The Independence of Right from Ethics Allen Wood Right and ethics ...

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eing equally requires that its freedom be protected from destruction, limitation or usurpation bythe choice of another.And just as morality requires us, when we set our ends and choose means to them, to act onmaxims that hold as universal laws from the impartial standpoint of reason, so reason alsorequires us to recognize every person’s equal right to be free from the constraint of the will ofothers in choosing his actions. This rational requirement of equal freedom consists in having thechoice of every rational being protected from external interference to the fullest extent that it canbe, consistently with a like freedom of all others according to universal law. The coercion that isconsistent with right depends on the claim that everyone’s external freedom must be limited inorder that all may have external freedom. No one’s external freedom should be limited merelyfor the sake of some end, either of that person or of others. But the external freedom of each ofus must be restricted in order that others may be externally free. This is the basis, in Kant’stheory of rational action, for right, the supreme principle of right, and all the claims and duties ofright. In both ethics and in right, there is a rational constraint imposed by the equal recognition ofothers, or, as we may also put it, by the requirement that our actions conform to the constraints ofuniversal law. This formal constraint of reason, requiring the recognition of others as having thesame claims we do, and limiting permissible actions to those conforming to universal law, iscommon to duties of right and of ethics. That is what makes these two spheres both spheres of“morals” (Sitten).To put the same point another way: Neither ethical duties nor duties of right are based on aselfish calculation to the effect that if I treat others in a certain way, they will treat me in asimilar way. Duties of beneficence are not based on the thought that if I help others when theyare in need, then they will (be more likely to?) help me when I am in need, or conversely, that if I10
do not help them, then they (probably?) won’t help me either. Likewise, I do not have a duty torefrain from violating the rightful freedom of others because I think that will make it more likelythat they will refrain from violating mine. Both cases involve, rather, an impartial claim ofreason grounded on the constraint of universal law.What the two spheres have in common, therefore, is their subjection to “the categoricalimperative, which as such only affirms what obligation is: act upon a maxim that can hold as auniversal law” (MS 6:225). I speculate that those who interpret right as grounded on the supremeprinciple of morality that applies to ethics may do so because they are thinking of the moral lawas nothing but the requirement of universalizability. But this is only one aspect of the moralprinciple -- the formal aspect (represented by the Formula of Universal Law or Law of Nature) --which needs to be complemented by formulas that provide ethics with its characteristic ends andmotivation (the Formula of Humanity as End in Itself), and that represent ethical legislation asuniting the ends of all rational beings into a system (the Formula of Autonomy or Realm ofEnds) (G 4:436). The merely formal aspect of ethics is indeed present in right as well, but only asa constraint constituting the idea of obligation in general, which finds different applications inright and in ethics.The constraints of right grounded on the freedom of others, and the constraint of universallaw that applies to ethics, are therefore analogous constraints, grounded on the categoricalimperative that expresses merely “the concept of obligation.” But these constraints are not thesame, because the application of the concept of obligation (of universal law) is different in thetwo spheres. The two constraints are also not such that the one constraint could be derived fromor be dependent upon the other. The ethical claim that others have on our respect and concernrests on their value as ends in themselves, but their claims of right do not. At most, the ethical11
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