State as a Foundation of Moral Progress: Revisiting the Kantian Unilateral Will

• In Event: Community and Cohesion in German Political Thought

Abstract

Many scholars have divided views on the relationship between Kant’s Doctrine of Right (Rechtslehre) and his moral theory. I argue in this paper that Kant’s holistic philosophical system should be understood with reference to the concepts of ‘will’ and ‘law.’ The need for politics arises due to human beings’ permanent imperfection of the will; human will is incapable of consistently producing universal law (allgemeines Gesetz) through internal lawgiving alone, and an external institution of laws based on omnilateral will (allseitige wille) is necessitated by such unreliability. Hence, a unilateral will (einseitige wille) is problematic not simply due to unidirectionality of the will but due to the imperfection of human beings as finite rational beings. A reconstruction of the Doctrine of Right (Rechtslehre) based on the continuity and unity of the concept of ‘will’ and ‘law’ fill the lacuna by theorists such as Howard Williams who treat the juridico-political community in the Doctrine of Right as a foundation to progress toward an ultimate ethical community. Under my reconstruction, human beings’ imperfect unilateral will must constantly progress toward perfection, gradually obviating the need for externally instituted laws, albeit never completely.

Author

• SEUNG HWAN HONG, UC Davis