This article examines where Kant stands on the question of the redistribution of wealth and income both nationally and globally. Kant is rightly seen as a radical reformer of the world order from a political standpoint seeking a republican, federative worldwide system; can he also be seen as wanting to bring about an equally dramatic shift from an economic perspective? To answer this question we have first of all to address the question of whether he is an egalitarian or an (...) inegalitarian at the national level. Certainly there are certain social and material inequalities within a civil society Kant is prepared to accept and there are some he is not. This would imply that he would affirm certain inequalities at an international level and that there are others upon which he would recommend action. Thus the question arises as to whether or not it is appropriate for Kantians to regard the current enormous inequalities in wealth and income between individuals living in different parts of the globe as scandalous and in need of change. The paper throughout relates the problem of distributive justice within the state to the problem of distributive justice amongst states, arguing that this approach is warranted by Kant's own method. Particular attention is paid to how Kant's own approach to political philosophy may be deployed to underpin a change to a distinctive type of international distributive justice. (shrink)

Contrary to much Kant interpretation, this article argues that Kant's moral philosophy, including his account of charity, is irrelevant to justifying the state's right to redistribute material resources to secure the rights of dependents (the poor, children, and the impaired). The article also rejects the popular view that Kant either does not or cannot justify anything remotely similar to the liberal welfare state. A closer look at Kant's account of dependency relations in “The Doctrine of Right” reveals an argumentative structure (...) sufficient for a public institutional protection of dependents and evidence that Kant identifies concerns of economic justice as lying at the heart of the state's legitimacy. (shrink)

Taking Kant’s philosophy of right as my starting point, I defend the view that just exercise of political power requires economic redistribution. Against the common view that Kant’s political thinking has no economic implications, I argue that republican interpretations of his philosophy of right succeed in reconstructing a cogent argument in favor of public poverty relief. I also argue that the economic implications of Kant’s theory extend beyond public support of the poor. As freedom-enabling institutional structures, states are obliged to (...) remove hindrances to democratic self-legislation. It is reasonable to consider economic inequality as such a hindrance, and so public provisions for the poor is not enough. In order to exercise political power in a just way, public authorities must also take measures to reduce the gap between the richest and the poorest. (shrink)

Constitutional liberal practices are capable of being normatively grounded by a number of different metaphysical positions. Kant provides one such grounding, in terms of the autonomously derived moral law. I argue that the work of Edmund Burke provides a resource for an alternative construal of constitutional liberalism, compatible with, and illumined by, a broadly Thomistic natural law worldview. I contrast Burke's treatment of the relationship between truth and cognition, prudence and rights, with that of his contemporary, Kant. We find that (...) in each case where Kant's system is constructed from the first principle of autonomy, Burke's thought is oriented toward an end that is not of our making. Readings of Burke as a natural law thinker are currently out of fashion among Burke commentators; without relying, for the main thesis, on historical claims about Burke's "Thomism," I nonetheless explore and challenge some of the assumptions that underlie the current orthodoxy. (shrink)

Neste artigo, a autora aborda a questão da possibilidade de uma teoria da justiça social que seja compatível com a totalidade do sistema kantiano, examinando diversas posições acerca dessa problemática, seguindo-se a essa parte a exposição de sua própria posição no tocante a essa questão.

Durante décadas, los teóricos interesados en la discusión de Kant sobre el bienestar han estudiado la postura de Kant sobre la cuestión de la redistribución de bienes en la sociedad. Lo han hecho tanto para aclarar su postura como para una fuente de inspiración para problemas conceptuales actuales, frente a filósofos políticos contemporáneos que intentan reconciliar el ideal de la libertad igualitaria con la necesaria interferencia asimétrica para la redistribución y la provisión social. En este artículo, comienzo por la breve (...) discusión kantiana sobre el estado del bienestar en la Doctrina del derecho e identifico cuatro premisas que Kant afirmó con claridad como características de su postura. Posteriormente, propongo las cinco vías interpretativas principales en la interpretación de la obra de Kant, las evalúo y las ordeno. La interpretación más acertada de la justificación kantiana del bienestar, que llamo la postura “genuinamente kantiana” no llega a explicar, sin embargo, la naturaleza del deber del bienestar que propone. Propongo una solución, retrotrayéndome en los textos kantianos, que unida a otras consideraciones y cuestiones, se puede entender como el punto de partida de una nueva vía de interpretar este tema. (shrink)

Recent interpretations of Kant’s international political philosophy have argued that the formation of a coercive world-state (Völkerstaat) is morally required. While these interpretations highlight the importance of a strong world government, they ignore Kant’s alternative to a Völkerstaat, a world-federation (Völkerbund). For both theoretical and practical reasons, the Völkerbund plays a crucial role in cosmopolitan right, and Kant can only justifiably reject the formation of the Völkerstaat because of the structure of the Völkerbund. This article explains the constitution and functions (...) of the Völkerbund, and thereby shows why Kant was not ultimately committed to supporting a coercive world-state. (shrink)

The doctrine of informed consent, defined as respect for autonomy, is the tool used to govern the relationship between physicians and patients. Its framework relies on rights and duties that mark these relationships. The main purpose of informed consent is to promote human rights and dignity. Some researchers claim that informed consent has successfully replaced patients' historical predispositions to accept physicians' advice without much explicit resistance. Although the doctrine of informed consent promotes ideals worth pursuing, a successful implementation of these (...) ideals in practice has yet to occur. What has happened in practice is that attorneys, physicians, and hospital administrators often use consent forms mainly to protect physicians and medical facilities from liability. Consequently, ethicists, legal theorists, and physicians need to do much more to explain how human rights and human dignity relate to the practice of medicine and how the professionals can promote them in practice. This is especially important because patients' vulnerability has increased just as the complexity and power of medical science and technology have increased. Certain health care practices can shed light on the difficulties of implementing the doctrine of informed consent and explain why it is insufficient to protect patients' rights and dignity. Defining a normal biological event as a disease, and routinely prescribing hormone drug therapy to menopausal women for all health conditions related to menopause, does not meet the standards of free informed consent. Clinicians provide insufficient disclosure about risks related to long-term use of hormone therapies and about the absence of solid evidence to support their bias toward hormone therapies as a treatment of choice for menopause related health conditions. The contributing problem is women's failure to act as autonomous agents because they either choose not to take an active part in their own therapy or because they fear to question physicians' medical authority. To insure that patients' autonomy and free choice are a part of every physician-patient interaction, physicians and patients need actively to promote them as values that are absolutely indispensable in physicians' offices, clinics, and hospitals. (shrink)