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Representation and Democracy in the Metaphysics of Morals: Kant’s Late Answer to the ‘Problem’ of Sovereignty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2025

Susan Shell
Susan Shell*
Affiliation:
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
*
Email: susan.shell@bc.edu
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Abstract

A rightful condition, according to Kant, requires both a law to limit the freedom of each and a ruler to enforce that limit, a ruler who cannot himself be subject to the law’s enforcement without ceasing to perform his primary function. Kant placed his hopes, circa 1784, in a future ruler who combined worldly experience, a ‘correct conception’ of a possible constitution, and, above all, the good will to accept it. Subsequent historical events, along with the ‘completion’ in 1790 of Kant’s own critical system, suggested a new basis for confidence in civil progress no longer ultimately dependent on the ‘good will’ of rulers, while also making new demands on citizens themselves. I share the view of many others that Kant came to prefer the people’s actual consent to the laws over the merely hypothetical consent that he endorsed in the works of the mid-1780s. My reading of the Metaphysics of Morals Part One differs in treating the work not only as a theoretical treatise but also, and necessarily, a practical intervention in historical time. The resulting reading yields an internally coherent argument favouring representative democracy of a peculiar kind – one whose ‘organic’ character has not been fully appreciated.

Keywords

sovereigntyKantmetaphysics of morals
Type
Article
Information
Kantian Review , First View , pp. 1 - 17
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

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