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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

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
standards of right, be coercively prevented, while an action that is wrong (unrecht), according tothose same standards, must be subject to coercive prevention. My duties of right do not, underthe legislation of right, exercise rational constraint directly on me (this they can do only whenregarded under the legislation of ethics); rather, they specify the use of coercive force that othersmay rightfully use on me, and it is that coercive force exercised on me that constitutes thebindingness on me of a duty of right. It is in that sense only that duties of right fall under acategorical imperative: they do so for a rational being that sees right actions not merely asactions to which I may be restricted by external compulsion (consistent with the rightful freedomof all under universal law) but also actions to which I must internally restrict myself based on theethical incentive to do only those actions that conform to the concept of universally bindinglegislation. That is the sense in which the “law of right” can be called a “categorical imperative,which as such only affirms what obligation is: act upon a maxim that can hold as a universallaw” (MS 6:225).The concept of a maxim that can hold as universal law is connected, Kant is claiming, withthe concept of obligation, but at a level more abstract than either right or ethics, and this conceptapplies to the obligations of ethics and right in different ways. In ethics, it is applied to themaxims through which individual rational agents ought to govern their own conduct through themotive of duty and with inner (or self-) constraint. As a rational moral agent, I ought to rejectmaxims as contrary to duty if they cannot harmonize with universal law (G 4:421), and I ought toadopt any maxim that comprehends within the same rational volition itself as a universal law forall rational beings (G 4:440).As applied to right, however, this concept concerns not individual self-government, but theconditions under which rational beings may be externally constrained by a commanding will15
Page 3 and 4: imperative of duty, then Kant seems
Page 5 and 6: applies to action prudentially: Pra
Page 7 and 8: themselves -- such as gods, or robo
Page 9 and 10: 6:231). “Right and authorization
Page 11 and 12: do not help them, then they (probab
Page 13: Coercion is never justified in the
Page 17 and 18: In other words, either duties of ri
Page 19 and 20: the less rich and less powerful. If
Page 21 and 22: “Having the resources to practice
Page 23: “In our present condition, when g

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

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?