obligation as long as the external law in question is in compliance with the moral law. In other words, obedience to external laws is conditional rather than absolute.
Unfortunately, Kant does not give any guidance here about what is to be done in the case where an external law conflicts with inner morality. A simple modus tollens argument could show from this imperative that a conflict with morality is a necessary condition for disobeying an external law, however, it cannot be shown that such a conflict would be a sufficient condition for disobedience. Still the fact remains that even if justice seems to conflict with inner morality, we are nevertheless obligated to behave both morally and justly. If the external law in question is indeed immoral by nature, then it must be disobeyed. Therefore, there must exist a way to justly disobey an external law.
The only way one could possibly be just in disobeying a law is if the law itself were unjust. This may seem contradictory since the law was created by the rulers of the state under that authority which public right bestows upon them, hence any law they decide to create should be considered just since it was created from system in conformity with right. However, Allen Wood seems to assume the possibility of a government behaving unjustly in his discussion of the redistribution of wealth when he says "Kant's suggestion that inequality of wealth is consequent upon the 'injustice of the government'" implies that redistribution of wealth is "something it (the state) must engage in if it is not to behave unjustly" (Wood 200). In addition, there is a significant amount of evidence for the possibility of an unjust law within Kant's writings.
First, it is important to note that Kant does not give state legislators the authority to justly create whatever laws they want. There are very clear rules/guidelines according to Kant, about how rulers ought to govern. In making laws, says Kant, "The legislative authority can belong only to the united will of the people. For since all right is to proceed from it, it cannot do anyone wrong by its law" (MM 6:313). Thus, he says, "Only the general united will of the people can be legislative" (MM 6:314). One reading of this might suggest that Kant requires that everyone in the state be able to will that a law exist in order for it to be legislated. Or, in other words, citizens of a state must all agree to be bound by a law in order for it to be legitimate.
Kant goes on to say that one of the rights that a citizen of a state has is what he calls "lawful freedom, the attribute of obeying no other law than that to which he has given his consent" (MM 6:314). Again this seems to suggest that one of the requirements for the legitimacy of a law, and thus one of the necessary conditions under which laws are to be obeyed, is that the citizens of the state consent to being bound by it. One could argue, though, that simply entering into a contract of public right (leaving the state of nature and becoming a citizen of a political state), the citizen has in so doing already given his/her consent to being bound by any laws that the sovereign chooses to pass, since part of a people's leaving the state of nature and entering a political state is to "subject itself to a public lawful external coercion" (MM 6:312).
Indeed, Kant makes it clear that the consent required for lawgiving does not actually involve the legislator asking his/her citizens for permission to pass a law. Rather, the legislator is simply required to keep the will of the people in his/her own mind as he/she makes his/her laws since practical reason binds "every legislator to give his laws in such a way that they could have arisen from the united will of a whole people. . . In other words, if a public law is so constituted that a whole people could not possibly give its consent to it. . . it is unjust; but if it is only possible that a people could agree to it, it is a duty to consider the law just" (TP 8:297). It is here, though, that Kant explicitly affirms the possibility of an unjust law and clearly defines the conditions under which a law is to be considered unjust.
But what kind of law could there be which an entire country full of people would be absolutely unable to consent to? Since we are considering a country full of rational (and therefore moral) agents, one possibility is that such a law would have to be one which conflicts with the moral law. If an external law demands that citizens do the opposite of what the moral law demands, then it is conceivably impossible that an entire nation of people could consent to it. In this way, it would seem that we have cleared the possibility of morality conflicting with justice, since if an external law were to conflict with morality, it would be considered an unjust law.
In the case where such an unjust law were to be given, are citizens permitted to disobey it? Kant is not particularly clear about this in some places. In his essay, "All Politics Must Bend its Knee before Right": Kant on the Relation of Morals to Politics, Paul Formosa argues that according to Kant's political theory, "a law or regime deserves obedience only if it is just, and it is just only if it can be judged to pass the hypothetical unanimous consent test" (Formosa 171). However, in considering a law which an entire people found to be detrimental to its happiness, Kant claims that for the people, "there is nothing to be done about it but to obey" (TP 8:298). However, this is not the kind of unjust law which we are considering. Here, Kant is thinking of a law which a people cannot consent to due to the unhappiness that it would bring to them. The kind of unjust law that we are thinking of is one which a people cannot consent to as moral agents. So when Kant says that there is nothing to be done but to obey, this does not necessarily answer our question since the scenarios do not match up. Therefore, Kant's statement here does not truly rule out the possibility that citizens may have a right or even a duty to disobey a law conflicting with morality.
Still, Kant does seem to be completely against resisting the rightful coercion of the head of state. He goes as far as to say that "a people cannot offer any resistance to the legislative head of a state which would be consistent with right, since a rightful condition is possible only by submission to its general legislative will" (MM 6:320). Kant advocates instead that people employ what he calls negative resistance, which he defines as "the refusal of the people (in parliament) to accede to every demand the government puts forth" (MM 6:322). In fact, Kant seems to think that this sort of action is necessary for a state to operate legitimately since "if these demands were always complied with, this would be a sure sign that the people is corrupt, that its representatives can be bought, that the head of the government is ruling despotically through its minister, and that the minister himself is betraying the people" (MM 6:322). Therefore the way for a people to justly combat the tyranny of its leader is to pressure its representatives in parliament to disagree with the ruler on the passing undesirable or unjust laws, and to stimulate gradual reform and small changes in order to improve their conditions, or at the very least keep the possible tyranny of the ruler in check.
