Info: Zenodo’s user support line is staffed on regular business days between Dec 23 and Jan 5. Response times may be slightly longer than normal.

Published December 16, 2018 | Version v1
Journal article Open

The Mirage of Kantian Human Rights

Creators

  • 1. University of Ohio

Description

Contrary to a widespread view, I argue that the contemporary notion of “human rights” does not have a comfortable home in Kant’s legal philosophy. Even the one “innate right of humanity,” that many consider the pre-institutional Archimedian starting point of Kant’ s argument, is a normative conception that is “juridified all the way down.” In the state of nature, all private rights (innate and acquired) are present only in the form of the consequents of conditional claims about legal rights of the form, “If and only if in a juridified realm, then X,” with “X” referring to the specificities of positive law within a juridified realm. One objection claims that this proposal undermines the idea that there are powerful individual rights (universal and inalienable) on a par with legal rights but pre-institutional. By means of responding to worries regarding stateless individuals and migrants, I show that even though human rights are foreign to a Kantian conception of legality, other resources in Kant’s practical philosophy stand ready to assuage the objection.

Notes

Christoph Hanisch is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Ohio University

Files

10. CTK8 Monogr Hanisch.pdf

Files (481.8 kB)

Name Size Download all
md5:829ba841cffa466bf96479d368a746c3
481.8 kB Preview Download

Additional details

References

  • Benhabib, S. (2004), The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens, Cambridge University Press, New York NY.
  • Brudner, A. (2011), "Private Law and Kantian Right", University of Toronto Law Journal, no. 61(2), pp. 279-311.
  • Byrd, S. (2010), "Intelligible Possession of Objects of Choice", in L. Denis (ed.), Kant's Metaphysics of Morals. A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press, New York NY, pp. 93-110.
  • Byrd S. and Hruschka J. (2011), Kant's Doctrine of Right. A Commentary, Cambridge University Press, New York NY.
  • Denis, L. (ed.) (2010), Kant's Metaphysics of Morals. A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press, New York NY.
  • Edmundson, W. A. (2010), "Review: Ripstein, Force and Freedom", Ethics, no. 120(4), pp. 869–73.
  • Follesdal, A. and Maliks, R. (eds) (2014), Kantian Theory and Human Rights, Routledge, London.
  • Hanisch, C. (2016), "Kant on Democracy", Kant Studien, no. 107(1), pp. 64-88.
  • Hanisch, C. (forthcoming a), "Provisional and Private Legality in Kant", in A. Pinheiro Walla and R. Demiray (eds), Reasons, Normativity and the Law: New Essays in Kantian Philosophy, University of Wales Press, Cardiff.
  • Hanisch, C. (forthcoming b), "Kant's Jurisprudence: Beyond Natural Law and Legal Positivism", Pólemos – Journal of Law, Literature and Culture.
  • Honneth, A. (2015), Freedom's Right. The Social Foundations of Democratic Life, Columbia University Press, New York NY.
  • Kisilevsky, S. and Stone, M. (eds) (2017), Freedom and Force. Essays on Kant's Legal Philosophy, Hart Publishing, Oxford.
  • Kukathas, C. (2003), The Liberal Archipelago. A Theory of Diversity and Freedom, Oxford University Press, New York NY.
  • Ripstein, A. (2009), Force and Freedom. Kant's Legal and Political Philosophy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.
  • Ripstein, A. (2017), "Embodied Free Beings under Public Law: A Reply", in S. Kisilevsky and M. Stone (eds), Freedom and Force. Essays on Kant's Legal Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, New York NY, pp. 183-217.
  • Timmons, M. (ed.) (2002), Kant's Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretative Essays, Oxford University Press, New York NY.
  • Ypi, L. (2011), "Self-Ownership and the State: A Democratic Critique", Ratio, no. 24(1), pp. 91-106.
  • Zylberman, A. (2014), "Kant's Juridical Idea of Human Rights", in A. Follesdal and R. Maliks (eds), Kantian Theory and Human Rights, Routledge, London, pp. 27-51.