Freedom under laws
This thesis consists of four chapters, each addressing a distinct foundational issue in Kant’s moral and political philosophy. The first chapter is concerned with Kant’s philosophy of action and its implications for his account of moral evil. I argue that Kant’s account of the structure of agency, together with his account of immoral action, show that he endorses a strong reading of the classical principle that all actions are willed under the guise of the good.
I then explore Kant’s metaethical position in light of recent constitutivist interpretations of his moral theory. While contemporary constitutivists aim at justifying moral norms by grounding their validity in the constitutive features of agents, Kant adopts this strategy with the goal of explaining how moral obligation is possible. In the third chapter, I further argue that Kant’s explanation for the bindingness of moral principles in his seminal Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals relies on the often-neglected concept of the proper self.
Finally, I turn to the foundation of Kant’s theory of rights and his political philosophy: the innate right to freedom. I show that instead of being grounded in the value of our capacity to set and pursue ends, Kant regards this right as the very condition of possibility of a system of rights – as he calls it, it is the axiom of right. This bears profound implications for how we understand the nature and justification of the state in Kant’s political philosophy.