Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1712 - 1778
[1]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17)
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[2]
The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
[we might call it: “an essay in armchair anthropology”]
Do we get to suppose just any damn thing??
Presumably not!
An example:
Rousseau surmises, “The horse, the cat, the bull, and even the ass are generally of
greater stature, and always more robust, and have more vigour, strength and courage,
when they run wild in the forests than when bred in the stall.”
[Comment: - He evidently knew nothing about horse racing, bullfighting, etc]
“It is thus with man also: as he becomes sociable and a slave, he grows weak, timid and
servile; his effeminate way of life totally enervates his strength and courage.
[Comment: But empirically, this is just not true. Many slaves are strong and courageous
and quite uneffeminate. Olympic athletes can outrun (or, outjump, or outlift ... and
certainly beat at hockey! - untrained natives any time; and plenty of modern soldiers,
raised in affluence, are extremely courageous.]
[Comment: in Canada in World War I, the Canadian soldiers raised on relatively
prosperous Canadian farms were better soldiers than their enemies, partly because they
were in physically much better condition;
etc.!]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17)
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[3]
[Comment: How credible is any such account? - Prima facie, not very
The question is: are the conclusions he wants to come to
- driving his selection of premises from which to derive them?
A plausible reconstruction:
1. Suppose: primitive man was primitive (a plausible conjecture!)
2. Whatever else, the primitiveness presumably consisted in having less “things” than
we do* [see further discussion...]
3. So in civilization, things are bound to be more complex and elaborate
4. Therefore, there are more things to differ among men
5. And exchange tends to ramify - division of labor, etc.
6. Therefore, “inequality increases”
[Comment: : so what?]
7. There’s also a claim that misery increases....
[Comment: It clearly does not follow - and is almost certainly not true....
8. Also that occasions for quarrel increase [this might be true ...]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17)
[4]
• Can primitive man “suffer” (as Rousseau denies)?
• (“I should be glad to have explained to me, what kind of misery a free
being, whose heart is at ease and whose body is in health, can possibly
suffer.”)
• [Comment: How many of those bodies were “in health”?
• - Their life expectancy was pretty low....
• - Rousseau is aware that there’s a lot of “natural selection” going on the weak and sick don’t grow up in such conditions...
• [Comment: OK - so, for one good example: - how about violence?
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Well: what was the murder rate among Early Man?
Rousseau must think it was zero, or thereabouts.
There’s considerable evidence on the other side:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17)
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[5]
- [Comments: Robert Wright, in an award-winning book, Nonzero (1994), says:
“There are hunter-gatherer societies that don't exhibit the elaborately organized violence
denoted by the term "war."
* But often what turns out to be lacking is the organization, not the violence:
* The warless !Kung San were billed in the title of one book as The Harmless People
- yet during the 1950s and 1960s, their homicide rate was between 20 and 80 times as high
as that found in industrialized nations.
* Eskimos, to judge by popular accounts, are all cuddliness and generosity. Yet early this
century, after westerners first made contact with a fifteen-family Eskimo village, they
found that every adult male had been involved in a homicide.
* Hunter-gatherers have warred lavishly. The main purpose of the raids - to kill men, steal
women, and settle grievances, real or imagined - is a time-honored goal of primitive
warfare.
* There’s ample evidence that the Stone Age was a bloody time.
* In a cave in Germany, clusters of skulls more than 5,000 years old were found arrayed,
as one observer put it, "like eggs in a basket." Most of the thirty-four victims had been
knocked in the head with stone axes before decapitation.
Rousseau
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[6]
Rousseau’s apparent argument: When life is more complicated, there’s
more to fight about
[In any case, there’s more to differ about:
(But it does not follow that there’s more fighting]
We can also agree with Rousseau that there’s more to be miserable about
[example: many more beautiful women (or attractive men) to lose one’s head
over, to choose among, to be the subject of pained rejection by, etc....]
[another example: the sense that one will never be able to write a symphony as
good as Beethoven’s ....]
[Comment: Exchange thrives on and breeds difference
If by “inequality” you mean difference, then Rousseau is to that extent right...
But - who cares?
[Note: We all (or only almost all?) benefit hugely from this ramification]
Rousseau
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[7]
What is Inequality?
What does he mean by ‘inequality’??
To be interesting, this has to be normative.
Relevant Inequality: Some have more of something that other people would like to have
Does Rousseau mean that inequalities in, say, piano-playing ability are equal in the state
of nature but not in civilized society?
[Note: How would he know? Or anyone?
But that wouldn’t be too plausible as regards, say, sex or physique...
Example: The IQ controversy, of the 70s
People argued that intelligence is an artifact of society, upbringing, socialization, etc,
Or that intelligence is a “myth”
The counter: robustness of IQ results under millions of measurements - made under
controlled conditions testing all the variables anyone proposed to “explain” differences
- plus commonsense experience (some little kids are just obviously MUCH brighter than
others, and stay that way...)
- makes it so reasonable to suppose that intelligence is real and partly inherited that it is,
on the whole, unreasonable to deny it
Rousseau
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[8]
[Comment: Again, the main question is: so what?
[IF people are allowed to use their powers as they will, then in a market society some
will no doubt become much more prosperous than others, some more reputatious, etc.
But - a belief that there’s something wrong with this is - “interesting”!
But what would motivate it??
