Chapter 5

When considering the list of great thinkers in the history of philosophy and political economy who espouse classically liberal or libertarian views, more often than not, Immanuel Kant is excluded from that list. For those of us working on Kant’s practical philosophy, that he is excluded is surprising given the importance he places on individual freedom and his claim that the state generally possesses no coercive authority beyond what would be possessed by a regular citizen. So why are Kant’s writings not more familiar to contemporary scholars with an interest in classically liberal or libertarian ideas? If you are familiar with Kant’s practical philosophy, it is likely that your first encounter with it was through the writings of political philosopher John Rawls. Rawls argues that taking seriously the central tenets of Kant’s moral theory requires a political philosophy that advocates, among other things, a significant redistribution of resources and a state entity that can facilitate this redistribution. Rawls takes the inspiration for his political theory from Kant’s moral philosophy, and, as a result, many academics familiar with Kant via Rawls incorrectly assume that Kant himself advocated for, or was otherwise sympathetic to, these political solutions.

But Kant advances a political philosophy that is almost the opposite of what Rawls proposes, appearing to be more in line with the tenets of classical liberalism or libertarianism than with the views associated with contemporary political liberalism. Put differently, Kant’s practical philosophy lends itself to a type of liberalism that recognizes the importance of individual freedom and self-determination but takes the promotion of these values to provide the justification of coercion within only a fairly narrow range of circumstances, both from state and non-state entities. I will show that the promotion of individual autonomy lies at the center of Kant’s moral theory and that his political philosophy aims to establish and secure the external conditions that make individual freedom possible. My discussion is divided into four parts: (1) Kant’s account of autonomy and its central role in his moral and political philosophy; (2) the connection between individual freedom and civil society, including the limited role of coercion in establishing and maintaining this rightful condition; (3) Kant’s account of taxation as a specific instance of coercive action and the conditions under which taxation to support the poor is justified; and (4) some implications of this position, similarities between Kant’s position and those more traditionally aligned with classical liberalism, and why classical liberals should embrace Kant.

KANT’S ACCOUNT OF FREEDOM

Individual freedom plays a central role in Kant’s moral and political philosophy. Near the beginning of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant provides a “general division of rights,” where he separates “natural right, which rests only on a priori principles, [from] positive (statutory) right, which proceeds from the will of the legislator” (MM 6:237). Immediately below this division, he identifies the only innate right: freedom. Kant writes, “Freedom (independence from being constrained by another’s choice), insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law, is the only original right belonging to every man by virtue of his humanity” (ibid.). Kant’s moral and political philosophy both center on freedom. In his moral philosophy, individual freedom or autonomy is the “supreme principle of morality” (Gr 4:440). In his political philosophy, the function of civil society and the state is to secure the external conditions that make autonomy possible.

For Kant, an individual is autonomous when he adopts principles for action consistent with the categorical imperative (Gr 4:421). The categorical imperative is Kant’s formal principle against which we can test practical maxims to determine if they are consistent with the moral law. A principle fails when tested against the categorical imperative because it is contradictory: either it is not possible to conceive of the action that comes as a result of universalizing that maxim (i.e., a contradiction in conception), or the result of universalizing the maxim somehow is self-defeating (i.e., a contradiction in the will). Kant claims that the person who adopts contradictory maxims is not free, at least not in the fullest sense. For Kant, complete freedom requires what we might identify as positive and negative freedom or both (1) the capacity to adopt the kind of maxims that Kant identifies and (2) the absence of impulses external to an individual’s will that influence him to the extent that they are the determining factor in why he adopted his maxim of action.

To see how a person can fail to meet this first condition of freedom, consider lying, behavior that Kant seems to believe is always wrong (Gr 4:403, CPr 5:21, MM 6:420, etc.). Lying fails when tested against the categorical imperative because adopting the relevant principle of action contains a contradiction in conception. An individual who lies acts on a maxim similar to the following: “When it is to my advantage to do so, I will make a false statement to someone else when he believes that this false statement is true.” What makes lying wrong is not that I cannot conceive of a world in which this principle can be universalized but rather that universalizing this principle is self-defeating. That is, in a world in which everyone lies when it is convenient, lying serves no purpose because a lie is likely not to be believed. Lying is wrong, therefore, not because it is harmful to someone else but because it is behavior inconsistent with reason (i.e., adopting a principle of action that is self-defeating), and that I would act in such a way is a failure to respect my dignity as a rational being. Put differently, although the liar may possess the external freedom to act how he sees fit, he has chosen to act from a principle grounded in something other than reason. Thus, while the liar possesses negative freedom because he is not under significant influence from external factors and is able to adopt moral, immoral, or non-moral maxims, he is not completely free because he fails to display reason by choosing to adopt moral maxims.

