Kant's theory of punishment is commonly regarded as purely retributive in nature, and indeed much of his discourse seems to support that interpretation. Still, it leaves one with certain misgivings regarding the internal consistency of his position. Perhaps the problem lies not in Kant's inconsistency nor in the senility sometimes claimed to be apparent in the Metaphysic of Morals, but rather in a superimposed, modern yet monistic view of punishment. Historical considerations tend to show that Kant was discussing not one, (...) but rather two facets of punishment, each independent but nevertheless mutually restrictive. Punishment as a threat was intended to deter crime. It was a tool in the hands of civil society to counteract human drives toward violating another's rights. In its execution, however, the state was limited in its reaction by a retributive theory of justice demanding respect for the individual as an end and not as a means to some further social goal. This interpretation of Kant's theory of punishment maintains consistency from the earliest through the latest of his writings on moral, legal, and political philosophy. It provides a good reason for rejecting current economic analyses of crime and punishment. Most important of all, it credits Kant's theory in its clear recognition of the ideals intrinsic to libertarian government. (shrink)

Both a morality, like Kant's, which relies on wrongdoers' guilt feelings and expectation of punishment, as enforcement for its requirements, and one which, like Hume's, relies on the feelings of shame and expectation of their fellows' contempt which will be felt by those showing lack of the moral virtues, seem to merit the charge that morality is an intrinsically cruel institution. The prospects for a gentle non-punitive morality are explored, and Hume's views found more promising, for this purpose, than Kant's.

From a juridical standpoint, Kant ardently upholds the state's right to impose the death penalty in accordance with the law of retribution. At the same time, from an ethical standpoint, Kant maintains a strict proscription against suicide. The author proposes that this latter position is inconsistent with and undercuts the former. However, Kant's division between external (juridical) and internal (moral) lawgiving is an obstacle to any argument against Kant's endorsement of capital punishment based on his own disapprobation of suicide. Nevertheless, (...) Kant's basic conception of autonomy underlies both of these otherwise distinct forms of lawgiving, such that acts of suicide and capital punishment are rendered equally irrational within his overall framework. (shrink)

This paper presents and defends Kant’s non-voluntarist conception of political obligations. I argue that civil society is not primarily a prudential requirement for justice; it is not merely a necessary evil or moral response to combat our corrupting nature or our tendency to act viciously, thoughtlessly or in a biased manner. Rather, civil society is constitutive of rightful relations because only in civil society can we interact in ways reconcilable with each person’s innate right to freedom. Civil society is the (...) means through which we can rightfully interact even on the ideal assumption that no one ever succumbs to immoral temptation. (shrink)

This paper argues that Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy contains a coherent, albeit implicit, defense of the legitimacy of capital punishment, one that refutes the most important objections leveled against it. I first show that Kant is consistent in his application of the ius talionis. I then explain how Kant can respond to the claim that death penalty violates the inviolable right to life. To address the most significant objection – the claim that execution violates human dignity – I argue that (...) motives of honor, as Kant conceives it, require a rational person to will her own execution, were she to commit murder. (shrink)

The most widespread interpretation amongst contemporary theorists of Kant's theory of punishment is that it is retributivist. On the contrary, I will argue there are very different senses in which Kant discusses punishment. He endorses retribution for moral law transgressions and consequentialist considerations for positive law violations. When these standpoints are taken into consideration, Kant's theory of punishment is more coherent and unified than previously thought. This reading uncovers a new problem in Kant's theory of punishment. By assuming a potential (...) offender's intentional disposition as Kant does without knowing it for certain, we further exacerbate the opportunity for misdiagnosis. (shrink)

In the Doctrine of Right, Kant claims that killings motivated by the fear of disgrace should be punished less severely than other murders. I consider how Kant understands the mitigating force of such motives, and argue that Kant takes agents to have a moral right to defend their honour. Unlike other rights, however, this right of honour can only be defended personally, so that individuals remain in a 'state of nature' with regard to any such rights, regardless of their political (...) situation. According to Kant, we should be lenient in these cases because the malefactors are caught between two kinds of authentic normative demand, at a point where the proper authority of the state collides with a certain authority which individuals must claim for themselves. (shrink)

Unlike that of most liberal thinkers, Kant's theory of punishment is unabashedly retributive. For classical liberals punishment is justified only by the harms it can prevent, not by any allegedly intrinsic good served by making the guilty suffer. Here Hobbes' blunt insistence that the aim of punishment ‘is not a revenge, but terror’ is prototypical in substance, if not in style. Hobbes, Locke, Mill, Bentham and Beccaria, for all their differences, agree that punishment must look to future good rather than (...) to avenging past wrongs. This attitude on the part of classic liberalism toward retribution is not surprising, given its association with the kind of theocratic politics liberalism arose to combat. (shrink)

In this masterful work, both an illumination of Kant's thought and an important contribution to contemporary legal and political theory, Arthur Ripstein gives a comprehensive yet accessible account of Kant's political philosophy. In addition to providing a clear and coherent statement of the most misunderstood of Kant's ideas, Ripstein also shows that Kant's views remain conceptually powerful and morally appealing today.