[More of this when we get to Marx and then Rawls]
Morals:
Rousseau: “It appears, at first view, that men in a state of nature, having no moral
relations or determinate obligations one with another, could not be either good or bad,
virtuous or vicious”
“But ... it will be proper to suspend judgment ...
till we have weighed the matter in
the scales of impartiality
and seen whether virtues or vices preponderate among
civilised men;
and whether their virtues do them more good than their vices do harm
[fair enough - if one could do it.
BUT a conjecture that civilization loses in this regard is wildly implausible
- As Rousseau’s Social Contract confirms! .... ]
[Comment: Rousseau’s essay seems to be generally hogwash .... and an example to
us all of the perils of “armchair anthropology”!]
Rousseau
[9]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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He opens with a famous saying:
“Man was, and is, born free; yet everywhere he is in chains.”
[[Comment: We have to question the sense in which we are “born free”]
He adds:
“One who believes himself master of others is nonetheless a greater slave than
they.”
- A charming claim, but is it true?
- It would seem to be a moral claim in a rather different sense of ‘moral’ than
what we have been using ...
- More like a claim about our psychologies ...
but not, alas, a very plausible one as such...
“ How did this change occur? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? I
believe I can answer that.”
OK: let’s see!
Rousseau
[10]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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Further, Rousseau says:
“Yet the social order is a sacred right that serves as a basis for all the others.
However, this right does not come from nature;
it is therefore based on conventions.”
[We might ask whether those are the only two alternatives. For example,
might it be maintained that this “right” is issued by a “strong man”?
(or, of course, God -- but that reduces to Nature, so needn’t be considered separately as we’ve already seen!]
As to other “strong men”, Rousseau will address that soon - stand by.]
Rousseau doesn’t have a theory of conventions a la Hume
[a “convention” is analyzed by Hume as a set of coordinated responses to each other’s
behavior. Essentially, it’s established by iterated games...]
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Rousseau’s version of the “social contract” --->
Rousseau
[11]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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1. A First Convention is Necessary [ but, this is a Moral “convention”:
“The act by which we become a people”
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- This is an interesting idea, not explicit in either Hobbes or Locke.
We should ask: when is this supposed to have happened?
Clearly, not at some particular time for everyone
The “social contract” is a construct
That is: something we infer must have in some sense “happened”
- If anything of the sort “happens,” we must say that
(1) it happens in individuals, in each life
(2) perhaps not in all of them
(3) perhaps gradually
(4) and in varying versions
The philosopher tries to assemble the most plausible package
The general idea is: find the rule (or, principle) that we will adopt provided all others do too
- and if they don’t? (as they surely won’t, not all of them)
Varying analyses about that are possible -->
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Rousseau
[12]
“Social Contract”
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Varying analyses: what to do about “non-contractors” :
- 1) We can abandon any idea of morality
- 2) We can deal with people case-by-case: cooperating with those who appear
ready to cooperate, defending ourselves against those who do not
- 3) We can invest time and energy trying to persuade people to go along
[social philosophers do that ...]
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Basically, we make a theoretical sketch whose fundamental rationality
- we hope - will display itself as we go....
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It’s an exercise in social decision theory.
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Rousseau
[13]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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2. Freedom via Self-Given Rules
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To find: A “form of association by means of which each one, though uniting with all, obeys only
himself -- and remains, therefore, as free as before”
[?? we need to think about this ...]
The idea is that if we are laying down the rules for ourselves, then we are still free.
What to make of this?
Hobbes argues that if we do something of our own volition, then we are free, even if what
we do imposes restrictions.
(example: we freely make agreements, but then we are obliged to keep the agreement ...)
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Consider Rousseau’s claim in light of Hobbes’ view:
in the State of Nature, we are free from government,
but (he claims) not at all free in relation to everyone else (we are “at war” all the time);
government ( supposedly) frees us from our fellow individuals
- by (arguably) enslaving us to it
This makes us “as free as before” if being a slave of our fellows is no better than being a slave to
government
.... but, is it??
Rousseau
[14]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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further on Freedom via Self-Given Rules:
Rousseau says that the Social Contract is “Equal for everyone - Each “gains [at least?] the
equivalent of everything he loses”
[note: This need not be “equal” in any other sense the strong and smart come out of the Contract stronger and smarter than the weak and dim, even if all
come out better than they were before]
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No Right of Force:
“No one is strong enough to be master forever, unless he transforms his force into right, obedience
into duty.
“Force is only physical power, not moral power.
“Yielding to it is at most an act of prudence. In what sense could it be a duty?
[Hobbes, remember, holds that we do have duties to the Sovereign, precisely because he has the
power to compel us...]
Rousseau: “Might, then, does not make right. Only legitimate power obligates.”
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Who’s right??
Suggestion: prudence impels us to agree to civilization (with all its duties)
What we agree to in doing so (“signing” the “social contract”) is the source of duties.
Hence, freedom as self-imposed rules. (More of this from Kant, as we’ll see..)
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Rousseau
[15]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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still more about “Freedom via Self-Given Rules”:
3. The individual is subordinate to the community
(or is he?):
Rousseau : Social Contract involves the “total alienation
of each associate, with all his rights, to the whole community”]
- This sounds pretty ominous!
Is it? - Some observations:
(1) Note that what we are “alienated to” is the “whole community” - not the
government
(2) it is easy to slide from that to political totalitarianism if we assume that the
government adequately represents the “whole community”
- but we shouldn’t assume that!
