Kant, Ripstein and the Circle of Freedom: A Critical Note

European Journal of Philosophy 20 (3):450-459 (2012)
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Abstract

Much contemporary political philosophy claims to be Kant-inspired, but its aims and method differ from Kant's own. In his recent book, Force and Freedom, Arthur Ripstein advocates a more orthodox Kantian outlook, presenting it as superior to dominant (Kant-inspired) views. The most striking feature of this outlook is its attempt to ground the whole of political morality in one right: the right to freedom, understood as the right to be independent of others’ choices. Is Ripstein's Kantian project successful? In this research note I argue that it is not. First, I suggest that Ripstein's notion of freedom is viciously circular. It is meant to ground all rights, but in fact it presupposes an account of those rights. Second, I show that—independently of its inability to ground a whole political morality—such a moralized understanding of freedom is normatively unappealing

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Author's Profile

Laura Valentini
Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München

Citations of this work

Freedom as Independence.Christian List & Laura Valentini - 2016 - Ethics 126 (4):1043–1074.
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The Justification of Basic Rights.Rainer Forst - 2016 - Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 45 (3):7-28.
Systemic domination as ground of justice.Jugov Tamara - 2020 - European Journal of Political Theory 19 (1).
Innate right in Kant—A critical reading.Katrin Flikschuh - 2021 - European Journal of Philosophy 30 (2):823-839.

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References found in this work

A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition.John Rawls - 1999 - Harvard University Press.
Political Liberalism.John Rawls - 1993 - Columbia University Press.
Political Liberalism.J. Rawls - 1995 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 57 (3):596-598.
Force and freedom: Kant's legal and political philosophy.Arthur Ripstein - 2009 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

View all 18 references / Add more references