A Kantian Defense of Self-Ownership

Journal of Political Philosophy

Volumn 12, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 65-78

  Taylor, Robert S ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 1342327352     PISSN: 09638016     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2004.00191.x     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic, 1974), pp. 30-1; also see pp. 32, 228.
2. G. A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 238-42; also see pp. 211-13.
3. Daniel Attas, "Freedom and self-ownership," Social Theory and Practice, 26 (2000), 1-23 at pp. 11-15; George Brenkert, "Self-ownership, freedom, and autonomy," Journal of Ethics, 2 (1998), 27-55 at pp. 50-2.
4. Daniel Attas, "Freedom and self-ownership," Social Theory and Practice, 26 (2000), 1-23 at pp. 11-15; George Brenkert, "Self-ownership, freedom, and autonomy," Journal of Ethics, 2 (1998), 27-55 at pp. 50-2.
5. The contrast with John Rawls, whose Kantianism is spelled out in exquisite detail in 40 of A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), is instructive.
6. Hereafter GMM and MM, respectively. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1785] 1997); Immanuel Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1797] 1996).
7. Hereafter GMM and MM, respectively. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1785] 1997); Immanuel Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1797] 1996).
8. MM, p. 56.
9. GMM, p. 38; emphasis added.
10. Suicide: ibid.; voluntary servitude: MM, pp. 66, 104; organ sales and self-mutilation: MM, p. 177; prostitution: MM, p. 63; premarital sex: MM, p. 127; failure to develop one's talents: GMM, pp. 38-9.
11. Suicide: ibid.; voluntary servitude: MM, pp. 66, 104; organ sales and self-mutilation: MM, p. 177; prostitution: MM, p. 63; premarital sex: MM, p. 127; failure to develop one's talents: GMM, pp. 38-9.
12. Ibid., p. 38; MM, p. 30.
13. For an extended defense of this proposition, see Jeremy Waldron, "A right to do wrong," Liberal Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 63-87.
14. I am not claiming that Kant himself held this view. He states in MM that "killing oneself is a crime (murder)" (p. 176). Thus, he would have been as unlikely to endorse a duty of noninterference in suicide as a duty of noninterference in homicide.
15. Onora O'Neill, Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant's Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 189.
16. GMM, p. 31.
17. O'Neill, p. 191, Also see Chapter 5 of John Stuart Mill's essay Utilitarianism.
18. John Christman, The Myth of Property: Toward an Egalitarian Theory of Ownership (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 160.
19. Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 172.
20. GMM, p. 31.
21. Ibid., p. 33.
22. Ibid., p. 32.
23. John Rawls identifies a procedure - which he refers to as the Four-Step CI-Procedure - for universalizing a maxim: first, state the maxim; second, generalize the maxim; third, transform the generalized maxim into a law of nature; finally, append this law of nature to existing laws of nature and analyze the resulting "social equilibrium"; "Themes in Kant's Moral Philosophy," Collected Papers, ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 497-528, especially pp. 498-506.
24. GMM, p. 32.
25. "Passivity" is used here in the following very specific sense: "submission ... to external force or another's will" (OED).
26. GMM, p. 34. Also see Barbara Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 126, and Christine Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 133-59.
27. GMM, p. 34. Also see Barbara Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 126, and Christine Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 133-59.
28. See GMM, p. 46, on the "holy will."
29. MM, p. 221; Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and Other Writings, ed. Allan Wood and George di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1793] 1998), p. 180n. Also see Kant's sharp criticisms of paternalism in both MM, p. 94 and "Theory and practice," Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 74.
30. MM, p. 221; Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and Other Writings, ed. Allan Wood and George di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1793] 1998), p. 180n. Also see Kant's sharp criticisms of paternalism in both MM, p. 94 and "Theory and practice," Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 74.
31. Thomas Hill makes a complementary case against submission to exploitation and paternalism in "Servility and self-respect," Monist, 57 (1973), 87-104.
32. GMM, p, 48.
33. Ibid., p. 38.
34. See Thomas Hill, Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant's Moral Theory (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 45.
35. In some cases, children may be as capable as adults of recognizing and obeying the moral law. More than adults, however, their actions, even when consistent with the moral law, are the result of a heteronomous will, i.e., a will guided by "attraction or constraint" (GMM, p. 41). As they mature, they will (hopefully) internalize the moral law and come to see it not as something imposed from without, but rather as a code given to oneself, a product of self-legislation. I will later return to this point.
36. This categorization of nonrational agents is not intended to be exhaustive. For example, mentally incompetent adults constitute a separate category of nonrational agents. They cannot be categorized as children because they are permanently nonrational. Could they be categorized as animals? They are, after all, animate, sensitive, and permanently nonrational. The human conscience revolts against such a possibility, but it seems difficult to argue against, at least on Kantian grounds. Such difficulties provide one motivation for feminist criticisms of Kantian moral and political theories, e.g., Susan Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family (New York: Basic, 1989).
37. Thomas Nagel, "Personal rights and public space," Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24 (1995), 83-107 at pp. 89-90 (my emphasis). Also see Frances Kamm, "Nonconsequentialism, the person as an end-in-itself and the significance of status," Philosophy & Public Affairs, 21 (1992), 354-89.
38. Thomas Nagel, "Personal rights and public space," Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24 (1995), 83-107 at pp. 89-90 (my emphasis). Also see Frances Kamm, "Nonconsequentialism, the person as an end-in-itself and the significance of status," Philosophy & Public Affairs, 21 (1992), 354-89.
39. For a discussion of children's moral status that is informed by Kant's practical philosophy, see Tamar Schapiro, "What is a Child?" Ethics, 109 (1999), 715-38.
40. Nagel, "Personal rights and public space," p. 95.
41. GMM, p. 39.
42. "The will of a rational being must always be regarded as at the same time lawgiving, since otherwise it could not be thought as an end in itself" (ibid., p. 42).
43. See Rawls, "Themes in Kant's Moral Philosophy," pp. 504-6, for an alternative explanation, in which the different formulations represent varied points of view, or perspectives, on the same underlying principle.
44. GMM, p. 56.
45. "For we now see that when we think of ourselves as free we transfer ourselves into the world of understanding as members of it and cognize autonomy of the will along with its consequence, morality ..." (ibid., p. 58).
46. MM, p. 91.
47. Ibid., p. 123.
48. Ibid., p. 121. Cf. Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns," The Political Writings of Benjamin Constant, trans. Biancamaria Fontana (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 307-28.
49. The preliminary Fifth Article of Kant's "perpetual peace" between states ("No state shall forcibly interfere in the constitution and government of another state") suggests that Kant himself was engaged in such analogizing (Kant, Political Writings, p. 96). He appears to regard such interference as a form of paternalism exactly like that exercised by sovereigns over their own citizens when they interfere with their freedom in order to promote their happiness.