This paper develops an interpretation of what is essential to kant's doctrine of the highest good, Which defends it while also explaining why it is often rejected. While it is commonly viewed as a theological ideal in which happiness is proportioned to virtue, The paper gives an account in which neither feature appears. The highest good is best understood as a state of affairs to be achieved through human agency, Containing the moral perfection of all individuals and the satisfaction of (...) their permissible ends-I.E., One in which all act from the moral law and in doing so achieve their intended ends. The paper shows that the texts contain two distinct conceptions not distinguished by kant-Both a theological and a secular (political) notion. The standard objections apply to the theological, But the secular conception is consistent with kant's conception of moral conduct. Moreover, That the highest good is introduced as an end to be constructed out of the moral law indicates that the secular version is the essential notion. (shrink)

We will consider alternative ways that Kant’s philosophical views on ethics generally and on punishment more particularly could be brought into harmony with the present near consensus of opposition to the death penalty. We will make use of the notion of the contemporary consensus about certain issues, particularly equality of the sexes and the death penalty, found in widespread agreement, though not unanimity. Of course, it is always possible that some consensuses are wrong, or misguided, or mistaken. We should not (...) put too much philosophical weight on the notion of a consensus here. If there is a consensus for the equality of women as citizens, and against the death penalty, this will simply suggest to us that we will want to reconsider Kant’s views on such topics. In both instances mentioned, his views lie outside the current consensus. We will consider how to revise Kant’s views to bring them into accord with these current consensuses, within a theory that is still, in as significant a sense as possible, Kantian. Since the use of the idea of a consensus is a sort of short-cut, there will not be much direct discussion of arguments for or against the equality of women as citizens, or for or against the advisability of using the death penalty. Yet the discussions of these issues will illuminate certain facts about the structure of Kant’s moral and political theories, and about how the basic principles within those theories relate to particular moral applications or topics. If we can still end up with a thoroughly Kantian view on the death penalty, that also will tell us something about the relation of Kantian ethical and legal principles to the death penalty as that issue is discussed today. Opposition to the death penalty in present day circumstances is not at variance with the basic principles of Kantian ethical, political, and legal theory, including his retributivism in the justification of punishment. Indeed, there is a way of revising Kant’s views to bring them into harmony with abolition. (shrink)

Against the view of some contemporary Kantians who wish to downplay Kant's retributivist commitments, I argue that Kant's theory of practical of reason implies a retributive conception of punishment. I trace this view to Kant's distinction between morality and well-being and his attempt to synthesize these two concerns in the idea of the highest good. Well-being is morally valuable only insofar as it is proportional to virtue, and the suffering inflicted on wrongdoers as punishment for wrongdoing is morally good so (...) long as it is proportional to the wrongdoing. According to Kantian retributivism, punishment is warranted as a means to promote proportionality between well-being and virtue. (shrink)

This paper considers two contenders for the title of highest good in Kant's theory of practical reason: happiness proportioned to virtue and the maximization of happiness and virtue. I defend the against criticisms made by Andrews Reath and others, and show how it resolves a dualism between prudential and moral practical reasoning. By distinguishing between the highest good as a principle of evaluation and an object of agency, I conclude that the maximization of happiness and virtue is a corollary of (...) the instantiation of the proportionality thesis. (shrink)

In contrast to the traditional view of Kant as apure retributivist, the recent interpretations ofKant's theory of punishment (for instance Byrd's)propose a mixed theory of retributivism and generalprevention. Although both elements are literallyright, I try to show the shortcomings of each. I thenargue that Kant's theory of punishment is notconsistent with his own concept of law. Thus I proposeanother justification for punishment: specialdeterrence and rehabilitation. Kant's critique ofutilitarianism does not affect this alternative, whichmoreover has textual support in Kant and is (...) fullyconsistent with his concept of law. (shrink)

In contrast to the traditional view of Kant as apure retributivist, the recent interpretations ofKant's theory of punishment (for instance Byrd's)propose a mixed theory of retributivism and generalprevention. Although both elements are literallyright, I try to show the shortcomings of each. I thenargue that Kant's theory of punishment is notconsistent with his own concept of law. Thus I proposeanother justification for punishment: specialdeterrence and rehabilitation. Kant's critique ofutilitarianism does not affect this alternative, whichmoreover has textual support in Kant and is (...) fullyconsistent with his concept of law. (shrink)

This article provides a critical discussion of the problems raised by Kant’s characterization of reason as having ‘needs’ and ‘interests’. The first part presents two examples of arguments in which this conative characterization of reason plays a crucial role. The rest of the article consists of a discussion of four different interpretations of Kant's talk of reason as having needs and interests. Having identified a number of problems with literal interpretations of the conative characterization of reason, I examine whether a (...) metaphorical reading, suggested by several commentators, can solve these problems. I argue that it is impossible to regard the conative terms in which Kant describes reason as merely decorative metaphors, and that they are better understood as cases of ‛symbolic exhibition' in Kant's own sense. (shrink)