The second component of complete freedom requires an individual to be free from external forces that could determine the maxims he adopts. Although autonomy is connected with an individual’s ability to participate in the process of rational deliberation and to act on maxims that are not contradictory in nature, an individual’s external circumstances, circumstances that are often beyond his control, can play a significant role in determining whether it is possible for him to be autonomous in practice. Consider life for someone living in a condition where he constantly fears sudden and violent death or, perhaps less violent but similarly difficult, someone who is in extreme poverty and lives with a real risk of death from starvation or exposure. It is not unreasonable to think that a person whose survival is threatened constantly may act from basic instincts and not reason in response to external pressures.

Kant’s solution is for individuals to enter into conditions of civil society, the defining feature of which is “distributive justice” or a condition where what is yours and mine is secured by juridical law (MM 6:255, see also 6:306 and 6:312) and an arbiter who “could judge a dispute with rightful force” (PP 8:346). Such an arbiter is necessary for civil society even if the people living together in that condition lack malicious intent. Consider interactions for individuals living outside of a civil condition. Suppose I pick a bushel of apples from a tree in an open field, and then you come along and take those apples, claiming that I picked them from your tree. How do we resolve the dispute if we cannot come to an amicable resolution? Without the existence of a court or arbiter whose decision either we agree to abide by or who possesses the appropriate amount of force to enforce the decision, the physically stronger party is able to use his strength to impose his will on the other individual.

Since (1) individuals are under a moral obligation to act autonomously; (2) autonomous action is possible in practice only if an individual’s life, health, liberty, and possessions are secured; and (3) the only mechanism to realize this security is by living in civil society; therefore, (4) individuals “do wrong in the highest degree” by failing to enter or remain in this condition (MM 6:308). As a result, Kant claims that individuals are under a moral obligation to enter civil society. That this obligation for Kant is moral and not merely practical distinguishes his position from that of someone like Thomas Hobbes, who argued that the reason an individual ought to leave the state of nature and enter civil society is practical and connected to an individual’s desire to preserve his life.

FREEDOM AND COERCION

Individuals are obligated to enter civil society with one another. Since entering into this condition requires mutual recognition through actions, Kant claims that individuals are authorized to coerce anyone who refuses to enter into this condition with them. That is, they are authorized to use force to compel other individuals to perform the acts consistent with mutual recognition. Although coercion violates individual freedom and is wrong as a general rule, if an individual’s use of freedom “is itself a hindrance to freedom in accordance with universal laws (i.e., wrong), coercion that is opposed to this (as a hindering of a hindrance to freedom) is consistent with freedom in accordance with universal laws, that is, it is right” (MM 6:231). The person who refuses to enter into civil society with me uses his freedom to hinder my freedom, and so I may justly coerce him in a way that respects both my freedom and his own. Assume once again that we have a legitimate rights dispute. A claimant who uses superior force to impose his will on another claimant is exercising unilateral coercion, and the use of unilateral coercion is unjust. But suppose that when threatened with force, the second claimant pulled out a gun and compelled the first to appear with him before a designated magistrate who was widely recognized as being fair and impartial. Although the second claimant used coercive force as well, this use was just because it was in response to an already occurring unjust use of force and was aimed at ensuring reciprocal external freedom.

For scholars interested in the connection between Kant and classically liberalism or libertarian thought, their interest is in seeing how Kant applies this discussion of justified coercion to third parties, including the state. Kant’s justification of state authority and the grounding for his justification of state coercion is found in the following passage from the Metaphysics of Morals:

The legislative authority can belong only to the united will of the people. For since all right is to proceed from it, it cannot do anyone wrong by its law. Now when someone makes arrangements about another, it is always possible for him to do the other wrong; but he can never do wrong in what he decides upon with regard to himself (for volenti non fit iniuria [no wrong is done to someone who consents]). Therefore only the concurring and united will of all, insofar as each decides the same thing for all and all for each, and so only the general united will of the people, can be legislative.

