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

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therefore be unlimited if others are to be externally free as well. This is the ground of thequalification: “consistent with other demands of reason,” that must be added to the rationaldemand for external freedom that each rational being must make.The ends of morality are objective or binding on us because they are ends we recognize asrationally valid irrespective of the particular wishes, desires, ends or interests of individuals. Thehappiness of each individual has a moral claim on other individuals because it has a value thatcan be recognized by any rational being. Persons are ends in themselves because they have avalue that is not conditional on anyone’s empirical wishes or desires but makes an impartialclaim on us through a command of reason. Something analogous, but quite distinct, is true of theother constitutive necessity of rational nature I have just identified – namely, its requirement thatit be free to choose actions in furtherance of ends set by it rather than having its actions forced toserve ends it does not share.Coercion is a restriction on external freedom: To coerce someone is to force them to act ina way that conforms to your will rather than theirs, and makes their actions serve ends you haveset which are not ends they have set. Kant’s theory of right is based on the idea that the only waycoercion could ever be justified is in the name of protecting external freedom – the very freedomthat coercion annuls, infringes or limits. A person cannot be justifiably coerced for the sake ofthe value of any end whatever: neither the happiness of another, nor the happiness of all, noreven the happiness of the person who is coerced, could provide an adequate ground for thecoercion of a free and rational being. Such a reason could consist only in the fact that thecoercion in question is required in order to protect the external freedom of rational agents ingeneral – rightful freedom, external freedom according to universal law. Kant takes it to be ananalytic judgment that coercion that protects rightful freedom is itself in accord with right (MS8
6:231). “Right and authorization to use coercion therefore mean one and the same thing” (MS6:232).This is the basic reason why right and not ethics can be the source of duties whosefulfillment may be externally coerced. Ethical duties are based on ends – on the rationalrequirement that we set and pursue certain ends that are also duties --which Kant calls “duties ofvirtue” (MS 6:382-385). These ends belong to the categories: our own perfection, and thehappiness of others (MS 6:385-388). Because a rational being cannot be externally coerced to setan end, the fulfillment of ethical duties cannot be externally coerced: “Duties of virtue cannot besubject to external legislation simply because they have to do with an end which (or the havingof which) is also a duty. No external legislation can bring about one’s setting an end forhimself,…although it may prescribe actions that lead to an end without the subject making it hisend” (MS 6:239). But it would be wrong (contrary to right) to try to coerce the fulfillment of anethical duty by coercing the agent to fulfill an end that agent has not set. The fulfillment ofethical duties must always be through self-constraint, not external constraint or coercion (MS6:379). The attempt to derive duties of right from the supreme principle of morality musttherefore necessarily fail, since the only duties that can be derived from this principle are dutiesit would be wrong (contrary to right) to coerce anyone to fulfill.Right and universal law. It is not a requirement of merely prudential reason, still less ofmerely instrumental reason, that we should will to be free to choose actions that further our ownends. For this requirement applies not only to our self-interested actions, but to all our actions assuch. As far as reason permits, we will them to be chosen by us to serve our ends, rather thanbeing forced to serve the ends of others. Further, when we take the standpoint of reason,abstracting from all partiality to ourselves, we also see from this perspective that every rational9
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