I can't always keep up with your hopscotch, but your misreading of
Kant's politics really needs to be answered. You are leaving aside
the distinction Kant makes between the 'metaphysics of right', which
is about the purely rational principles of the ideal state, and the problem
of the practical realization of this ideal state. Kant was certainly
no radical out of touch with the world, expecting a
complete, sudden remaking of existing states through the
extermination of one's opponents, but understood
that the actualization of freedom and reason in the world would have
to be accomplished under real social conditions, conditions which
always call for pragmatic compromises. Only through reform, he argue,
could an actual state be pushed toward the ideal state. So, while he rejects
the use of revolutionary violence, on the grounds that it would simply
bring back the lawless 'state of nature', he does not oppose
reform. I also think that Kant's political philosophy does not
preclude armed resistence to a really oppressive state. Moreover,
his argument against revolutionary violence is not an argument
against civil disobedience, which, even if he did not write about,
can be fitted into his political philosophy, as John Rawls has done.
ricardo
> In the case of Kant, faith in the immortality of soul is linked to his
> anti-hedonist & anti-revolutionary doctrine (with regard to both 'internal'
> freedom & 'external' right). Respect for the Law ("Do Your Duty!) at all
> costs, even at the cost of having to silently endure a tyranny. Kant was
> honest enough to admit that his doctrine comes with such high costs.
>
> Kant wrote in "On the Common Saying: 'This May be True in Theory, but it
> does not Apply in Practice'": "It thus follows [from the theory of the
> original contract] that all resistance against the supreme legislative
> power, all incitement of the subjects to violent expressions of discontent,
> all defiance which breaks out into rebellion, is the greatest and most
> punishable crime in a commonwealth, for it destroys its very foundations.
> This prohibition is *absolute*. And even if the power of the state or its
> agent, the head of state, has violated the original contract by authorizing
> the government to act tyrannically, and has thereby, in the eyes of the
> subject, forfeited the right to legislate, the subject is still not
> entitled to offer counter-resistance. The reason for this is that the
> people, under an existing civil constitution, has no longer any right to
> judge how the constitution should be administered.... Nor can a right of
> necessity...be invoked here as means of removing the barriers which
> restrict the power of the people; for it is monstrous to suppose that we
> can have a right to do wrong in the direst (physical) distress." Kant goes
> on to condemn the "errors" of elevating the Happiness of the People over
> the Principle of Right and thus of advocating the overthrow of the existing
> state. For Kant, "It is obvious...that the principle of happiness...has ill
> effects in political right just as in morality....[for] the people are
> unwilling to give up their universal human desire to seek happiness in
> their own way, and thus become rebels."
>
> What would better sustain the subject's unconditional obedience to the law,
> *even in the face of material deprivation, physical distress, and political
> oppression*, than the intimations of his soul's divinity and immortality?
> Kant wrote [in the same article]: "Admittedly, it [the principle of
> happiness] does not contradict the experience which the *history* of maxims
> derived from various principles provides. Such experience, alas, proves
> that most of them are based on selfishness. But it does contradict our
> (necessarily inward) experience that no idea can so greatly elevate the
> human mind and inspire it with such enthusiasm as that of a pure moral
> conviction, respecting duty above all else, struggling with countless evils
> of existence and even with their most seductive temptations, and yet
> overcoming them--for we may rightly assume that man can do so. The fact
> that man is aware that he can do this just because he ought discloses
> within him an ample store of divine capabilities and inspire him, so to
> speak, with a holy awe at the greatness and sublimity of his true
> vocation." Ah, the flesh is weak, but the spirit is willing!
>
> In other words, Kant does not "hold sacred" the "inviolability of human
> being as such." What is sacred for Kant is the Law (moral and political).
> Kant wrote: "[The] preservation of the state from evil is an absolute duty,
> while the preservation of the individual is merely a relative duty (i.e. it
> applies only if he is not guilty of a crime against the state)." For Kant,
> what is worthy of dignity is not the mind and body of an empirical,
> actually existing, and historically constituted individual; his body and
> welfare may be readily sacrificed for the sake of duty, for what is worth
> respect is not the totality of an individual, but only his sublime ability
> to do his moral and political duty. Kant's immortal soul is the Sublime
> Subject of Ideology, whose spirit triumphs even or especially at the moment
> his body is flayed alive.
>
> Yoshie
>
>