However, as David James points out in his essay, "Kant and Hegel on the Right of Rebellion", this "presupposes that public criticism is possible within the society in question, whereas in a totalitarian state, with its lack of respect for the rule of law and its repressive measures against any signs of dissent, such public criticism would not be possible" (James 336) Indeed, Kant does assume that the people of a state should be allowed to voice their opinions without being killed on the spot, as he defines ”freedom of the pen" as "the sole palladium of the people's rights" (TP: 8:304). What option does a people have in a state which denies them this basic right? If the ruler does not even allow for criticism or complaint, it would seem that the only remaining way of restoring the rightful condition guaranteed to them under the protection of the state would be for the people to actively resist the authority of such a tyrant.
In fact, it is questionable whether such a state is even a legitimate state to begin with. The whole purpose of entering a state is to leave the "state of nature" in favor of a rightful condition which can only be created in a political state. But if the ruler of the state rules in such a way that a rightful condition cannot exist, such a state could be, as David James argues, "worse than a state of anarchy; and for this reason the state could be said to have violated the original contract from which it derives its legitimacy" (James 337). Under these conditions, it is difficult to see how being a part of such a state would be preferable to the state of nature, since it would be a state in which right is not respected at all. It may be the case that the state of nature does not very much differ from a state of tyranny.
While Kant maintains that the people do not have the right to actively resist or rebel even against the most tyrannical of rulers, he does offer the following very strong statements in Toward Perpetual Peace which may suggest that although the people do not have the right to forcibly remove a monarch or a legislator from power, the ruler may have a duty to resign from his/her position of power if he/she fails to protect and promote a rightful condition: "The right of human beings must be held sacred, however great a sacrifice this may cost the ruling power" and "all politics must bend its knee before right" (PP 8:380). That is to say that political institutions are obligated, according to Kant, to sacrifice any amount of power necessary in order to uphold the right of human beings.
The so-called sacrifice that the ruling power would have to make could involve removing his/herself from power if he/she feels unfit to rule. For example, if the ruler is afflicted with some kind of ailment, the symptoms of which result in the loss of his or her rational faculties (a bump to the head, perhaps), then the ruler might be unfit to rule. In the case of a tyrannical ruler who abuses his or her power and fails to properly respect the right of human beings which he or she is meant to protect, this is another case in which one might say such a ruler is unfit to rule, since the duties he has to his people are being ignored. Now if the nature of his or her affliction is such that the ruler is unable to recognize the fact that he or she is unfit to rule or if the ruler's tyrannical nature was such that he/she refused to admit his or her incompetency, then it would seem that, in order to maintain the rightful condition which the state is meant to uphold, some other entity would have to be responsible for dethroning the ruler. If none of the other governmental powers can be trusted to do this (for whatever reason), then the responsibility for dethroning the ruler may fall to the citizens.
Keeping in mind that the people are not permitted to do this by force, Kant does seem to hint at the possibility that dethroning a monarch may be permissible through a right of necessity when he says "the dethronement of a monarch can still be thought of as if he had voluntarily. . . relinquished his authority and been reduced to the rank of a private person" (MM 6:320-321). Kant does make it clear that this must be done without any attack on his person, and that "a dethroned monarch cannot be held to account, still less to be punished, for what he previously carried out" (MM 6:323). Kant maintains that it would be self-contradictory (and therefore not permissible) for the people to have the right to forcibly coerce a monarch into abdicating his authority or to punish him after his dethronement. However, this does not mean that a people should not be allowed to pressure a monarch into dethronement through protest and/or civil disobedience.
This is an important distinction, since although Kant asserts repeatedly that the ruler of a state cannot possibly be justly coerced into action by its people, he never makes a claim against the people's right to at least attempt to stir a ruler into action through the exertion of political pressure. Such pressure could come in the form of negative resistance through parliamentary representatives, or through public complaint (allowed for by the people's absolute right to the freedom of pen/speech). Since obedience to laws is conditional (laws are only to be obeyed so long as they do not conflict with your inner morality), it is possible that Kant also leaves room for civil disobedience, perhaps in the form of mass refusal to obey an unjust law, to be included in the list of permissible methods of exerting public pressure on a ruler to either implement reforms or to relinquish his throne and be demoted to the rank of a private citizen. Thus, contrary to popular readings of Kant as an advocate of blind obedience to one's superiors, the possibility of civil disobedience is not to be ruled out completely.
Works Cited
Formosa, Paul. "'All Politics Must Bend Its Knee Before Right': Kant On The Relation Of Morals To
Politics." Social Theory And Practice: An International And Interdisciplinary Journal Of Social Philosophy 34.2 (2008): 157-181. Philosopher's Index. Web. 29 May. 2013.
James, David. "Kant and Hegel on the Right of Rebellion."History of Political Thought. 27.2 (2006): 331-348. Web. 29 May. 2013.
Kant, Immanuel, and Mary J. Gregor. Practical Philosophy. New York, NY: Cambridge Univ Pr, 2000. Print.
Wood, Allen W. Kantian Ethics. Cambridge Univ Pr, 2008. Print.
 
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Baa?21242 Posts
I like how you edited your post so it no longer says you enjoy reading Kant, cause we all know that's just a filthy lie.
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On May 30 2013 15:10 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
I like how you edited your post so it no longer says you enjoy reading Kant, cause we all know that's just a filthy lie.
LOL.
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United States15536 Posts
On May 30 2013 15:10 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
I like how you edited your post so it no longer says you enjoy reading Kant, cause we all know that's just a filthy lie.
You Kant really mean it.
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Well.. I guess people don't care much for Kant around here. Maybe I'll write another one on Heidegger? I've been wanting to give that guy a piece of my mind for a while now. I dunno. If I feel like it, I'll post another essay about Heidegger. Kant might not be the most accessible for those who haven't already read him.
