Bd. 1. Studien zur Moral-, Religions- und Geschichtsphilosophie -- Bd. 2. Studien zur Rechtsphilosophie -- Bd. 3. Pax Kantiana oder der Rechtsweg zum Weltfrieden.

Der sehr umfangreiche Aufsatz ist der ins Detail gehende Versuch, die systematische Stellung der Rechtslehre in Kants Moralphilosophie zu bestimmen. Hauptgegenstände der Untersuchung sind:1) Willkür – Wille – Freiheit; Handlung – Maxime; 2) das Rechtsproblem als moralisches Problem sui generis, 3) Moralgesetz überhaupt – Rechtsgesetz – Ethisches Gesetz / Tugendgesetz; 4) Rechtszwang; 5) Zurechnung ; 6) die Geltung des Rechtsgesetzes: a) bloß hypothetische Rechtsgeltung; b) die Autonomie des Willens als vermeintlicher Grund kategorischer Rechtsgeltung; c) die Unabhängigkeit kategorischer Rechtsgeltung von der (...) transzendentalen Freiheitslehre; 7) Schwierigkeiten beim Umgang mit Kants Buchstaben: a) Phaenomenon – Noumenon; b) Freiheit in spekulativer und in praktischer Hinsicht; c) die Freiheit der Person und der Mechanismus der Natur; d) die Einteilung der Metaphysik der Sitten überhaupt; e) Empirismus und Apriorismus in der Rechtslehre; f) der Begriff der Freiheit als Vorbegriff einer Philosophia practica universalis; g) die Pflicht aus dem Recht der Menschheit in unserer eigenen Person.Das vermutlich provozierendste Ergebnis des Aufsatzes läßt sich wie folgt formulieren: Die Geltung der Rechtslehre ist vom „transzendentalen Idealismus“ und der darauf gegründeten Freiheitslehre unabhängig. Insofern gibt es auch keine kritische Rechtslehre. Und sowohl die Grundlegung als auch die Kritik der praktischen Vernunft sind mit Bezug auf die Rechtslehre nur in einem sehr eingeschränkten Sinn als Grundlegungsschriften anzusehen.This long and comprehensive essay is an attempt to provide a detailed account of the location of the Doctrine of Right in Kant's moral philosophy.The main topics examined are: 1) Basic concepts: free choice, will, freedom; actions and maxims. 2) The problem of right as a problem sui generis. 3) Moral law, law of right, law of ethics / virtue. 4) Right and coercion. 5) Person and imputation. 6) The validity of the law of right: a) hypothetical? b) categorical based on the autonomy of the will? c) categorical but independent of the autonomy of the will? 7) Difficulties in reading Kant: a) phaenomenon – noumenon; b) freedom in speculative and practical respect; c) freedom of the person and the mechanism of nature; d) division of the Metaphysics of Morals as a whole; e) empiricism and apriorism in the Doctrine of Right; f) the concept of freedom as a preliminary concept of a philosophia practica universalis; g) the duty from the right of humanity in our own person.Possibly the most provocative results of the essay may be formulated in the following way: The validity of the Doctrine of Right is independent of any transcendental assumptions. Accordingly, there cannot be, let alone need there be, a critical Doctrine of Right; and neither the Groundwork nor the second Critique can actually be read as providing a foundation for the Doctrine of Right. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 3 Seiten: 486-492.

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 4 Seiten: 645-650.

This essay deals with Kant’s Doctrine of Right, but in a rather unusual way by being at the same time a review of a book on that doctrine. It was, indeed, that book which brought me, by trying to review it, to reformulate my own view on the issue To sum up the main mistakes of the author of that book: he takes the Doctrine of Right as a direct application of the doctrine of freedom, as developed in the Analytic (...) of the Critique of Practical Reason, to external acting of humans. That leads him on a crooked path to the thesis that provisional right is not „real“ right in the state of nature, but a conceptual assumption, which can be only thought of. With his idea that real right can only exist in a civil state, the author ends up in a position of legal positivism. The essay tries to expose the decisive steps which made the author go astray so that he eventually failed to grasp Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals altogether. Accordingly, apart from the mentioned mistakes, some connected problem areas, which are completely muddled up in the book, will be subjected to a closer investigation: freedom of the will versus freedom of action; free will versus general will; freedom in the doctrine of right versus freedom in ethics; validity of right versus effectiveness of right. Towards the end, some pages are dedicated to a critical statement on the author’s thesis that Kant’s Doctrine of Right is absolutely unsuited as basis for any claim to distributive justice. (shrink)

Hobbes's revolutionary and lasting contribution to the history of political thought, especially in De Cive, is his legal doctrine of the natural condition of mankind. His starting point is the liberty of man. In the state of nature, taken as a state of mankind not regulated by public law, it is precisely man's power to do what he would according to his own judgment which results in universal war. The only possibility mankind has to overcome this fatal situation is to (...) create a civil state under common laws and public coercive power. The article gives, step by step, a painstaking account of, and commentary on the manifold juridical considerations Hobbes regarded as necesary before he finally came to deal with the constitution of a civil commonwealth. These considerations are particularly concerned with the "matter" the State as the "artificial man" is made of. Although the details of this part of Hobbes's teachings are usually more or less neglected in the literature, they nevertheless form, what one could indeed call, the foundation of the rational State of freedom. (shrink)