(3) what we are “alienated to” is the moral principle(s) that would [we
suppose] be valid for the whole community
So, “total alienation” means that we are to be ready to be judged by these principles, and
to judge others by them.
So they are inescapable (in principle...)
Rousseau
[16]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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still more about “Freedom via Self-Given Rules”:
How bad a thing it is to “surrender our natural freedom” depends on just what the “agreement”
actually commits you to.
The point is: it does not automatically commit us to totalitarianism (contra Hobbes...)
(4) note: Who is the “communty”? It could (should?) be everybody - not just fellow residents of
Geneva .. [Kant will emphasize this: the moral community is all rational persons]
(5) Rousseau says: “No rights can be reserved to private individuals”
What’s meant is that no person has basic rights that others do not have
- Because the idea is to find a single principle for all.
- this is impartiality: nobody gets special treatment at the level of principle
- but this does not mean that (e.g.) your wife doesn’t get special treatment from you!
We all can have an impartial right to be partial to some people (we do treat our friends, loved
ones, etc., better than strangers)
Why would the social contract be impartial?
Because you wouldn’t sign if it wasn’t... the people who perceive that they get a bad deal will
refuse to accept it..
But it’s only useful insofar as it is accepted.
So it has to be acceptable to all ...
Rousseau
[17]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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4. The General Will
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Each puts all his power in common under the supreme direction of the
general will
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-> this produces a “public person”
[question: what does this mean?
- not a monarch
- but rather, an individual who is publicly responsible - ready to defend his actions
before
other people.
This is any individual - not a “representative” or a king, e.g. We are all to be
responsible.
these are public principles - the ones to be used by us in relation to each other
The general will is an idea - it is Morality (that’s the idea) - it is not some mysterious
personage or committee....
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Rousseau
[18]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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“The General Will Cannot Err -- But the people’s deliberations do; People are not
corrupt, but often fooled, and appear to want what is bad.”
Why can’t it?
- because the “general will” is a creature of art:
“it” is the “willer” of the basic principles of human association.
So: who (or what) wills the “general will”?
note (1): “Generalities” do not have wills
note (2) But perhaps what is meant is that we all will this, insofar as we are part of the
community (?)
[or perhaps: we all will it, if we have any sense...]
[so: it is what should be meant!]
note (3): see #8 below where Rousseau contrasts the general will with the “will of all”
Rousseau
[19]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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[from #8 - a bit out of order]
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General Will ≠ Will of all
General Will : common interest
Will of all : private interests: a “sum” of private wills
What defeats GW: factions, partial associations at the expense of the whole
“there are no longer as many voters as people, but rather as many as there are
associations”
If one association prevails over the others, there is no longer a general
will, but merely a private opinion
To prevent this, there must be no partial society in the State, so that each
citizen gives only his own opinion
[i.e., let’s have no political parties, no trade unions....
- a far cry from the modern state!]
[BUT: Just what do we do with all these “private opinions”???]
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Rousseau
[20]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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more on the “general will”: contrast of Private vs. General Will:
“Whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained - will be
forced to be free”
[This seems to be verbal legerdemain:
after all, force and freedom are by definition incompatible -What the person who violates the freedom of others is forced to be is, not free,
but respectful of the freedom of others..
We “lose natural freedom” ->
but in return, we gain:
– (1) civil freedom and
– (2) proprietorship [= ownership] of all that we possess.
[possession is replaced by property]
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Natural freedom: force of the individual
Civil freedom: force of the general will.
Rousseau
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[21]
“Social Contract”: property rights
5. Real Estate (property)
“The State is master of all goods through the social contract, the basis of
all rights”
(1) “Every person naturally has a right to everything he needs; but
(2) the positive act that makes him the proprietor of some good excludes it
from all the rest -> no longer has any right to the community’s goods
((2) amounts to a definition of private property - but not (1))
>> right of the first occupant -weak in the state of nature, but “respectable to
every civilized man”
[Q: just what does he mean by (1)?? Is this a negative or a positive right, e.g.?]
Rousseau
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[22]
“Social Contract”: property rights
Is the community a robber? - “How can a man or a people seize an immense territory
and deprive the whole human race of it except through punishable usurpation?”
Answer: the community thereby only assures them of legitimate possession,
it changes use (possession) into property
5a. The “community” is in charge:
The right of each private individual to his own resources is always subordinate to the
community’s right to all ...
[Here’s where we have to be very careful:
In what sense does the “community” have the “right to all”?
[JN’s answer:] only in the sense that the fundamental principles for the whole
community govern everything.
This may be incompatible with government seizure of private goods ... ]
Rousseau
[23]
• now, for politics:
• 6. The Sovereign
• Public deliberation can obligate the subjects to the sovereign, but the
sovereign itself cannot in any way be obligated
• Harm any member, attack the whole!
• “So, duty and interest equally obligate the contracting parties to
mutual assistance.”
• “The sovereign, formed in this manner, cannot have any interest
contrary to those who formed it .... [?]”
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[Why not? The idea is the same as in Hobbes: the sovereign is appointed by and
“represents” the whole community.
So, its “interests” can only be our interests...
[Which doesn’t keep governments from becoming despotic....]