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Ok, never read Kant, but I'll give it a go:
The problem is: who gets to decide what is the "moral law"? If you accept that mass civil disobedience is justifiable, then that must mean that the decider of "moral law" lies with populism. Of course, this is rather dangerous, as the masses are more swayed by mores and demagogues than by morals and justice.
Have you read the Crito? It talks about pretty much the same thing.
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On May 31 2013 12:09 Ianuus wrote:
Ok, never read Kant, but I'll give it a go:
The problem is: who gets to decide what is the "moral law"? If you accept that mass civil disobedience is justifiable, then that must mean that the decider of "moral law" lies with populism. Of course, this is rather dangerous, as the masses are more swayed by mores and demagogues than by morals and justice.
Have you read the Crito? It talks about pretty much the same thing.
Ahhh yeah you should read Kant. Most of his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals is talking about how the moral law is derived and all that. It comes from reason alone. It is a priori, according to Kant, since the only moral law that could possibly be legitimate MUST be a priori. That's why "who gets to decide the moral law" is not an issue for Kant. He specifically sets it up so that there will be no such issue since his moral law comes from pure reason alone.
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On May 31 2013 14:25 MichaelDonovan wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2013 12:09 Ianuus wrote:
Ok, never read Kant, but I'll give it a go:
The problem is: who gets to decide what is the "moral law"? If you accept that mass civil disobedience is justifiable, then that must mean that the decider of "moral law" lies with populism. Of course, this is rather dangerous, as the masses are more swayed by mores and demagogues than by morals and justice.
Have you read the Crito? It talks about pretty much the same thing. Ahhh yeah you should read Kant. Most of his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals is talking about how the moral law is derived and all that. It comes from reason alone. It is a priori, according to Kant, since the only moral law that could possibly be legitimate MUST be a priori. That's why "who gets to decide the moral law" is not an issue for Kant. He specifically sets it up so that there will be no such issue since his moral law comes from pure reason alone.
Reason, too, must also be based on axioms, which are, to a point, subjective. Just as pure scientific reason is based on the subjective axiom that our observations correlate to reality, so must moral reason be based on a similar axiom about morality. Reason itself is just a tool, a means of making decisions, not an end in itself - thus there must be a primeval standard for morality from which we can judge the morality of our actions. Reason is the means by which we can see if our everyday actions match up against this standard, but "reason" itself is not the standard. How do we know what the standard is?
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On May 31 2013 14:46 Ianuus wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2013 14:25 MichaelDonovan wrote:On May 31 2013 12:09 Ianuus wrote:
Ok, never read Kant, but I'll give it a go:
The problem is: who gets to decide what is the "moral law"? If you accept that mass civil disobedience is justifiable, then that must mean that the decider of "moral law" lies with populism. Of course, this is rather dangerous, as the masses are more swayed by mores and demagogues than by morals and justice.
Have you read the Crito? It talks about pretty much the same thing. Ahhh yeah you should read Kant. Most of his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals is talking about how the moral law is derived and all that. It comes from reason alone. It is a priori, according to Kant, since the only moral law that could possibly be legitimate MUST be a priori. That's why "who gets to decide the moral law" is not an issue for Kant. He specifically sets it up so that there will be no such issue since his moral law comes from pure reason alone. Reason, too, must also be based on axioms, which are, to a point, subjective. Just as pure scientific reason is based on the subjective axiom that our observations correlate to reality, so must moral reason be based on a similar axiom about morality. Reason itself is just a tool, a means of making decisions, not an end in itself - thus there must be a primeval standard for morality from which we can judge the morality of our actions. Reason is the means by which we can see if our everyday actions match up against this standard, but "reason" itself is not the standard. How do we know what the standard is?
Haha it's funny you say that because Kant says that reason IS an end in itself. Also the axioms you speak of are completely a priori for Kant as well. At least, this is how he goes about doing things. You can argue with him on this if you want, but that's how he sees it.
Edit: I think you really might be interested in reading Kant, actually. Try reading Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and Metaphysics of Morals. If you're still interested after you read those, you might also like his Critique of Pure Practical Reason. Those are the big ones for his ethics anyway. There is also a mountain of transcripts from his lectures on ethics if you wanna really study him.
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@Iannus: I'd recommend against reading Kant's works and rather just picking up secondary literature on him. Kant is notorious for being a terrible writer.
@OP: Political philosophy is totally not my thing, but here goes:
Unfortunately, Kant does not give any guidance here about what is to be done in the case where an external law conflicts with inner morality. A simple modus tollens argument could show from this imperative that a conflict with morality is a necessary condition for disobeying an external law, however, it cannot be shown that such a conflict would be a sufficient condition for disobedience. Surely you meant to say 'civil disobedience' at the very end. Having skipped the word has made this entire paragraph very confusing, because disobedience of the law does follow from the modus tollens as both a necessary and sufficient condition, but civil disobedience does not (as a sufficient one).
Still the fact remains that even if justice seems to conflict with inner morality, we are nevertheless obligated to behave both morally and justly. If the external law in question is indeed immoral by nature, then it must be disobeyed. Therefore, there must exist a way to justly disobey an external law.
The only way one could possibly be just in disobeying a law is if the law itself were unjust. This is the passage I have the most trouble with because of the terms you are using. We cannot be obligated to behave both morally and follow the law (aka 'justice') when the law contradicts morality - it would be impossible to do both at once. However, we could say that what you mean by 'justice' here is something like following the 'moral law' (i.e. the one derived by reason alone), but that would make using the term 'morality' redundant as I said earlier - regardless, we would then be in a position to say that we behave justly (i.e. lawfully in a suprapositive sense, that is according to 'inner morality') by disobeying unjust (positive) laws.
