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Carl Schmitt's Critique of Liberalism: Systematic Reconstruction and Countercriticism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2015

Heiner Bielefeldt
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Extract

Critique of liberalism has a long tradition. However, those launching critical attacks against liberalism frequently turn out to be liberals themselves who are concerned, for instance, about the common equation of liberalism with a bourgeois attitude of “possessive individualism” or with the reduction of liberal politics to an empty proceduralism. The recent debate between liberalism and communitarianism largely amounts to such a kind of liberal self-criticism. Even outspoken communitarian critics, like Sandel, undoubtedly appreciate important achievements of liberalism; often they take these achievements more or less for granted.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence , Volume 10 , Issue 1: CARL SCHMITT , January 1997 , pp. 65 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 1997

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References

1. Sandel, Michael J., Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

2. See Bielefeldt, Heiner, “Deconstruction of the Rule of Law. Carl Schmitt's Philosophy of the Political” in Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 82 (1996) at 379-96. This article is largely based on the second chapter of my book Kampf und Entscheidung. Politischer Existentialismus bei Carl Schmitt, Helmuth Plessner und Karl Jaspers (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1994).Google Scholar

3. See Bielefeldt, Heiner, “Autonomy and Republicanism. Immanuel Kant's Philosophy of Freedom” in Political Theory (forthcoming).Google Scholar

4. See Schmitt, Carl, Politische Theologie. Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souveränität, 2d enlarged ed. (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1934) at 78.Google Scholar

5. See Schmitt, Carl, Der Begriff des Politischen (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2d enlarged ed., 1932, together with an introduction and three corrolaries of 1963) at 80 and 88ff.Google Scholar

6. Ibid. at 68-71.

7. See Schmitt, Carl, “Staatsethik und pluralistischer Staat” in (1930) 35 Kant-Studien 28 at 39: “He who invokes humankind is about to cheat.”Google Scholar

8. Supra note 5 at 26.

9. Ibid. at 54: “If a people no longer has the energy or the will to maintain itself in the sphere of the political, the political itself will not vanish from the world. Only a weak people will disappear.”

10. This criticism can already be found in one of Schmitt's first publications: Gesetz und Urteil, Eine Untersuchung zum Problem der Rechtspraxis, 2d ed. (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1969).Google Scholar

11. Supra note 4 at 11.

12. Ibid. at 18.

13. See Schmitt, Carl, Verfassungslehre (Berlin: Dunker & Humblot, 1928) at 228ff.Google Scholar

14. Ibid. at 227.

15. Supra note 13 at 216.

16. Supra at 275.

17. See, for instance, Buchheim, Hans, “Religion und Politik — Einige systematische Überlegungen” in Forndran, Erhard, ed., Religion und Politik in einer säkularisierten Welt (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1991) at 65.Google Scholar

18. Kant, , Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals, Wolff, R.P., ed., (New York: Macmillan, 1969) at 44.Google Scholar

19. Ibid. at 54.

20. Supra note 18 at 60: “In the realm of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity.”

21. Kant, , The Metaphysics of Morals, Gregor, M., ed., (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991) at 63.Google Scholar

22. See Ibid. at 63: “This principle of innate freedom already involves the following authorizations, which are not really distinct from it: … innate equality, that is, independence from being bound by others to more than one can in turn bind them ….”

23. It should be noted in passing that Kant himself does not espouse the concept of democracy, but rather speaks of republicanism. Nevertheless, persuasive arguments for a “radically democratic” reconstruction of Kant's political philosophy are given in Mauss, Ingeborg, Zur Aufklärung der Demokratietheorie. Rechts- und demokratietheoretische Überlegungen im Anschluβ an Kant (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1992).Google Scholar

24. The concept of a precedent does not explicitly exist in Kant's moral and legal philosophy. As Arendt has argued, however, Kant's Critique of Judgment implicitly entails a political philosophy, because it aims at mediating between abstract principles and concrete cases or situations. Exactly this is also the structure of a precedent which, technically spoken, can be viewed as a example of “reflective judgment.” See Arendt, Hannah, Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, Beiner, R., ed., (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).Google Scholar

25. See supra note 23.

26. Like Locke, Kant assumes that private rights exist also in the state of nature. Kant differs from Locke, however, in justifying these private rights by the very same principle of right that is explicitly realized only in public law. The private rights of the state of nature thus are not pre-political in the sense of being outside of political debate. See Bielefeldt, Heiner, Neuzeitliches Freiheitsrecht und politische Gerechtigkeit. Perspektiven der Gesellschaftsvertragstheorien (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1990) at 116ff.Google Scholar

27. See Habermas, Jürgen, Faktizität und Geltung. Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1992) at 339ff.Google Scholar