Rousseau
[24]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”: Equality
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7. Equality
The compact substitutes moral and legitimate equality for natural physical
inequality [yes - but, meaning what?]
With bad governments, equality is illusory (“serving to maintain the poor in his
misery and the rich in their usurpation”)
[Here there is an implication: that the poor are poor because the rich have “usurped”
them... But need this be true? Only if the government misuses its powers.]
“In fact, laws are always useful to those who have and harmful to those who have
not
> the state is only advantageous to men insofar as (1) they all have something, and (2)
none has anything superfluous”
This seems obviously false. The state can defend people who have “superfluous”
amounts. The question is whether it should
But who’s to say what’s “superfluous”? Rousseau and his friends?
[probably ....]
Rousseau
[25]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”: Equality
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Equality, continued ...
Recall that earlier, Rousseau says “Equal for everyone - Each “gains [at least?] the
equivalent of everything he loses”
- as I pointed out, this is not a way in which people end up with equal amounts of
income or goods (or whatever)
Rather, they are moral equals (as in Locke: nobody is anybody else’s boss, by nature)
“Therefore, the social compact tacitly includes the following engagement: that
whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the entire
body:
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that citizen will be forced to be free.
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For this is the condition that guarantees him against all personal dependence and alone
gives legitimacy to civil engagements which without it would be absurd, tyrannical, and
subject to the most enormous abuses.
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Rousseau
[26]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”: Equality
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Equality, continued ...
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Notes:
This question about equality - in what ways we have a right to be equal - dominates
contemporary discussions of political philosophy.
Rousseau has poured a certain amount of gasoline on these fires ....
Or maybe not? - it’s a matter of interpretation.
The big question is: in just what does the required “equality” consist?
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[27]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
9. The Limits of Sovereign Power
Each person alienates only that part of his power, goods, and freedom whose
use matters to the community
-> though the sovereign alone is the judge of what matters?! ...
[The point: principle decides this, and principle is the unanimous underlying
“agreement”]
The sovereign, for its part, cannot impose on the subjects any burden that is
useless to the community. [as in Hobbes - “needful”]
[This can be taken in two quite opposite ways:
(1) one idea is that there is a criterion of usefulness which imposes restrictions
on what the government can do
(2) A very different one: whatever the government decides to do is by
definition “useful” - so, no actual restrictions on what they can do are
imposed...
Which does Rousseau mean??
Social Duties are obligatory only because mutual
Rousseau
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[28]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract” - general summary:
10. Equality of right, and justice are derived from each man’s preference for
himself (i.e. from the nature of man)
[here Rousseau is in the tradition of Hobbes and Locke]
The general will “can only consider what is general”
“ - not the number of votes but the common interest that unites them is what
counts. The sovereign only knows the nation as a body, and makes no
distinctions among those who compose it”
Thus, there is no genuine renunciation of private good
- We only “exchange an uncertain, precarious mode of existence for another
that is better and safer”
[This is liberalism, again...]
Rousseau
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[29]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract” - further discussions:
11. Democracy
It is contrary to the natural order that the majority govern and the
minority be governed
[What does that mean? Compare with Locke’s thesis that the community
“must be moved by its greater part” ....]
People can’t remain constantly assembled to attend to all the affairs of the
public
So, “virtue is the principle of a republic. For all these conditions cannot
subsist without it. “
[What is meant here by ‘principle’?
One possible answer is this:
there is no substitute for good people, if a community is to thrive.
It’s pretty hard to deny that.
But that is very far from saying that government should put power into
the hands of “the virtuous”, for example ...]
Rousseau
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[30]
Further on Democracy:
“No government is so subject to civil wars and internal agitation as the
democratic.
[question: is that because in monarchies, opposition is exterminated before it
can get very far?]
Abuse of the laws by the government is a lesser evil than the corruption of
the legislators themselves
- which is the inevitable consequence if private interests are allowed to
influence public affairs ...
[But what else is “abuse of the laws by government”? - depending on what we
mean by ‘private interest.’]
In democracies, the desire to get re-elected may be the prime cause of “abuse
of the laws”.... Is that less bad than “private interest”?]
“If there were a people of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. Such a
perfect government, though, is not suited to mere men.”
[compare Hume: if people were perfectly virtuous, we wouldn’t need
government at all! Thus, we wouldn’t need Democratic govt either...!]
Rousseau
[31]
More on Democracy:
• 11.1 On Voting
• Dissension and debate indicates the ascendance of private interests - and the
decline of the State.
• Only one law requires unanimous consent: the Social Contract.
• Apart from that primitive contract, the vote of the majority always obligates all
the others.
• [compare Locke ....]
• “The citizen consents to all the laws, even those passed against his will. This
presupposes that all of the characteristics of the general will are still in the
majority. When that ceases, there is no longer any freedom, no matter which
side one takes. ...”
• [An important point!
• “Pure” democracy is a frightening thing, if unconstrained by rights of
citizens against majorities...]
Rousseau
[32]
More on Democracy:
• 11.2. Representatation:
• “Sovereignty cannot be represented for the same reason it cannot be alienated. - The
general will cannot be represented”
• [Why not? Or, what does this mean?
• If that’s really true, is good government possible?]
• “Deputies are merely agents.”