But this doesn't get us anywhere in terms of the argument: The issue lies in the apparent contradiction between Kant's insistence on following the positive law unconditionally and the impossibility of doing that in the face of an unjust law.
However, in considering a law which an entire people found to be detrimental to its happiness, Kant claims that for the people, "there is nothing to be done about it but to obey" (TP 8:298). However, this is not the kind of unjust law which we are considering. Here, Kant is thinking of a law which a people cannot consent to due to the unhappiness that it would bring to them. The kind of unjust law that we are thinking of is one which a people cannot consent to as moral agents. So when Kant says that there is nothing to be done but to obey, this does not necessarily answer our question since the scenarios do not match up. Therefore, Kant's statement here does not truly rule out the possibility that citizens may have a right or even a duty to disobey a law conflicting with morality. But well-being is a moral matter for Kant, i.e. we have a duty towards well-being. If the law makes well-being impossible in some way, then it is an unjust law too.
However, this does not mean that a people should not be allowed to pressure a monarch into dethronement through protest and/or civil disobedience.
This is an important distinction, since although Kant asserts repeatedly that the ruler of a state cannot possibly be justly coerced into action by its people, he never makes a claim against the people's right to at least attempt to stir a ruler into action through the exertion of political pressure. Such pressure could come in the form of negative resistance through parliamentary representatives, or through public complaint (allowed for by the people's absolute right to the freedom of pen/speech). Since obedience to laws is conditional (laws are only to be obeyed so long as they do not conflict with your inner morality), it is possible that Kant also leaves room for civil disobedience, perhaps in the form of mass refusal to obey an unjust law, to be included in the list of permissible methods of exerting public pressure on a ruler to either implement reforms or to relinquish his throne and be demoted to the rank of a private citizen. Thus, contrary to popular readings of Kant as an advocate of blind obedience to one's superiors, the possibility of civil disobedience is not to be ruled out completely. But the question whether civil disobedience is possible is exactly what is at stake here! Exerting political pressure via your freedom of speech (petitions, rallies, representatives etc) is one thing, but breaking the law is quite another - civil disobedience falls into the latter, and you have to give arguments why this is permissible or not permissible. The only argument you give is that obedience to positive laws is conditionally dependent on whether they stand in a relation to suprapositive laws (morality), which is fine, but the 'possibility' of disobeying the law as a means of pressuring the rulers is left very sketchy at best - you have to discuss the apparent contradiction between Kant's insistence on following positive laws on the one hand and the impossibility of morally following unjust positive laws on the other.
My answer to that is probably somewhat disappointing: Even people like Kant fall prey to confirming prejudices and ideas inherited from their culture, regardless of what their philosophical reflections might initially push them to agree or disagree on. We see this in his argument that masturbation is worse than suicide and that it "debases [the person] below the beasts" or in his argument that wives should be returned to abusive husbands, that organ donation is immoral, that it is permissible to murder bastard children etc. The same applies to his rather typically conservative Prussian opinion that law must be obeyed under all circumstances - we have a cute word in German for that called 'Obrigkeitshörigkeit', which we sometimes use to characterise the early-modern/pre-war Germans with.
That's why reading Kant as a philosopher should be akin to reading the Weimar constitution as a political scientist: We look at what was good and nice, see where the issues lie that could lead to odious views or consequences and argue them away to improve upon it. This is what is called standing on the shoulders of giants.
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On May 31 2013 18:15 Sauwelios wrote:@Iannus: I'd recommend against reading Kant's works and rather just picking up secondary literature on him. Kant is notorious for being a terrible writer. @OP: Political philosophy is totally not my thing, but here goes: Show nested quote +Unfortunately, Kant does not give any guidance here about what is to be done in the case where an external law conflicts with inner morality. A simple modus tollens argument could show from this imperative that a conflict with morality is a necessary condition for disobeying an external law, however, it cannot be shown that such a conflict would be a sufficient condition for disobedience. Surely you meant to say 'civil disobedience' at the very end. Having skipped the word has made this entire paragraph very confusing, because disobedience of the law does follow from the modus tollens as both a necessary and sufficient condition, but civil disobedience does not (as a sufficient one). Show nested quote +Still the fact remains that even if justice seems to conflict with inner morality, we are nevertheless obligated to behave both morally and justly. If the external law in question is indeed immoral by nature, then it must be disobeyed. Therefore, there must exist a way to justly disobey an external law.
The only way one could possibly be just in disobeying a law is if the law itself were unjust. This is the passage I have the most trouble with because of the terms you are using. We cannot be obligated to behave both morally and follow the law (aka 'justice') when the law contradicts morality - it would be impossible to do both at once. However, we could say that what you mean by 'justice' here is something like following the 'moral law' (i.e. the one derived by reason alone), but that would make using the term 'morality' redundant as I said earlier - regardless, we would then be in a position to say that we behave justly (i.e. lawfully in a suprapositive sense, that is according to 'inner morality') by disobeying unjust (positive) laws. But this doesn't get us anywhere in terms of the argument: The issue lies in the apparent contradiction between Kant's insistence on following the positive law unconditionally and the impossibility of doing that in the face of an unjust law. Show nested quote + However, in considering a law which an entire people found to be detrimental to its happiness, Kant claims that for the people, "there is nothing to be done about it but to obey" (TP 8:298). However, this is not the kind of unjust law which we are considering. Here, Kant is thinking of a law which a people cannot consent to due to the unhappiness that it would bring to them. The kind of unjust law that we are thinking of is one which a people cannot consent to as moral agents. So when Kant says that there is nothing to be done but to obey, this does not necessarily answer our question since the scenarios do not match up. Therefore, Kant's statement here does not truly rule out the possibility that citizens may have a right or even a duty to disobey a law conflicting with morality. But well-being is a moral matter for Kant, i.e. we have a duty towards well-being. If the law makes well-being impossible in some way, then it is an unjust law too. Show nested quote + However, this does not mean that a people should not be allowed to pressure a monarch into dethronement through protest and/or civil disobedience.