The standard view of Kant’s retributivism, as well as its more recent reworking in the ‘limited’ or ‘partial’ retributivist reading are, it is argued here, inadequate accounts of Kant on punishment. In the case of the former, the view is too limited and superficial, and in the latter it is simply inaccurate as an interpretation of Kant. Instead, this paper argues that a more sophisticated and accurate rendering of Kant on punishment can be obtained by looking to his construction of (...) the concept of justice. In so doing, not only is a superior account of Kant furnished, but also one up to the task of resolving the vexed issue of justifying legal punishment. (shrink)

There is some limited contemporary scholarship on the theory of metaphor Kant appears to provide in his Critique of Judgment. The dominant interpretations that have emerged of Kant’s somewhat nascent account of metaphors are what I refer to as the symbolist view, which states that Kantian symbols should be viewed as Kantian metaphors, and the aesthetic idea view, which holds that Kant defi ned metaphors as aesthetic ideas . In this essay, I claim that the symbolist view of Kantian metaphors (...) is not plausible and that we should accept the aesthetic idea view in its stead. The jumping off points for my discussion are two fairly recent essays on the subject: A. T. Nuyen’s “The Kantian Theory of Metaphor” and Kirk Pillow’s “Jupiter’s Eagle and the Despot’s Hand Mill: Two Views of Metaphor in Kant.” Nuyen defends the symbolist view of Kantian metaphor and Pillow defends a split view, i.e., Pillow thinks Kant has a dual-aspect view of metaphor that can bear both the symbolist and the aesthetic idea interpretations. Although I make use of some of Pillow’s objections against the symbolist view, I conclude that both he and Nuyen are wrong in thinking that Kantian symbols have any relationship to Kantian metaphors at all. Lastly, I will provide my own positive account of Kant’s theory of metaphors as well as show how this debate affects Kant’s overallaesthetic theory. (shrink)

This paper takes up Kant's argument that infanticides - specifically unwed women who kill their illegitimate children at birth - should not be tried for murder or receive the death penalty. Kant suggests that their actions are committed in a 'state of nature' outside the law's jurisdiction. I aim here both to defend Kant's reasoning against charges that it is cruel , as well as to understand what Kant was thinking in introducing such a 'temporary' state of nature. I claim (...) that such a state of nature arises in Kant's thinking when powerful social norms conflict with legal requirements, rendering legal sanctions and protections moot for the actor. Kant's thinking here shows him struggling with the fact of powerful social norms, something his practical theory rarely does, focused as it is on practical laws that come from pure reason, or from self-interest, and not from the hybrid of rational and natural, moral and 'sensuous,' that is social life. Kant ultimately rejects 'temporary state of nature' exemptions from law, and instead urges legal reforms aimed at averting conflicts between social and legal norms. (shrink)

Kant says that ideas have to be linked with sense experience to be meaningful. Rational ideas can be so linked via the "symbolical process" which is a process of creating a similarity (in rules of application) between an idea and its symbol. In this process the imagination goes beyond a concept (which is already linked with sense experience) to another concept in order to say something about the latter. This turns out to be the metaphorical process. For in every metaphor (...) there is an idea that receives expression in another, The latter already meaningful (i.E., Having a literal meaning). (shrink)

Bezugnehmend auf Kants Moralphilosophie entwickelt dieser Beitrag eine These dazu, was mit der Forderung gemeint sein soll, Personen unter Beachtung ihrer Würde bzw. als "Zweck an sich selbst" zu behandeln. Es wird vorgeschlagen, die Implikationen von Kants "Menschheitsformel" als ein Bündel von mit einander verwandten Vorschriften zu interpretieren, die das moralische Nachdenken darüber, wie die Prinzipien unserer tagtäglichen Entscheidungen spezifiziert und interpretiert werden sollten, leiten und begrenzen können. Der Beitrag bearbeitet sodann die folgenden drei Fragestellungen: Was folgt aus dem Vorangehenden (...) im Hinblick auf die Behandlung von Straftätern bei der Verbüßung ihrer Strafe? Was empfiehlt die "Menschheitsformel" - einmal abgesehen von Kants "offizieller" Straftheorie - im Hinblick darauf, wer, wie stark, in welcher Weise und warum bestraft werden sollte? Gibt es Konflikte zwischen diesen Empfehlungen und Kants "offizieller" Straftheorie, die eine Revision seiner Gründe für diese Theorie erforderlich machen? Drawing from Kant's moral theory, this essay develops an account of what is required to treat persons with dignity, or as "ends in themselves". It proposes to regard the implications of Kant's humanity formula as a cluster of related precepts that can guide and constrain moral deliberation about how to specify and interpret the principles that should guide day to day decisions. The essay then addresses three questions: What is implied regarding how offenders should be treated while undergoing punishment? Apart from Kant's official theory of punishment, what would the humanity formula recommend regarding who should be punished, how much, in what way, and why? Are there conflicts between these recommendations and Kant's official theory of punishment that invite reexamination of his grounds for his official theory? (shrink)