On June 01 2013 19:03 Sauwelios wrote:
I see where you are coming from, but I think this is a very kind reading of Kant. Consider p.322 again:
"In what is called a limited constitution, the constitution contains a provision that the people can legally resist the executive authority and its representative (the minister) by means of its representatives (in parliament). Nevertheless, no active resistance [...] 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."
He makes it very clear that negative resistance is a refusal of the people through their representatives in parliament to obey the will of the sovereign (in one way or another). And this is not unjust (i.e. does not break any laws!) because the constitution is such that it includes a legal right for representatives to disobey the will of the sovereign. Clearly this is not the case with civil disobedience, where people directly break laws in resistance to the sovereign (even if done by inaction) and therefore do something that is illegal and 'unjust'.
So the reason why representatives can resist is that the constitution legally allows for such a possibility, whereas it does no such thing for the people directly, which is the reason why parliamentary resistance does not break any laws and is not unjust while civil disobedience does break laws and is therefore unjust (and ought not to be done).
This rests on the condition that the constitution is a limited one, so we can't say what's up when the state is a pure monarchy or somesuch. But to make it relevant for us: In light of the previous argument, I'd say that Kant would consider civil disobedience especially illegitimate if government were to be purely run by representatives of the people (i.e. a democracy of somesort).
This is a very reasonable objection.
Really, the only response I can think of is that the way he has written this does not explicitly say that negative resistance can ONLY be done through parliament. When he talks about active resistance, he explicitly says that it is not allowed. He does not explicitly say, though, that negative resistance is not allowed. He says that negative resistance can and should be done through parliament (or else the people are corrupt and the representatives can be bought etc.), but he does not give any argument which says that we cannot practice negative resistance outside of parliament.
So, based only on what we've read of Kant here (and possibly based on what he has actually ever written), we cannot actually say with complete certainty that I'm wrong. Maybe. I dunno.
And I guess if Kant is worried about the "people being corrupt and their representatives being bought" from not practicing negative resistance (in parliament), then it might stand to reason that if the representatives HAVE been bought, then in order for the people not to become corrupt, they would have to practice negative resistance themselves. But if we follow that line of thought, it's possible that we have gone from arguing for Kant to arguing against him, which isn't what I'm aiming to do. (edit: Well, maybe not really. It would just be stretching his words a little farther than he might have intended.)
That's all I've got on that! Haha. For now, at least. I might be able to come up with a better argument if I spent some more time on it to make some more sense of it, but for now that's the best I can do.
EPT