This is an important distinction, since although Kant asserts repeatedly that the ruler of a state cannot possibly be justly coerced into action by its people, he never makes a claim against the people's right to at least attempt to stir a ruler into action through the exertion of political pressure. Such pressure could come in the form of negative resistance through parliamentary representatives, or through public complaint (allowed for by the people's absolute right to the freedom of pen/speech). Since obedience to laws is conditional (laws are only to be obeyed so long as they do not conflict with your inner morality), it is possible that Kant also leaves room for civil disobedience, perhaps in the form of mass refusal to obey an unjust law, to be included in the list of permissible methods of exerting public pressure on a ruler to either implement reforms or to relinquish his throne and be demoted to the rank of a private citizen. Thus, contrary to popular readings of Kant as an advocate of blind obedience to one's superiors, the possibility of civil disobedience is not to be ruled out completely. But the question whether civil disobedience is possible is exactly what is at stake here! Exerting political pressure via your freedom of speech (petitions, rallies, representatives etc) is one thing, but breaking the law is quite another - civil disobedience falls into the latter, and you have to give arguments why this is permissible or not permissible. The only argument you give is that obedience to positive laws is conditionally dependent on whether they stand in a relation to suprapositive laws (morality), which is fine, but the 'possibility' of disobeying the law as a means of pressuring the rulers is left very sketchy at best - you have to discuss the apparent contradiction between Kant's insistence on following positive laws on the one hand and the impossibility of morally following unjust positive laws on the other. My answer to that is probably somewhat disappointing: Even people like Kant fall prey to confirming prejudices and ideas inherited from their culture, regardless of what their philosophical reflections might initially push them to agree or disagree on. We see this in his argument that masturbation is worse than suicide and that it "debases [the person] below the beasts" or in his argument that wives should be returned to abusive husbands, that organ donation is immoral, that it is permissible to murder bastard children etc. The same applies to his rather typically conservative Prussian opinion that law must be obeyed under all circumstances - we have a cute word in German for that called 'Obrigkeitshörigkeit', which we sometimes use to characterise the early-modern/pre-war Germans with. That's why reading Kant as a philosopher should be akin to reading the Weimar constitution as a political scientist: We look at what was good and nice, see where the issues lie that could lead to odious views or consequences and argue them away to improve upon it. This is what is called standing on the shoulders of giants.
Thanks for your response.
To your first point, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here. It really doesn't matter if I say civil disobedience or disobedience alone, since I'm really talking about the same thing. In either case, a modus tollens argument here cannot show a conflict with morality to be a sufficient condition for disobeying external laws:
If it doesnt conflict with morality, you must obey.
By modus tollens:
If it's not true that you must obey, then it conflicts with morality
So in other words, if there is every a case where you are not obligated to obey an external law, it MUST also be true that such a law conflicts with your inner morality. Nothing else can logically be shown from this statement, I think. Perhaps you can clarify a bit? We might be misunderstanding each other.
As for your second point, I think you might be demonstrating a misunderstanding of Kant here. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course, but that's what I'm getting from this. Remember that in his Metaphysics of Morals, Kant clearly divides the doctrine of right (deals with external laws) from the doctrine of virtue/ethics (deals with inner laws, or morality). So when you suggest that what I might mean by "justice" is obeying the moral law, it really seems like you've misunderstood this crucial distinction, because "justice" is a word which Kant reserves specifically for dealing with the doctrine of external right and not for dealing with morality. This may be what happens when you only read secondary sources on Kant as you recommended to that other fellow. If I'm wrong about this, then I apologize. I may have just misunderstood what you were trying to say.
What I was trying to explain with the passage you highlighted was this: According to Kant, we are obligated to behave morally. We are also obligated, according to Kant, to behave justly. But if justice demands that we behave immorally, then we have a contradiction of sorts. Which do we obey? Do we choose justice over morality? Or do we choose morality over justice? My answer, and I think Kant's answer as well, is that we cannot possibly be permitted to choose one over the other. Therefore, we must resolve the conflict so that we do not have to choose. How is this done?
Well, we cannot possibly be morally permitted to behave unjustly (by breaking just laws), since, again, morality demands that we behave justly. Therefore, I conclude, there must be a way to justly avoid behaving immorally. The only way to do this would be to disobey the external law which demands that we behave immorally. How do we justly disobey an external law? The only way I can see that being permissible is if the law itself were unjust. After that, I go into explaining how an unjust law could be possible.
At the very end of your second point you also claim that Kant insists that we follow the law unconditionally, but I just showed a quote from Kant which shows that following the law is conditional... So, I'm not really sure what you're getting at with that.
To your third point about well-being: This is a good point, but I think we can get around it. A close reading of the Metaphysics of Morals shows that we have a moral obligation to promote the happiness of others. Kant explicitly says, though, that we do NOT have an obligation to promote our own happiness. So when Kant claims that we have no choice but to obey a law which is detrimental to our own happiness, he is not claiming that we should behave immorally, since we are not morally obligated to promote our own happiness.
In fact, I think I could use that as part of my own argument, since if human beings are morally obligated to promote the happiness of others, then that means the rulers of a country have that same obligation. This means that the person behaving immorally when creating a law which is detrimental to the happiness of others is the ruler himself! This conflicts only with the morality of the ruler in this case. It does not necessarily conflict with the morality of the people who must follow the law. Remember that I said an unjust law could be one which conflicts with our own inner morality, so when considering whether a law is unjust, we do not really care if the lawmaker is behaving immorally. An unjust law would be one which commands the people to behave immorally so that by following the law we would be at the same time breaking the moral law.