• (“The English are deceived in thinking themselves to be free - As soon as parliament is
elected, they are slaves again. Modern people have no slaves -- they are slaves”]
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12. Rousseau’s Final thoughts on government:
“All things considered, I don’t see that the sovereign can preserve the exercise of its
rights among us unless it is very small.”
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[possible example: a condo.
This is a voluntary small community. Everyone agrees to the rules upon buying into it.
With a large political community, this is scarcely possible
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[33]
So - where does that leave us?
Rousseau is concerned to lay down the ideal principles which governments ought to
respect...
He isn’t very clear about what to do if they don’t
Nor is he very clear about what those principles are Except insofar as he remains in the tradition of Hume - there should be laws against
violence and supporting legitimate property ownership and exchanges
Otherwise, his frequent references to “community” are unclear
- and because they are unclear, can be seen to be quite scary
[Later socialists tended to look to Rousseau The French revolution: “liberty, equality, and fraternity”
But - equality and fraternity at the expense of liberty? - Or, only so much
equality and fraternity as are compatible with liberty??
We don’t know!
Next two slides: an example - religion
Rousseau
[34]
Rousseau on Religion
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13. Religion
“Christianity tries to establish a spiritual kingdom on earth - This causes
internal divisions that never cease
- the “otherworldly kingdom” became, under a visible leader, the most violent
despotism in the world”
The “religion of the citizen” makes people bloodthirsty and intolerant
- believing it performs a holy act when killing whoever does not accept its
Gods.
Rousseau
[35]
Rousseau on Religion
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Religion
Christianity:
- “its homeland is not of this world
- antisocial
“They obey indifferently all leaders” [e.g. Nazis] [roots in Augustine on this ...]
Christianity preaches nothing but servitude and dependence. True Christians are
made to be slaves
Rousseau
[36]
Rousseau on Religion
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Religion: Toleration
Subjects do not have to account for their opinions to the sovereign, except insofar
as these matter to the community
The Dogmas of a religion are of no interest to the State
- except insofar as they relate to morality
>> Tolerate only the Tolerant:
One should tolerate all (and only) religions that tolerate others “Whoever says “There is no salvation outside of the church!” should be chased out
of the State!”
Rousseau
[37]
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
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14. Rousseau’s proposed Civic Religion
Civil profession of faith: >>
“The dogmas in the civil religion ought to be simple and few in number.
The existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent, foresighted, and
providential divinity;
the afterlife, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the
sanctity of the social contract and the laws, are the positive dogmas.
As for the negative ones, I limited them to one: intolerance, which belongs
with the cults we have excluded.”
No national religion -The State can obligate no one to believe them (the above “dogmas”), but can
banish anyone who does not: not for being impious but for being unsociable
[interesting thought: is there a difference? Religious people often don’t seem
to think so!]
[End of Rousseau lecture...]
Kant
Kant’s Social Contract
•
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
[38]
Kant
[39]
Kant’s Social Contract
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Background: His parents, especially his mother, were pietistic. Kant became
a dissenting deist and would not set foot in a church in later life.
His whole life was academic.
He became a major-league thinker about astronomy
- and spent his entire life within 15 km of the centre of Königsburg (in East
Prussia, next door to Lithuania)
A famous saying of Kant’s:
“Two things fill me with awe: The starry heavens above, and the moral
law within!”
His influence on philosophy was immense, and perhaps second to none - even
Plato and Aristotle.
Kant
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[40]
Kant’s normative political theory is seen by him
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as a department of more general moral theory.
(correctly, in my view)
•
It has to do with “Justice.” (Our selection is from his late work, Rechtslehre,
or “Doctrine of Right”, or “Metaphysical Principles of Justice”
Which part of morals is justice?
Answer: it’s the department of morals having to do with compulsion: with
what people can be made to do whether they like it or not.
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[41]
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Kant’s Moral Theory
(found especially in his most widely-read moral treatise,
Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals)
The task of that treatise was to identify the fundamental principle of
the subject.
• To get to this, we need to make a major distinction: between
• a priori knowledge and
• empirical knowledge
• a priori: “prior” to experience - purely rational, does not require
empirical observation
• a posteriori: “posterior” to experience - i.e., it requires observation
• Kant holds that the fundamental principles of morals have to be a
priori
(Is this possible?? Hume denies it ... This is the big divide between the
empiricists and the rationalists ... [so it is claimed in the phil. biz...])
[42]
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Kant’s Moral Theory
He finds this fundamental principle in a famous formula - widely known as “The Categorical Imperative”
(more precisely, the “Supreme Categorical Imperative”) [we’ll state it shortly]
- which he claims, as we have seen, must be a priori
About the “Categorical” Imperative:
This is the third in is list of three basic types of imperatives:
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1) “technical”
2) “assertoric”
3) Categorical
Kant divides Rational Imperatives into two classes, one of which is further importantly subdivided
into two - making three altogether:
The Major distinction: “Hypothetical” versus “Categorical”
Hypothetical imperatives tell you to do something if (and because) you have a certain desire, interest,
want, goal, or end.
Categorical imperatives tell you to do something whether you like it or not.You “must” do what
they say ....
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Kant
[43]
Kant’s a priori moral psychology:
Kant attributes to rational beings the disposition to act on “maxims”
• A “maxim” is a “subjective principle of volition”.
