Kant’s Political Philosophy

Abstract

The most complete statement Kant gave of his political philosophy comes in The Metaphysical Elements of Justice. In this work, Kant expounded a comprehensive theory of law, state and government. This theory was based in certain general principles of justice and morality that followed from the principles of practical reason which Kant saw as given in the idea of the categorical imperative. The underlying normative principles that Kant appealed to in explaining the bases of law, state and government are to be found set out in the preliminary section of The Metaphysical Elements of Justice entitled ‘Introduction to the Elements of Justice’. The substance of the argument of The Metaphysical Elements of Justice is set out in the main section of the work, which is entitled ‘The General Theory of Justice’. In the first part of ‘The General Theory of Justice’, Kant explained the principles of private law. In the second part, he explained the principles of what he identified as the three basic forms or parts of public law, these being municipal law, the law of nations, and world or cosmopolitan law.KeywordsCivil StateCategorical ImperativePolitical SocietyExecutive PowerSovereign PowerThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.