And to your last bit there, I should note that my aim with this essay was not to conclusively show anything. In philosophy, it is pretty common to just kind of "chip away" at things with small contributions rather than trying to solve everything in one shot.
I think that Kant is often greatly misunderstood. Many Kant scholars even have the wrong ideas about Kant's ethics in my opinion. I think you're probably right about the culture stuff to some extent. But you have to remember that in Kant's time, the information he had to go on was different. For example, with the masturbation thing, in Kant's time, it was believed that masturbation made you age like twice as fast or something silly like that lol. There's old posters showing drawings of masturbators and non-masturbators next to each other, and the masturbator looks like 30 years older hahaha. So of course, if this is what Kant believed to be true, then it would follow that masturbation is detrimental to your personal health. Trading your personal health for satisfaction of your sexual appetite is of course completely impermissible. So you have to take the historical context into account sometimes in order to understand where Kant comes up with some of his stranger ideas. 
Edit: I also realize that if you've read Kant, then you have probably read the original German version, whereas I have read the English translation by Mary Gregor. This may be the source of our misunderstandings of each other, I think.
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Appreciate your work here Michael, keep it up. Well, I don't have much to add since I am the kind of guy who likes to suck up every little piece of information to digest if over the next years.
Do you have any specializations in Philosophy?
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On June 01 2013 04:48 blubbdavid wrote:
Appreciate your work here Michael, keep it up. Well, I don't have much to add since I am the kind of guy who likes to suck up every little piece of information to digest if over the next years.
Do you have any specializations in Philosophy?
I am a philosopher and a mathematician, yes. I haven't really specialized in any one area of philosophy, but I have spent a good amount of time on Kant. I wouldn't call myself a Kant scholar necessarily, since there are people out there spending nearly 100% of their time on Kant for whom such a title is more fitting.
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On May 30 2013 15:10 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
I like how you edited your post so it no longer says you enjoy reading Kant, cause we all know that's just a filthy lie.
Saved that blog.
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You're right on the modus tollens. Got confused there.
My suggestion about what you said on justice was merely an attempt to make sense of some of your statements. I clearly stretched it a bit beyond what you originally meant (and what Kant himself intended).
In any case, you cannot 'justly' disobey the law if disobeying the law is contrary to justice (because justice means obeying the law), regardless of the actual content of the law. Kant makes this very explicit on p.320 (I'll just be lazy and use the German, sorry, you're a smart cookie so you'll figure it out):
"Der Grund der Pflicht des Volks einen,
selbst den für unerträglich ausgegebenen Mißbrauch der obersten Gewalt
dennoch zu ertragen liegt darin: daß sein Widerstand wider die höchste
Gesetzgebung selbst niemals anders als gesetzwidrig, ja als die ganze gesetzliche
Verfassung zernichtend gedacht werden muß. "
Disobeying laws can never be just, even if the authorities are abusing their powers in tyrannical ways. In fact, this does not contradict your quote from p. 371, since you admitted that the modus tollens does not state a sufficient condition for disobeying the laws: If the law does not conflict with morality, you must obey; but if the law does conflict with morality, then that doesn't mean that you must not obey! In fact, if you take the quote from p.320 into account, it actually does mean that you must obey after all. My point here is that Kant is just as much a creature of his time and just as prone to lapses as we all are - and his time and place was a conservative state-oriented Prussian one.
The huge problem with this is that the authoritarian aspects of Kant do not stand in direct contradiction with his better stuff - and they could then be taken quite seriously by people like Eichmann, who went on to mass murder people because that was what the law required. (On a sidenote about misunderstandings: Arendt isn't at her best in that book either.)
To your third point about well-being: This is a good point, but I think we can get around it. A close reading of the Metaphysics of Morals shows that we have a moral obligation to promote the happiness of others. Kant explicitly says, though, that we do NOT have an obligation to promote our own happiness. So when Kant claims that we have no choice but to obey a law which is detrimental to our own happiness, he is not claiming that we should behave immorally, since we are not morally obligated to promote our own happiness. That is fair, and I remember reading somewhere that our capability to promote the happiness of others is in certain ways limited, so as long as the tyrannical laws do not cross that threshold, I guess this is fine. I'm not sure whether Kant really thinks we are not morally obligated to promote our own happiness though and I'd like some sources on that.