• It says, “given that I want something (call it ‘E’ (for ‘End’), I must do such-and-such
(we’ll call it ‘x’)
• [schematically: if I am to achieve E, I must do x]
• two sorts of ends:
• a) contingent, or logically accidental ends - “I’d like a martini” (more precisely: I’d
like, just now, to experience the taste of a martini)
• - contingent, because some people have this end, some don’t; and the same person might
have it one day and not the next)
• b) necessary or essential ends.
• Kant sums this up under the heading of “happiness”:
• we don’t just happen to desire to be happy, he says - we’re built that way.
• [or is happiness simply the sum of all your lesser ends?
• .... we’ll not go further into this interesting subject!]
Kant
[44]
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Two kinds of Hypothetical imperatives:
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(1) “Technical” or “problematic” imperatives.
“He who wills the end wills the means necessary to its achievement”
These tell you to do x if you want E.
Note: If you don’t want E, they give you no orders at all.
If you do want E, however, then they do.
Now: you have to use your head to figure out how to get it.
Here we may need science and engineering as well as common sense.
-> That’s why these imperatives are empirical
Whatever, the point is that if we have the information that “acts of type x will
tend to bring about results of type E”, and the information that you do want E,
we then get this rational “imperative” saying, “So, do x!”
[Again, we won’t get involved on this, which is very interesting. We will note,
however, that this is the sort of reasoning that Hobbes takes to be the essence
of practical reasoning.
Maxims of this “technical” kind are pervasive in human life.]
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Kant
[45]
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Second kind of Hypothetical imperatives:
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(2) “Assertoric” imperatives, or imperatives of prudence:
“since you want to be happy, do x” that is, if x will make you happy, then do x!
Kant notes that it is very difficult to confirm propositions of the sort, “x will
make you happy”....!]
Maxims of prudence are also very frequent in human life, and not easy to have
a good grip on...
This defines “practical wisdom”: the ability to see what does and what doesn’t
really make you happy. (Does this equal, “what you really want”?)
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[In sum: hypothetical imperatives are hypothetical on our subjective wills.
They tell us to do something only on condition that we want something.
.. but in the case where the end is happiness, we are sure to have that end!]
Kant
[46]
•
Kant claims that Hypothetical imperatives are necessarily empirical:
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Technical imperatives require knowledge of means and ends, which we get
from science (observation and experiment, etc.)
Assertoric” imperatives we get from knowledge of what we desire
Which is empirical - desires are felt; pleasures and pains are felt
(feeling is a kind of observation)
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[This too is very much in line with Hobbes, who says there is no “summum
bonum” but only a “continual progress of desires”, which change often]
Kant
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[47]
Morals:
Kant claims that there is an altogether distinct, third kind:
• (3) Categorical imperatives
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Kant’s distinctive claim in moral philosophy is that reason commands us to
act on these independently of “inclination” (that is, of what we want)
That is to say: categorical imperatives are not contingent on your wanting
anything in particular - even the general goal of happiness can be overriden
by one of these “imperatives”. They are, then, (according to Kant) about as
imperative as you can get!
Kant
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[48]
Morals:
According to Kant, there is one most basic imperative of this kind:
The Supreme Categorical Imperative:
• “Act only on maxims that you can will to be universal laws.”
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There has been an enormous amount of scholarly ink spilled on the
interpretation of this famous formula, but you can hardly fail to see its affinity
with the “golden rule” and with the ethics of Hobbes, for example.
At a minimum, it says this: in regard to any sort of action that affects
other people besides yourself, you must act on maxims, “rules”
(imperatives) which are such that everyone could act (successfully) on
those.
(The qualification ‘successfully’ is essential. Hobbes spent twenty years trying
to square the circle - which it later turned out is logically impossible to do. We
can try anything, so a rule that everybody must be able to “try” to do x is
pointless.)
Kant
[49]
• The (supreme) Categorical Imperative is abstract and very general,
• - It is about the directions which you give to yourself, as a rational
being.
• And, why do we do this?
• Because our minds are built that way - so he says.
• Hence “a priori” ... we don’t discover this by experience ...
• [Really??]
• (Kant claims that Reason is the source of fundamental law
• So did Hobbes and Locke, remember!
Kant
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[50]
Kant on Justice
What about the imperatives that you can give to everybody else?
- those which are, as I put it, “marching orders to the community”
- that is, which are intended not just as suggestions but as outright
commands
- with the implication that they can be enforced by coercive means
(I.e., laws!)
Kant says that these are purely “external”: what we can do to each
other out there in the world, and not just in our souls.
Justice has to do with our external relations to each other - not what
goes on in the soul.
Kant
•
[51]
Now we come to Kant’s
• Supreme Principle of Justice,
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which he calls
The Universal Principle of Right:
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"Every action is right which in itself, or in the maxim on which it proceeds,
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[note the similiarity of this to Hobbes - especially his
second law of nature: we are to be “content with as much liberty as we are willing
to grant to others” (and no more!);
Also to Locke’s Law of Nature]
The principle amounts to a prohibition on aggression - just as in Hobbes. Why?
Because “coexisting with the will of others” means not conflicting with them, so, not
intervening in their activities, and especially, of course, not trying to take over their
bodies for your own use.
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Not surprisingly, then, the Universal Principle of Right
prescribes peaceable external relations among people.
is such that it can coexist along with the freedom of the will of each and all
in action, according to a universal law."
