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

y another’s choice), insofar as it can exist with the freedom of every other in accordance with auniversal law, [which belongs] to every human being by virtue of his humanity” (MS 6:237).This basis, however, is distinct from the worth of humanity as end in itself that groundsethical duties by providing the motive for obedience to a categorical imperative. For one thing,the worth of humanity as end in itself grounds only non-coercible (ethical) duties, whereas dutiesof right are subject to external coercion. Also, humanity as end in itself grounds duties on an end(humanity as end in itself), whereas claims of right must be independent of every end of action.Ethics places inner (or self-) constraint on the ends-to-be-produced that we adopt (requiring us toinclude our own perfection and the happiness of others among these ends); but right leaves endsentirely to our free choice, requiring us instead to limit our actions so that they are consistentwith the external freedom of others (MS 6:382). Humanity is the ground of right in the sense thatto recognize a person as having humanity is to appreciate the rational structure of action as achoice of means to an end set by the agent, and thus the rational requirement that the choice ofany rational agent of be independent of the constraining will of another in choosing actions asmeans to one’s own ends. That rational requirement, impartially regarded (hence subject touniversal law), is the foundation of right.Right as external constraint, and as right as duty. There is even a rather strong sense inwhich a duty of right does not directly ground my doings or refrainings at all. Recall that thelegislation of right does not carry with it duty itself as the legislative incentive. And notice againthat Kant states the universal principle of right not as a proposition that tells us what to do, butsimply as a proposition that tells us which actions count as ‘right’. It tells us, as Kant says, nothow we should limit our actions, but how they are limited in accordance with external freedomand hence how they may be rightfully limited by others. A right action is one that may not, by14