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On June 01 2013 07:01 Sauwelios wrote:You're right on the modus tollens. Got confused there. My suggestion about what you said on justice was merely an attempt to make sense of some of your statements. I clearly stretched it a bit beyond what you originally meant (and what Kant himself intended). In any case, you cannot 'justly' disobey the law if disobeying the law is contrary to justice (because justice means obeying the law), regardless of the actual content of the law. Kant makes this very explicit on p.320 (I'll just be lazy and use the German, sorry, you're a smart cookie so you'll figure it out): "Der Grund der Pflicht des Volks einen, selbst den für unerträglich ausgegebenen Mißbrauch der obersten Gewalt dennoch zu ertragen liegt darin: daß sein Widerstand wider die höchste Gesetzgebung selbst niemals anders als gesetzwidrig, ja als die ganze gesetzliche Verfassung zernichtend gedacht werden muß. " Disobeying laws can never be just, even if the authorities are abusing their powers in tyrannical ways. In fact, this does not contradict your quote from p. 371, since you admitted that the modus tollens does not state a sufficient condition for disobeying the laws: If the law does not conflict with morality, you must obey; but if the law does conflict with morality, then that doesn't mean that you must not obey! In fact, if you take the quote from p.320 into account, it actually does mean that you must obey after all. My point here is that Kant is just as much a creature of his time and just as prone to lapses as we all are - and his time and place was a conservative state-oriented Prussian one. The huge problem with this is that the authoritarian aspects of Kant do not stand in direct contradiction with his better stuff - and they could then be taken quite seriously by people like Eichmann, who went on to mass murder people because that was what the law required. (On a sidenote about misunderstandings: Arendt isn't at her best in that book either.) Show nested quote +To your third point about well-being: This is a good point, but I think we can get around it. A close reading of the Metaphysics of Morals shows that we have a moral obligation to promote the happiness of others. Kant explicitly says, though, that we do NOT have an obligation to promote our own happiness. So when Kant claims that we have no choice but to obey a law which is detrimental to our own happiness, he is not claiming that we should behave immorally, since we are not morally obligated to promote our own happiness. That is fair, and I remember reading somewhere that our capability to promote the happiness of others is in certain ways limited, so as long as the tyrannical laws do not cross that threshold, I guess this is fine. I'm not sure whether Kant really thinks we are not morally obligated to promote our own happiness though and I'd like some sources on that.
Well, lets see... In the Gregor translation to English, I believe the passage you quoted reads something like:
Therefore a people cannot offer any resistance to the legislative head of a state which would be consistent with right, since a rightful condition is possible only by submission to its general legislative will. There is, therefore, no right to sedition (seditio), still less to rebellion (rebellio), and least of all is there a right against the head of a state as an individual person (the monarch), to attack his person or even his life (monarchomachismus sub specie tyrannicidii) on the pretext that he has abused his authority (tyrannis).
Does that seem like a reasonable translation to you? This is a very important passage when in comes to the subject we are discussing. It is the reason why in the introduction to my essay, I admit that Kant does in fact seem to be completely against active resistance or rebellion of any kind. That is, we are not, according to Kant, permitted to actively resist the government or to coerce them into action, since the power of coercion rests with the rulers, not with the people. The key here for my argument, though, is that this passage only claims that we cannot actively resist. It does not seem to make any claim against the people's right to disobey, since mere disobedience is not the same as resistance or rebellion. At least this is the way I am interpreting it.
Indeed, there is other evidence that this interpretation might be accurate. For example, on p. 322, he says:
Nevertheless, no active resistance (by the people combining at will; to coerce the government to take a certain course of action, and so itself performing an act of executive authority) is permitted, but only negative resistance, that is, a refusal of the people (in parliament) to accede to every demand the government puts forth as necessary for administering the state. Indeed, if these demands were always complied with, this would be a sure sign that the people is corrupt, that its representatives can be bought, that the head of the government is ruling despotically through his minister, and that the minister himself is betraying the people.
Here, I think it's pretty clear that Kant is only forbidding active resistance. This passage is extremely important to my argument.
As for the bit about happiness: Start on I think the end of page 385 of The Metaphysics of Morals. It's in section IV, "What are the Ends That are Also Duties?" Here he explains that we are morally obligated to strive for our own perfection as moral agents, and to promote the happiness of others. He explicitly states, though, that we do not have the duty to promote the perfection of others (only to not interfere with it) and we do not have a duty to promote our own happiness. He says:
For his own happiness is an end that every human being has (by virtue of the impulses of his nature), but this end can never be without self-contradiction regarded as a duty. What everyone wants unavoidably, of his own accord, does not come under the concept of duty, which is constraint to an end adopted reluctantly. Hence it is self-contradictory to say that he is under obligation to promote his own happiness with all his powers.
You say he is a notoriously bad writer, but I think he's pretty eloquent At least, the English translation of him that I am using seems to be well written haha.
Edit: I meant to say page 322, not 320 for my second quote about negative resistance, so I fixed it :\ Hope you didn't get confused by that.
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I don't know Kant nearly as well as you two (I'm not a philosopher by any mean, and I've only read 2 and a half Critic, and not the Metaphysics of Morals), but if I'll offer my opinion on Kant's writing. I think saying he's a terrible writer definitely has some basis : he's very arduous to read, sometimes repetitive (which considering my first point is in fact pretty helpful), his sentences are often overly complicated... But I think this is in great part a result of his method of thinking, his will to define every term he uses etc etc. Because when he is not writing something technical, there is a certain beauty to his texts (the famous bird that thinks it would fly more easily without the air, or the wonderful conclusion of the Critic of practial reason). Anyway I don't think Kant would have been the same philosopher if he didn't write that way.
Enjoying the discussion by the way, I hope to read some more^^
Edit : I'm not sure whether Kant really thinks we are not morally obligated to promote our own happiness though and I'd like some sources on that.