Kant
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[52]
Kant says that the right of freedom is “Innate”
(= “belongs to every one by nature, independent of all juridical acts of experience.”
so it is not “acquired” (rights you get only from judicial acts)
Saying it’s “innate” isn’t much help. So, why does the Universal Principle of Right
prescribe as it does?
Answer (so far as I can see): because such principles are, by definition, the ones that
we intend everyone to follow
- they are rational beings
So they will only follow imperatives that they see good reason to follow
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This leaves Kant with his liberal predecessors - Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and (even)
Rousseau: laws must, at bottom, be self-imposed.
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What’s “a priori” about this?
Are laws contingent on the desire to live happily among our fellows?
Or not - is that a desire we just happen to have? Or not?
[I am inclined to side with Hume and Hobbes: we want a more contented life; we can
see that we can’t have this if people are free to commit violence. So, we prohibit
violence for all....]
Kant
[53]
• Kant on property,
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- like Locke and Hume, he obviously thinks it to be extremely important.
Kant Refutes the “Commons”:
- we must distinguish:
1) the mere fact of the land’s being there and us able to walk around on it and use
it; from
2) (literally) common ownership
this is entirely different from a primitive community of things, which is a fiction
- The latter would have to be a form of society
(therefore, originating in a contract by which all renounced the right of private
possession)
To regard that as the original mode of taking possession, so that every individual’s
particular possessions must be grounded on it, is a contradiction.
“Relative to others, so far as they know, physical possession, or holding of the soil, is
in harmony with the law of external freedom.
- to disturb the first occupier in his use of it is a wrong done to him
The first taking of possession has therefore a title of right in its favour”
Kant
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[54]
Kant: “The Juridical Act of Original Acquisition is First Occupancy”
But a single will, in relation to an external possession, cannot serve as a
compulsory law for all
- that would be to do violence to the freedom which is in accordance with
universal laws.
Therefore only a will that binds every one, and as such a common,
collective, and authoritative will, can furnish a guarantee of security to all.
the state of men under a universal, external, and public legislation,
- conjoined with authority and power,
• is called the civil state.
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There can therefore be an external mine and thine only in the civil state
[does this follow?? ....]
Kant
[55]
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There can therefore be an external mine and thine only in the civil state
[does this follow??]
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“The will as practical reason, however, can only justify external acquisition insofar as it
is itself included in an absolutely authoritative will, with which it is united by
implication”
= only in so far as it is contained within a union of the wills of all who come into
practical relation with each other
Unilateral will - or any other particular will - cannot impose obligation on all.
This requires an omnilateral or universal will
- which is not contingent, but a priori
- and is therefore necessarily united and legislative
[??]
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Kant
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[56]
Kant on legal land ownership
Is the sovereign
(a) the supreme proprietor of the soil - or
(b) only as the highest ruler of the people by the laws?
- answer: the latter
All land rights must be derived from the sovereign as overlord
- or, as it may be better put, as the “supreme proprietor of the land”
BUT the relation is so represented in order that it may form a basis for the determination
of particular rights in property
- It [must] proceed, therefore... from the necessary formal principle of a division of the
soil according to conceptions of right
Thus, the supreme universal proprietor cannot have any private property in land
- otherwise he would make himself a private person.
So: no private monarchical estates - even for the support of the court.
[this is pretty hairy stuff relative to the practice of his day!]
Kant
[57]
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Government - two kinds:
patriotic government is to be distinguished from
paternal government
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Paternal (as of parents to children) is the most despotic government of all
- the citizens being dealt with by it as mere children
Patriotic government, deals with subjects as if co-members of a family
(siblings -- that is, no one is a parent; we are all equal ...)
- but still treats them as citizens
- by laws that recognize their independence
- each individual possessing himself
- not being dependent on the absolute will of another
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The welfare of the state = that condition in which
the greatest harmony is attained between its constitution and the principles of right
- a condition of the state which reason by a categorical imperative makes it
obligatory upon us to strive after
[Hmmmm!]
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Kant
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[58]
The origin of the supreme power
[Kant as politically “conservative”:
- is practically inscrutable by the people [like Hume!]
- who “may not reason too curiously in regard to its origin”
- if the right of the obedience due to it were to be doubted
"It is a duty to obey the law of the existing legislative power, be its
origin what it may."
• - the state has only rights - no (compulsory) duties to the subject
Kant
[59]
• [Absolutism? like Hobbes]
• - if the ruler proceeds in violation of the laws - the subject may
oppose complaints and objections to this injustice, but not active
resistance
• - There cannot even be a constitutional provision enabling this
• - For, whoever would restrict the supreme power of the state must
have more, as compared with the power that is so restricted
• - Hence the so-called limited political constitution is an unreality
• - instead of being consistent with right, it is only a principle of
expediency.
• [!]
Kant
[60]
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Resistance by people to supreme legislative power is illegitimate
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The “feeling of horror” re the formal execution of a monarch
- .... a complete perversion of the principles that should regulate the relation
between a sovereign and his people
- For it makes the people, who owe their constitutional existence to the legislation that
issued from the sovereign, to be the ruler over him ....
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Alteration of a defective constitution may sometimes be quite necessary
- all such changes ought only to proceed from the sovereign power in the way of
reform, not by revolution
- and when they take place, they should only effect the executive, and not the legislative,
power
[btw: if a revolution is successful, the unlawfulness of its beginning
- cannot release the subjects from the obligation of adapting themselves, as good
citizens, to the new order of things
[so here we go again - just like Hobbes!]
