Kant's Doctrine of Right: A Commentary

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ISBN: 9780521196642 | 0521196647
Cover: Hardcover
Copyright: 4/30/2010

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Published in 1797, the Doctrine of Right is Kant's most significant contribution to legal and political philosophy. As the first part of the Metaphysics of Morals, it deals with the legal rights which persons have or can acquire, and aims at providing the grounding for lasting international peace through the idea of the juridical state (Rechtsstaat). This commentary analyzes Kant's system of individual rights, starting from the original innate right to external freedom, and ending with the right to own property and to have contractual and family claims. Clear and to the point, it guides readers through the most difficult passages of the Doctrine, explaining Kant's terminology, method and ideas in the light of his intellectual environment. One of the very few commentaries on the Doctrine of Right available in English, this book will be essential for anyone with a strong interest in Kant's moral and political philosophy.

Introduction and methods of interpretation	p. 1
Placement of the Doctrine of Right within the Metaphysics of Morals	p. 3
Overall structure of the Commentary	p. 5
Kant's geometric method	p. 9
Kant's comments in his works preceding the Doctrine of Right of 1797	p. 13
Achenwall's natural law	p. 15
Additional authors on topics discussed in the Doctrine of Right	p. 20
The idea of the juridical state and the postulate of public law	p. 23
The juridical state (Rechtsstaat), the postulate of public law, and the public nature of law and rights	p. 24
The three formal criteria of the juridical state	p. 32
The substantive criterion of a juridical state	p. 39
The state of nature and the three leges	p. 44
The non-juridical state or the state of nature	p. 45
The distinction between the lex iusti and the lex iuridica	p. 52
The contrasts among the lex iusti, the lex iuridica, and the lex iustitiae	p. 58
Kant's interpretation of the Ulpian formulae	p. 62
A return to public justice	p. 67
Iustitia tutatrix, iustitia commutativa, and iustitia distributiva and their differences	p. 71
Kant's development of Hobbes' distinction between commutative and distributive justice	p. 71
From the two- to the three-part division of public justice	p. 74
The right to freedom	p. 77
The axiom of external freedom	p. 77
The negative and positive aspects of internal freedom	p. 84
The negative and positive aspects of external freedom	p. 87
Closing comments on the positive aspect of external freedom	p. 90
The permissive law in the Doctrine of Right	p. 94
Two concepts of a permissive law	p. 95
The permissive law in the Doctrine of Right as a power-conferring norm	p. 100
The power the permissive law confers	p. 103
The external mine and thine	p. 107
Kant's concepts of possession	p. 107
How is possession as mine possible?	p. 111
Rights in rem to specific objects of choice	p. 119
Intelligible possession of land	p. 122
How is original acquisition of a piece of land possible?	p. 123
The original right to a place on the earth	p. 126
The original community of the land	p. 129
The originally united will	p. 132
The requirement to divide the land as a synthetic principle of law a priori	p. 135
The postulate of public law	p. 138
The "state in the idea"	p. 143
The state in the idea and the juridical state	p. 143
The distinction of three state powers	p. 146
Practical syllogisms of reason and the role of the executive	p. 149
Kant's comparison of the three powers to the propositions in a practical syllogism	p. 157
The doctrine of the three state dignities	p. 161
The separation of powers	p. 163
The state in reality	p. 168
The original contract	p. 169
The forms of state and the "representative system of the people"	p. 175
Revolution in the Doctrine of Right	p. 181
Reforms in the Doctrine of Right	p. 184
International and cosmopolitan law	p. 188
The permission to coerce others to enter a juridical nation state	p. 189
The duty states have to enter a juridical state of nation states	p. 194
The nature of a juridical state of nation states	p. 196
Cosmopolitan law	p. 205
Security for the mine and thine in a state of peace	p. 211
The "idea of public law" and its limits	p. 215
Kant's terminology on the distinction between commutative and distributive justice	p. 215
Kant's treatment of the "four cases" in §§36-40 of the Doctrine of Right	p. 219
On rights that have no judge	p. 226
Contract law I. Why must I keep my promise?	p. 232
The moral capacity to have a contractual claim	p. 233
A contractual claim as a universal right	p. 236
Acquiring a contractual claim in reality	p. 239
Freedom of contract and its limits	p. 240
Why must I keep my promise?	p. 243
Contract law II. Kant's table of contracts	p. 245
The three "pure" forms of contract	p. 247
The twelve aspects highlighted in the table	p. 249
The completeness of the table of contracts	p. 258
Criminal punishment	p. 261
Achenwall's theory of criminal punishment	p. 262
Kant's reasoning behind the criminal law	p. 264
"The criminal law is a categorical imperative"	p. 267
Punishment in the juridical state	p. 270
The amount of punishment: the principle of retribution	p. 272
The death penalty and Kant's position on Beccaria	p. 275
The human being as a person	p. 279
The homo phaenomenon	p. 280
The homo noumenon	p. 282
On the relationship between homo noumenon and homo phaenomenon	p. 285
Imputation of human actions	p. 290
On the logic of "'ought' implies 'can'"	p. 294
"'Ought' implies 'can'" in the prospective application of a rule	p. 294
"'Ought' implies 'can'" in the retrospective application of a rule	p. 296
The system of rules of imputation	p. 298
"Merit" and "moral culpability"	p. 299
The consequences of my action	p. 301
The degree of imputability to merit or to demerit	p. 306
Bibliography	p. 309
Index	p. 321
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Kant's Doctrine of Right: A Commentary

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