The concept of Right is crucial to a discussion of any innate human right, the state, and public justice. The article makes the following three claims: 1) Any attempt to define the concept "Right" by orienting it towards human ends of whatever nature, is doomed from the beginning; 2) adopting such a concept of Right foils any effort to determine the appropriate juridical limits of state activity; 3) material justice, or justice related to possible human ends, if understood morally as (...) relating to internal freedom is distinct from the notion of Right in the strict sense and cannot possibly be attained by humankind anyway. Material justice understood juridically as relating to external freedom is unavoidably and insolvably self-contradictory. Moreover, the futile attempt to attain material justice will thwart the realization of formal justice, which indeed can be attained by humankind.The article first develops and justifies these three tightly knit statements. Reflecting on the more recent German scholarly literature, it then attempts to show how easy it is to fall astray from the path of Right - humanity's pristine path on earth - by conceiving the concept in terms of human ends. (shrink)

Kant's philosophy of history as well as his philosophy of religion are bound to his practical philosophy: both presuppose it and both belong to it as necessary supplementations. This fact, now, has time and again led to the attempt to interpret Kant's philosophy of right and of history on the one hand and his philosophy of morals and of religion on the other hand as being bound together within one and the same doctrine of the highest good. This attempt must (...) fail, and indeed from principal reasons, because the two fields never touch or, let alone, overlap each other. It actually is nothing other thanconfounding the world of phaenomena with the world of noumena, worldly matters with heavenly matters, the last end of nature with the final end of creation. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 110 Heft: 2 Seiten: 326-332.

The contribution starts with a concise account of Kant's moral philosophy. It is shown that a moral will is necessarily an autonomous will and that only the "formal" character of the moral law can establish its universal validity. Some widespread misunderstandings are discussed, especially with regard to the alleged emptiness of the moral law; the relationship between duty and inclination; the role of natural incentives in a moral will; and the necessary objects of such a will. This leads to the (...) idea of the highest good as the objective final end and duty of a finite rational being. Again, typical misunderstandings are dealt with: the reproach of eudaimonism, and heteronomy, and the role of the highest good as incentive; and an alleged inconsistency between Analytic and Dialectic of the Second Critique. In the then following discussion of Kant's doctrine of the postulates and his philosophy of religion, it is shown that religion is totally dependent on morality as philosophy of religion is on moral philosophy; that a belief in God is required neither for the validity of the moral law nor for the obedience to it; that the so-called moral proof is not a proof of God's existence, but only of the practical necessity of its assumption; and that the idea of the highest good refers throughout exclusively to another world. The last chapter first gives a concise account of Kant's teleological philosophy of history and then comes to the result of the whole inquiry: that there is a principle difference between philosophy of religion and philosophy of history which makes them not only independent of each other, but also keeps them in well distinguished fields. The philosophy of religion presupposes moral philosophy. Its main function is to determine what the idea of God morally means to man. Its achievement is to yield a reason of belief for the hope that the realization of the highest moral good is possible and that therefore the moral life of man is not necessarily pointless, as long as he fulfills his respective duty. It has meaning only for the one who is conscious of being subject to the moral law and ready to act accordingly. The philosophy of history on the other hand presupposes especially the doctrine of right. Its main function is to determine what the future of mankind on earth politically means to man. Its achievement is to yield empirical reasons for the hope that the realization of the highest political good is possible and that therefore the political life of man is not necessarily pointless, as long as he fulfills his respective duty. It has meaning only for the one who is conscious of being subject to the law of right and ready to act accordingly, although, it is true, the attainment of the historical aim itself is possible even by acting from purely prudential reasons. (shrink)

Zwei Passagen in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, die eine im „Dialektik“-Teil und die andere in der „Methodenlehre“, sind häufig als einander widersprechend und zuweilen deshalb als aus verschiedenen Entwicklungsphasen stammende und von Kant für das veröffentlichte Werk zusammengestückelte Denkflicken angesehen worden. Im „Kanon“-Kapitel der „Methodenlehre“ heißt es, „für die Vernunft im praktischen Gebrauch“ könne man die „Frage wegen der transscendentalen Freiheit […] als ganz gleichgültig bei Seite setzen“. Diese Passage entstammt angeblich einer früheren Entwicklungsphase, in der Kant noch nicht (...) zu der „kritischen“ Einsicht gelangt war, wie sie sich im „Dialektik“-Teil niederschlage. Dort nämlich heißt es, der Begriff der praktischen Freiheit „gründe“ sich auf die transzendentale Idee der Freiheit und würde „zugleich“ mit deren „Aufhebung“ „vertilg[t]“. (shrink)

Time and again, one finds in the literature the view that Kant held a pre-critical or semi-critical moral philosophy in the canon chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. This is shown, firstly, by the fact that practical freedom is understood as cognized through experience and, secondly, by the fact that Kant not only allows a sensuous incentive for the observance of the moral law, but considers it necessary. Against that, it is argued in this essay that, firstly, moral philosophy (...) as such is not addressed in the canon at all and, secondly, that the canon by no means approves of sensuous incentives with regard to the morally required promotion of the highest good. What is indeed addressed, although only in the second section of the canon, is moral theology. (shrink)

Kant's various teachings concerning (world) peace are characterized by a philosophically unique realism. Thereby, they are fundamentally distinguished from all preceding doctrines about peace. This thesis of realism refers to various aspects, respectively levels, of the doctrine, namely: 1) in general to the assumptions of the doctrine of Right3 altogether (ch. II); 2) in particular to the assumptions of the doctrine of eternal peace (chs. III-V); 3) to the recommendations with regard to the realization of eternal peace (chs. VI-XI); 4) (...) to the reasons by which Kant justifies the hope with regard to eternal peace (ch. XII, XIV-XVII); 5) to Kant's strict denial of a specifically political "morals" (ch. XIII-XVII). (shrink)