Kant
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[61]
Kant on Relief of the Poor
The sovereign may tax the people
- for purposes essentially connected with their own preservation
relief of the poor, foundling asylums, ecclesiastical establishments,
charitable or pious foundations
[note: Kant belonged to no church]
to furnish the means necessary to preserve those who are not capable of preserving
themselves
Argument: “the existence of persons with property in the state implies their submission
under it for protection and the provision by the state of what is necessary for their
existence”
accordingly the state’s right to tax comes from
“an obligation on their part to contribute of their means for the preservation of their
fellow citizens”
(?)
Note: Kant is here assuming the state creates a relevant “people”
(he may have got that from Rousseau...)
- But why should it? The Supreme Categorical Imperative doesn’t say anything about
applying only to fellow subjects of King X....
Kant
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[62]
Punishment as Retributive
Judicial punishment ... “can never be administered merely as a means for
promoting another good”
- either with regard to the criminal himself or to civil society
- but must in all cases be imposed only because the individual on whom it is
inflicted has committed a crime
One man ought never to be dealt with merely as a means subservient to the
purpose of another, nor be mixed up with the subjects of real right.
The penal law is a categorical imperative
“woe to him who tries to discover some advantage that may discharge him
from the justice of punishment.”
Kant
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[63]
(“For if justice and righteousness perish, human life would no longer have any
value in the world”)
This is the right of retaliation
- principle by which a public court can definitely assign both the quality and
the quantity of a just penalty
- All other standards are “wavering and uncertain”
(“they contain no principle conformable to the sentence of pure and strict
justice.”
although the application may not in all cases be possible according to the
letter, yet as regards the effect it may always be attained in practice
[e.g.] whoever has committed murder, must die
- no juridical substitute will do for the satisfaction of justice.
Note: “No one undergoes punishment because he has willed to be punished,
but because he has willed a punishable action;
- it is impossible for any one to will to be punished.
Kant
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[64]
Two possible exceptions: maternal infanticide and duelling.
[An illegitimate child ... has no legal right to existence in this way
- so, its destruction might also be ignored]
- duelling concerns the honor of soldiers in particular, who need to be able to
sacrifice themselves for honor....] (?)
Kant
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[65]
Republican Government
Every true republic is and can only be constituted by a representative system
of the people
Such a representative system is instituted in the name of the people
- and is constituted by all the citizens being united together, in order, by means
of their deputies, to protect and secure their rights
But as soon as a supreme head of the state - king, nobility, or democratic
union - becomes also representative
-- the united people then does not merely represent the sovereignty
- but they are themselves sovereign
• All power comes from the people
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It is in the people that the supreme power originally resides
- accordingly from this power all the rights of individual citizens as mere
subjects, and especially as officials of the state, must be derived
Kant
[66]
Kant on PERPETUAL PEACE
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Preliminary Articles For Perpetual Peace Among States
1. No Treaty of Peace Shall Be Held Valid in Which There is Tacitly Reserved Matter
for a Future War
Otherwise a treaty would be only a truce, a suspension of hostilities
2. No Independent States, Large or Small, Shall Come under the Dominion of
Another by Inheritance, Exchange, Purchase, or Donation
To incorporate one state into another is to destroy its existence as a moral person,
reducing it to a thing - contradicting the idea of the original contract without which no
right over a people can be conceived...
3. Standing Armies Shall in Time Be Totally Abolished
- the cost of peace becomes more oppressive than that of a short war,
- to pay men to kill is to use them as mere machines and tools in the hand
5. No State Shall by Force Interfere with the Constitution or Government of Another
State
6. No State Shall, during War, Permit Such Acts of Hostility as Would Make Mutual
Confidence in the Subsequent Peace Impossible: The Employment of Assassins ,
Poisoners , Breach of Capitulation, and Incitement to Treason in the Opposing State
(etc.)
Kant
[67]
• Three Definitive Articles for Perpetual Peace
• 1. The Civil Constitution of Every State Should be Republican”
• 2. The law of Nations Shall be Founded on a Federation of Free
States”
• 3. The Law of World Citizenship Shall Be Limited to Conditions of
Universal Hospitality”
Kant
[68]
[The most important is no. 1.
Why does Kant think that universal republican government will lead to
perpetual peace?
[I hypothesize this: Because if governments have to serve the interests of
people rather than vice versa, then people will never vote for wars for
any reason except self-defense.
They value their children too much to sacrifice them on the altars of war...
Note: there is strong empirical support for his claim...
- No war has ever been fought between two Liberal polities....
Kant
[69]
[A further reflection or two on Kant on liberal society and war.
I said, regarding voters, “They value their children too much to sacrifice them on
the altars of war...”
But in current times, many families in the Middle East have apparently been ready
to do just that. If they were typical, Kant’s claim would fail
In any case, democratic votes can support highly illiberal regimes. (witness
current Iran and Venezuela)
I also said, “Note: there is strong empirical support for his claim...”
No war has ever been fought between two Liberal polities....
Empirical discussion was provided in a major pair of articles in 1983
Michael Doyle, "Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs: Parts I and II," in Philosophy and
Public Affairs (1983)
[See also the excellent book by my younger colleague Brian Orend: War and International Justice: A Kantian
Perspective (2000, WLU Press)