Kant begins by exploring what constitutes a “Right”. It firstly applies to the relation between one person and another. Secondly, it concerns the will of both people in this relationship. Thirdly, the end that each will intends to achieve is explored. “Every action which by itself or by its maxim enables the freedom of each individual’s will to co-exist with the freedom of everyone else in accordance with a universal law is right” (133). The Universal Law of Right: “let your external actions be such that the free application of your will can co-exist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal law” (133).
This Right involves and legitimizes the use of coercion. Anyone who attempts to subvert this freedom can be coerced into conforming with the freedom. The governing authority is there to make sure that people conform to the freedom in question.
The State then fulfills an important role as the guarantor of the freedom that everyone has come to enjoy, and this involves the use of force and coercion to make sure that everyone remains free. “Experience teaches us the maxim that human beings act in a violent and malevolent manner, and that they tend to fight among themselves until an external coercive legislation supervenes” (137). This is because men will act independently, without a duty to anyone but themselves.
Citizens have three basic rights in this construction of the state and the individual: firstly, they have the freedom to obey only the laws of their own state and no other; secondly, they have civil equality in recognizing no one as being superior to themselves; and thirdly, they have civil independence to owe their freedom to no one other than everyone in the commonwealth. People who have a stake in the system should be given the right to vote and influence this commonwealth. Those who are not capable of such an important intervention should not be given this right (apprentices, servants, minors, women, etc.)
“This dependence upon the will of others and consequent inequality does not, however, in any way conflict with the freedom and equality of all men as human beings who together constitute a people. On the contrary, it is only by accepting these conditions that such a people can become a state and enter into a civil constitution…For from the fact that as passive members of the state, they can demand to be treated by all others in accordance with laws of natural freedom and equality, it does not follow that they also have a right to influence or organize the state itself as active members, or to cooperate in introducing particular laws. Instead, it only means that the positive laws to which the voters agree, of whatever sort they may be, must not be at variance with the natural laws of freedom and with the corresponding equality of all members of the people whereby they are allowed to work their way up from their passive condition to an active one” (140).
People in the State of Nature have an unbridled freedom, a freedom to do and act in any way that they see fit. However, Kant believes that this freedom is not accompanied with duty, and thus that people in nature only act in their self interest. He has a similar view to State of Nature issues as does Hobbes. Kant believes that people, “give up their external freedom in order to receive it back at once as members of a commonwealth” (140). The State of Nature freedom is basically swapped for a freedom in a commonwealth, which is an, “entire and unfinished freedom” (140).
The ruler is the sovereign, and that person is the director of the government. However, while they make the ultimate decision, they are still bound by the law. This leader can not themselves pass judgement, they are not a tyrant, but they can appoint judges to do this for them.
“There can be no rightful resistance on the part of the people to the legislative head of state” (144). “The reason why it is the duty of the people to tolerate even what is apparently the most intolerable misuse of supreme power is that it is impossible ever to conceive of their resistance to the supreme legislation as being anything other than unlawful and liable to nullify the entire legal constitution. For before such resistance could be authorized, there would have to be a public law which permitted the people to offer resistance.” (144-5) The people may, however, refuse to participate in the political process and thus negatively resist.
Then, Kant moves on to talk about an International Right and eventually a Cosmopolitan Right. This will not be looked at in this summary, though it will be noted that it does represent an interesting example of how history moves from a pre-Hegelian perspective: There are ruptures in order (in almost a post-structural sense), and this brings about new orders, or, in Kant’s terms, Rights.