I'm pretty sure he makes it clear in the second Critic, will look it up tomorow if you want, and thus we will be able to discuss Kant through 3 languages^^
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On June 01 2013 08:00 corumjhaelen wrote:I don't know Kant nearly as well as you two (I'm not a philosopher by any mean, and I've only read 2 and a half Critic, and not the Metaphysics of Morals), but if I'll offer my opinion on Kant's writing. I think saying he's a terrible writer definitely has some basis : he's very arduous to read, sometimes repetitive (which considering my first point is in fact pretty helpful), his sentences are often overly complicated... But I think this is in great part a result of his method of thinking, his will to define every term he uses etc etc. Because when he is not writing something technical, there is a certain beauty to his texts (the famous bird that thinks it would fly more easily without the air, or the wonderful conclusion of the Critic of practial reason). Anyway I don't think Kant would have been the same philosopher if he didn't write that way. Enjoying the discussion by the way, I hope to read some more^^ Edit : Show nested quote +I'm not sure whether Kant really thinks we are not morally obligated to promote our own happiness though and I'd like some sources on that. I'm pretty sure he makes it clear in the second Critic, will look it up tomorow if you want, and thus we will be able to discuss Kant through 3 languages^^
It is true for most people that when they start reading Kant for the first time, it can be pretty difficult to get through. He is especially wordy in his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. But I think this is very valuable as a philosopher since he is very careful with his language and tries to make sure there are no misunderstandings, it seems. Unfortunately, there a tons of misunderstandings which have yet to be resolved, and poor Kant isn't around any more to resolve them himself. Once you get used to reading Kant, I think you really start to appreciate his uh...thoroughness? lol
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The passage I meant comes directly after what you quoted. I looked it up in the Gregor translation:
"The reason a people has a duty to put up with even what is held to be an unbearable abuse of supreme authority is that its resistance to the highest legislation can never be regarded as other than contrary to law, and indeed as abolishing the entire legal constitution."
Kant does go on to distinguish passive and active resistance, but the question is whether civil disobedience can be regarded as passive resistance in the way Kant defines it? He makes it rather clear that 'negative resistance' is to be exerted through parliament, or even as you said (if we allow that much) through petitions, public criticism and complaints (i.e. using freedom of speech). But then again: It's one thing to petition or criticize, another to end up in jail because you broke the law in civil disobedience (like Thoreau). After all, civil disobedience is a form of civil resistance to a law - and the question is whether Kant believes that ever to be legitimate. I don't think he does, for the reasons I mentioned in my previous posts.
There is an interesting line of thought that might contradict his authoritarian position: He does say that the characteristic of a citizen is to only obey the laws that they have given consent to, and that the public cannot possibly give its consent to unjust laws, so if you are forced to obey unjust laws then you are either not a citizen (and the whole discussion about living in a state of nature becomes relevant) or you are free not to obey the unjust laws (which would be the source of the contradiction.)
On the matter of his writing, I think that in some of his works he is rather careful, but in some others he's more obscure than anything else. The Groundworks and the first Critique are good examples of the latter, the Metaphysics of Morals a good example of the former.
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On June 01 2013 17:10 Sauwelios wrote:
The passage I meant comes directly after what you quoted. I looked it up in the Gregor translation:
"The reason a people has a duty to put up with even what is held to be an unbearable abuse of supreme authority is that its resistance to the highest legislation can never be regarded as other than contrary to law, and indeed as abolishing the entire legal constitution."
Kant does go on to distinguish passive and active resistance, but the question is whether civil disobedience can be regarded as passive resistance in the way Kant defines it? He makes it rather clear that 'negative resistance' is to be exerted through parliament, or even as you said (if we allow that much) through petitions, public criticism and complaints (i.e. using freedom of speech). But then again: It's one thing to petition or criticize, another to end up in jail because you broke the law in civil disobedience (like Thoreau). After all, civil disobedience is a form of civil resistance to a law - and the question is whether Kant believes that ever to be legitimate. I don't think he does, for the reasons I mentioned in my previous posts.
There is an interesting line of thought that might contradict his authoritarian position: He does say that the characteristic of a citizen is to only obey the laws that they have given consent to, and that the public cannot possibly give its consent to unjust laws, so if you are forced to obey unjust laws then you are either not a citizen (and the whole discussion about living in a state of nature becomes relevant) or you are free not to obey the unjust laws (which would be the source of the contradiction.)
On the matter of his writing, I think that in some of his works he is rather careful, but in some others he's more obscure than anything else. The Groundworks and the first Critique are good examples of the latter, the Metaphysics of Morals a good example of the former.
Ahhh yeah I don't know any German at all, so I kind of made my best guess. Looks like I barely missed the right passage haha. But yeah I see what you're saying. Now, since the passage you actually quoted comes immediately after the passage I quoted, I think we need to put them both together to see the whole picture perhaps. In the first part (the part I quoted), he seems to be talking specifically about rebellion and coercion through violence when he talks about active resistance. So if we consider this as the context for the second part (the part you actually quoted), it isn't too unreasonable to assume that he is using the same definition for active resistance as in the first part.
I think when he talks about active resistance, he is really talking about the people trying to forcefully coerce the rulers into some kind of action. The reason this would be contrary to law is that the right to forceful coercion is given only to the rulers of the state, and the people as part of the contract of citizenship must submit themselves to that rightful coercion. He says it is contradictory for the people to coerce the rulers into action since in doing so, the people would be making an executive action against the only people who are allowed to make executive actions. But this reasoning does not apply when it comes to civil disobedience, since simply disobeying laws is in no way attempting to forcefully coerce the rulers of a state to do anything.
If we think about the term "negative" resistance, and what that really means, we might see something important as well. Negative resistance (as opposed to positive resistance) means resisting by NOT doing something, whereas positive resistance would be resistance that involves some kind of positive action, which is why I believe we can think of positive resistance as being the same thing as active resistance. If we think about it this way, it's not too hard to see how civil disobedience might be classified as negative resistance, since disobeying a law is the same as not obeying it, which is resistance by not acting. I think refusing to do something is probably classifiable as negative resistance, whereas purposefully making actions against the government (like attempting to harm the monarch), is classified as active resistance. If we combine this with the the other passage I quoted in my essay which shows that obeying laws seems to be conditional rather than absolute, I think we might have at least a reasonable amount of evidence to support my claim.
I really like discussing Kant by the way. It's always an interesting discussion, I think, since there are many different possible ways of interpreting his words, and we have to pull in evidence from all over his writings to figure out which interpretations make the most sense and produce a consistent image across his entire work.
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EPT