(MM 6:313–14)

Here, Kant claims legislative authority extends from the united will of the people. Whatever laws are implemented under those conditions are consistent with right because everyone has consented to them, and no wrong is done to an individual by an action that he consents to (even if it harms him or otherwise makes him worse off).

But what is the “united will of the people” and how do we identify it? Kant does not believe that the united will is equivalent to unanimous agreement or that every citizen must directly voice support for a particular law in order for that law to be legitimate. How, then, is it possible to arrive at a “concurring and united will of all” when there is disagreement, perhaps unresolvable, between individual members of a community?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s influence on Kant plays a significant role in his discussion of the “concurring united will of all.” For Rousseau, individuals living in the state of nature inevitably encounter natural obstacles that they cannot overcome alone. When they encounter these obstacles, they are presented with the following problem: perish, or “find a form of association that may defend and protect with the whole force of the community the person and property of every associate, and by means of which each, joining together with all, may nevertheless obey only himself, and remain as free as before” (SC vi.4, p. 54). Rousseau’s solution represents the core of his social contract theory:

Each of us puts in common his person and all his power under the supreme direction of the general will; and in return each member becomes an indivisible part of the whole … [So what is created] is a public person, which is thus formed by the union of all the individual members, and each member has an equal voice (i.e., vote) in determining the actions of this public person. Since this entity is nothing other than the collected will of the people, and since each individual joined this whole to overcome freedom-limiting problems that they could not overcome alone and which could be overcome only through coordinated action, whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the whole body: which means nothing else than that he shall be forced to be free.

(SC vii.8, p. 58)

Setting aside various practical problems with social-contract theory, such as how individuals contract in and whether or not tacit consent counts, there is still something unsatisfying about a position that claims to maximize individual freedom by considering individual persons as “an indivisible part of the whole” and that individuals who “refuse to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so.” Perhaps it makes sense when it comes to practical, coordination matters (e.g., driving on the right side of the road), but it seems to run inconsistent with human freedom on moral, cultural, or religious issues (e.g., mandatory church attendance).

Kant seems to have recognized these concerns. Although his position appears similar to Rousseau’s as to what counts as “the united will of the people” and how it is represented, Kant places severe restrictions on the justification of the use of coercive force by a sovereign against the citizens. In his “Theory and Practice” essay, Kant claims that inside civil society, only the head of state maintains the right to use coercive force: “[W]hoever is subject to laws is a subject within a state and is thus subjected to coercive right equally with all the other members of the commonwealth; only one (physical or moral person), the head of state, by whom alone any rightful coercion can be exercised, is excepted” (TP 8:291). But Kant limits this use of rightful coercive force only to instances where coercion is used to hinder a hindrance to freedom (MM 6:231). Put differently, the use of coercion against an individual is justified only as a defensive mechanism against that individual when he is acting in a manner that unjustly limits the freedom of other individuals and is justified only to the extent that it prevents that interference.

KANT ON JUSTIFIED TAXATION

Thus far, this article has examined the central role of autonomy in Kant’s moral and political philosophy and that an individual has a moral obligation to enter into civil society as a practical prerequisite for acting autonomously. It has also shown why Kant believes coercion is justified when used to establish and maintain this civil condition. But for anyone who wants to construct an internally consistent account of Kant’s political philosophy, one challenge is reconciling this discussion of coercion with his comments on taxation. Kant writes that the state has “the right to impose taxes on the people for its own preservation, such as taxes to support organizations providing for the poor, foundling homes, and church organizations” (MM 6:236), and that a citizen “cannot refuse to pay taxes imposed upon him” (E 8:37). These passages raise at least three questions: (1) Why does the state possesses “the right to impose taxes on people for its own preservation”? (2) How is the implementation of taxes for the purpose of supporting “the poor, foundling homes, and church organizations” consistent with this objective? (3) Why does Kant believe that taxation to support the poor is a form of legitimate coercion? His argument rests on his (perhaps flawed) position concerning ownership of land, the relationship between land and other external things that can become private property, and the role of the state in promoting individual freedom. Resolving this apparent inconsistency can provide important insight into Kant’s justification of coercion and his account of state authority.

