Abstract
At the heart of Kant’s legal-political philosophy lies a liberal, republican ideal of justice understood in terms of private independence (non-domination) and subjection to public laws securing freedom for all citizens as equals. Given this basic commitment of Kant’s, it is puzzling to many that he does not consider democracy a minimal condition on a legitimate state. In addition, many find Kant ideas of reform or improvement of the historical states we have inherited vague and confusing. The aim of this paper is to untangle both puzzles by exploring Kant’s idea of self-governance. I argue that Kant’s idea of self-governance gives us a very good starting point for thinking about how to leave room for a variety of political systems—different ideals—that have grown out of and responding to different contingent historical and cultural circumstances. It also helps us id entify those areas where we want to take extra care to build in safeguards to secure stability and to take sufficiently seriously humankind’s truly nasty sides. Autogovernanca e Reforma no Republicanismo Liberal de Kant - Teoria Ideal e Nao-Ideal na Doutrina do Direito em Kant No centro da filosofia juridico-politica de Kant esta um ideal liberal, republicano de justica compreendido em termos de independencia privada (nao-dominacao) e sujeicao as leis publicas que garantem a liberdade para todos os cidadaos como iguais. Dado este compromisso basico de Kant, e intrigante para muitos que ele nao considere a democracia uma condicao minima para um Estado legitimo. Alem disso, muitos consideram as ideias de Kant quanto a reforma ou melhoria dos estados historicos que herdamos, vagas e confusas. O objetivo deste artigo e desembaracar os dois quebra-cabecas explorando a ideia de auto-governanca de Kant. Eu argumento que a ideia de auto-governanca de Kant nos da um bom ponto de partida para pensar em como deixar espaco para uma variedade de sistemas politicos — diferentes ideais — que cresceram e responderam a diferentes contingencias historicas e circunstâncias culturais. Tambem nos ajuda a identificar as areas em que queremos ter um cuidado extra para construir salvaguardas para garantir a estabilidade segura e para levar suficientemente a serio os lados verdadeiramente desagradaveis da humanidade.
Highlights
Resumo: No coração da filosofia politico-jurídico de Kant repousa um ideal de justiça liberal, republicano, compreendido em termos de independência privada e submissão a leis públicas que garantem a liberdade de todos os cidadãos como iguais
Regarding the second question concerning how Kant’s ideal theory relates to non-ideal considerations of various kinds, such as historical particularity and reform, there is currently a lot less discussion in the literature, and, as mentioned in the introduction, this is the main area with regard to which the present paper aims to make a new contribution
If this account is correct, one important aspect of reforming these institutions must be to build mechanisms ensuring that the public authority is, exactly, exercised as it is should be
Summary
At the heart of Kant’s legal-political philosophy lies a liberal, republican idea of justice understood in terms of private independence (non-domination) and instead subjection to public, universal laws securing freedom for all as equals. My basic stance is that Kant gives us an extremely good starting point for thinking about our liberal legal-political structures, including how to improve or reform them in good ways His approach helps us identify where we want to leave quite a bit of space for variation between different systems due to their different particular histories and circumstances, and where we want to be cautious and build extra safeguards in a prudential effort to take sufficiently seriously worries concerning stability as well as humankind’s truly nasty sides. I proceed to defend Kant’s basic framework, arguing that part of its strength concerns the way in which the ideal (freedom based) principles set the framework within which the non-ideal (prudential and historically contingent or particular) considerations are given due consideration This approach makes the idea of the just state imaginable as “stable for the right reasons,” to borrow Rawls’s useful term, and it makes it easier to identify and rectify possible mistakes made by Kant, and by our current legal-political practices
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