Q:
Hi Mr. Kinsella,
I just recently had a long conversation with my philosophy professor whose specialty is to study Kant’s works. He began to talk about the universalizability principle,1 so I asked him whether a State’s existence (which I clarified is an issue because one group of people essentially says “I can hit you but you can’t hit me”) can be coherently justified with a Kantian ethic. He said “yes,” which led to a long conversation and then me asking whether any initiation of force by one group of privileged individuals over a group of non-privileged individuals can be justified with a Kantian ethic. He proceeded to tell me that the initiation of force can be justified in circumstances in which the victimized party has no reason for resisting the force except for “it’s mine.” However, he also said that slavery is inconceivable because it treats people as a mere means, and gives people no “respect,” which they require for being autonomous beings. He also told me that Kant supported a confederation of nations and that any given maxim could be correct if it is conceivable that a “society” within a nation could exist that all adhere to this maxim.
In the conversation, I gave a situation:
“What if a gang of people went into your home and claimed it as their own, claiming you owe them 5% of your income. You can leave at any time, but you have to leave all of your things.”
He told me that this was unacceptable using the Kantian ethic, asserting that what is being used must be of value for the entire society. As a result, he admitted that it is potentially ok to repossess someone’s home and build a road there instead so long as it benefits everyone in the society to do so. Things “of value” are determined by whether the society could exist within the confederation of nations if the society creates or destroys the “thing” in question.
To me, I couldn’t wrap my head around this.
My questions for you are:
1) Are there significant errors in this reasoning?
2) Do you view this as Kant’s position?
3) This is entirely separate, but, using some of Kant’s principles, can argumentation ethics be rooted in humanity regardless of whether humans engage in argument or not? Maybe this is stupid, but it seems to me that deciding whether an action is right or wrong according to the Kantian ethic relies entirely on argumentation. For example, take the society in which the State levels someone’s house to build a road. According to my Kantian professor, the resident of the house would have to have the ability to give reasons (or justification) as to why he doesn’t think demolishing his house will be of value for all. If the State refused to hear the justification, the State would be wrong, not just unjustified; at least according to the Kantian ethic.
These are my thoughts, sorry if they’re long, convoluted, or just blatantly wrong. I really appreciate you reading through this stuff!
(oh and additionally if the State were to hear out the man’s reasoning, they would necessarily be engaged in argumentation–but as you say, this engagement in the peaceful resolution of conflict would be contradictory to their aggressive use of force, leaving their position unjustifiable and thus wrong in the Kantian moral sense)
KINSELLA:
1) Are there significant errors in this reasoning?
not in yours, but in his, sure.
2) Do you view this as Kant’s position?
3) This is entirely separate, but, using some of Kant’s principles, can argumentation ethics be rooted in humanity regardless of whether humans engage in argument or not? Maybe this is stupid, but it seems to me that deciding whether an action is right or wrong according to the Kantian ethic relies entirely on argumentation. For example, take the society in which the State levels someone’s house to build a road. According to my Kantian professor, the resident of the house would have to have the ability to give reasons (or justification) as to why he doesn’t think demolishing his house will be of value for all. If the State refused to hear the justification, the State would be wrong, not just unjustified; at least according to the Kantian ethic.
- On this, see Kinsella, “The problem of particularistic ethics or, why everyone really has to admit the validity of the universalizability principle,” StephanKinsella.com (Nov. 10, 2011). [↩]