Most of Kant’s comments on taxation can be found in a small section of his Metaphysics of Morals (MM 6:323–28). His justification of some forms of taxation to support some appropriate state functions follows from his (perhaps antiquated or odd) account of property rights. Kant claims that the sovereign is the original proprietor of the land under his jurisdiction, and the property rights of individual citizens are derived from the sovereign. Kant writes:

On this originally acquired ownership of land rests, again, the right of the supreme commander, as supreme proprietor (lord of the land), to tax private owners of land, that is, to require payment of taxes on land, excise taxes and import duties, or to require the performance of services (such as providing troops for military service).

(MM 6:325)

So, for Kant, the sovereign is justified in taxing private landowners to provide for the preservation of the state, either by paying for necessary services (e.g., military defense), helping individuals who are worse off due to no fault of their own (e.g., orphans), or supporting organizations that help these individuals and the community (e.g., the church).

But why does Kant single out just the landowners to pay taxes and not all of the citizens equally or proportionally based on their income, wealth, or consumption? His answer to this question is practical:

The general will of the people has united itself into a society which is to maintain itself perpetually; and for this end it has submitted itself to the internal authority of the state in order to maintain those members of the society who are unable to maintain themselves. For reasons of state the government is therefore authorized to constrain the wealthy to provide the means of sustenance to those who are unable to provide for even their most necessary natural needs. The wealthy have acquired an obligation to the commonwealth, since they owe their existence to an act of submitting to its protection and care, which they need in order to live; on this obligation the state now bases its right to contribute what is theirs to maintaining their fellow citizens. This can be done either by imposing a tax on the property or commerce of citizens, or by establishing funds and using the interest from them, not for the needs of the state (for it is rich), but for the needs of the people.

(MM 6:326)

The poor would be under a similar obligation, but they are poor. They have nothing to contribute, and having the means to do something is a necessary precondition for being obligated to do it.

At this point, Kant moves away from this theoretical discussion of taxation to a practical discussion of how best to take care of the poor and destitute, as well as how much public funding these individuals should receive. He argues that the state should use coercive taxation to support the poor, but that the poor should be supported only at a very basic level (ibid.). Put differently, taxation to support the poor is justified only to the extent that the state redistributes the minimum amount necessary in order to secure the external conditions that allow for the possibility of autonomous action. His reasoning? “[T]his arrangement does not make poverty a means of acquisition for the lazy … and so does not become an unjust burdening of the people by government” (ibid.).

Consider the following scenario: Three people inhabit a small island. The island has more than enough supplies to keep all three alive until the end of their natural lives. But due to a combination of ingenuity, work ethic, intelligence, and fortune, those supplies are not distributed equally. One person, call him Rich, is recognized as the rightful owner of the vast majority of the supplies. The second person, call him Poor, possesses nothing but the shirt on his back. While he may be able to acquire enough to sustain himself in the short term (collecting water, catching fish, etc.), his long-term prospects are poor and he always worries about where his next meal will come from, if he will have appropriate shelter during the next storm, and so forth. The third person, call him Rex, possesses just enough to sustain himself. He also possesses a monopoly of force (has the only gun, is the strongest, etc.).

Under these circumstances, if Rich does not give to Poor voluntarily, Rex would be justified in using coercive force to take some of Rich’s resources and give them to Poor. The amount of resources that Rex would be justified in taking from Rich would be equal to the amount needed by Poor to get him up to the level of subsistence and provide a safety net so that Poor is not afraid of starving, going without shelter, or lacking other basic necessities. But what would justify Rex’s coercion of Rich must be rooted the same principle that justifies any act of coercion—hindering a hindrance to freedom. And there lies the apparently difficulty. If hindering a hindrance to freedom is thought to be a response to a particular act, it may not obvious how Rich’s failure to provide assistance to Poor (i.e., his lack of action) hinders a hindrance to freedom in the manner that Kant requires to justify the use of coercive force. In this case of Rich, Poor, and Rex, coercion is justified using similar reasoning that justified its use in the previously referenced discussion of an individual looking to leave the state of nature. In both cases, coercion is justified as response to inaction that prevented the establishment of a condition that secured the conditions of coexistent freedom and distributive justice, a necessary precondition for the possibility of autonomous action.

