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1 results

  • 4 - Kant's innate right as a rational criterion for human rights

  • Edited by Lara Denis, Agnes Scott College, Decatur
  • Book:
    Kant's Metaphysics of Morals
    Published online:
    10 January 2011
    Print publication:
    28 October 2010, pp 71-92

  • Summary

    The idea of a single innate right rests, as does the entire first part of the Metaphysics of Morals, upon a double distinction. Kant differentiates between two fundamentally distinct basic questions - what is "laid down as right" and "what is right" - and two fundamentally distinct doctrines of right, an empirical and a natural one. Thereupon follows reflections concerning the moral concept of right and the moral law of right, the authorization to employ force, and the turn of phrase "by virtue of his humanity". The chapter analyzes how Kant clarifies his thesis of an innate right in four statements, which only appear to refute his singular use of "human right". The conclusion further sharpens the focus already brought to Kant's thesis by mentioning two quasi-human rights. Even though Kant considers there to be only one innate human right, two further pronouncements are relevant to human rights.