KANT’S LIBERALISM

That Kant would take this position on taxation is not surprising given his discussion of autonomy and the role of the state in securing an external condition that makes autonomous action possible. Autonomy is connected with an individual’s ability to participate in the process of rational deliberation, but an individual’s external circumstances, circumstances which are often beyond his control, play a significant role in determining whether it is possible for him to be autonomous in practice. One function of Kant’s political philosophy is to examine how these external conditions can be established such that all individuals have the opportunity to be free.

If state authority is justified because it helps to secure the external conditions that make autonomy possible, then some degree of taxing the rich in order to support the poor is legitimate. What is at issue is not fairness but the freedom of the individuals who are destitute. Without state support to provide the basic necessities, these individuals would be in constant fear of lacking what is necessary to survive. For Kant, no-one can be autonomous when living in this condition. Looking back, coercion was justified when it hindered a hindrance to freedom. While taxation is a form of coercion, it is justified coercion when the funds are used to remove individuals from an external condition that hinders their ability to be free by providing them with basic necessities. But providing anything beyond these basic necessities allow poverty to become “a means of acquisition for the lazy” and an “unjust burdening of the people by government.”

This position is not unique to Kant, although the justification may be. Support for similar positions can be found in the writings of John Stuart Mill, Frederich Hayek, and Milton Friedman, all of whom are generally recognized as either classical liberals or as espousing the tenets central to classical liberalism. Although Mill advanced what we now recognize as the harm principle—“The only purpose for which power can rightly be exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others” (L I.9)—at the beginning of On Liberty, towards the end of the book he provides an example of justified coercion that is inconsistent with this principle. He claims that an individual can be coerced legitimately for his own benefit:

[I]t is a proper office of public authority to guard against accidents. If either a public officer or any one else saw a person attempting to cross a bridge which had been ascertained to be unsafe, and there were no time to warn him of his danger, they might seize him and turn him back, without any real infringement of his liberty; for liberty consists in doing what one desires, and he does not desire to fall into the river.

(L V.5)

While it is not surprising for someone to take the position that a public authority should guard against accidents of this nature, it does show that Mill believed there to be some flexibility with the harm principle and that there were additional conditions under which coercion is justified in civil society.

Similarly, Friedman and Hayek’s support for certain types of coercive action within civil society seems to be based in a line of reasoning that is similar to Kant’s. They argue for minimal wealth-redistribution measures as a way of combatting poverty. Friedman argues for a negative income tax (1962: 191ff.) and Hayek for a guaranteed minimum income (1979: 55), but neither provides a principled justification beyond their being distressed by poverty and how the poor would benefit from its alleviation (presumably by removing this thing that distresses them). But we are all distressed by abject poverty, especially when it affects those around us, and Friedman’s observation that public charity alone is insufficient to take care of the most destitute seems correct.

The benefit for liberals in adopting a position like Kant’s is that it provides a principled argument for arriving at a desirable conclusion. Although we can question the merit of working back from outcomes to principles in order to arrive at our preferred political philosophy, one virtue of Kant’s account is that it provides a principled justification for the reasonable conclusion that, when private charity fails, the state should redistribute resources when necessary to ensure that no citizens face the type of abject poverty that jeopardizes the possibility of autonomous actions. There is, therefore, much to love in Kant’s practical philosophy for liberals who share economic and political views similar to Friedman and Hayek. Kant presents a liberalism that recognizes the importance of individual freedom and self-determination but takes the promotion of these values to provide the justification for state authority and the use of coercive force within a fairly narrow range of circumstances.

*A previous version of this article appeared in The Journal of Private Enterprise (31(3), 2016, 37–48) under the title, “Kant and Classical Liberalism: Friends or Foes?” My thanks to Joseph Reisert, Andrew J. Cohen, JP Messina, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions on previous drafts.