The duty to enter a civil condition: Immanuel Kant's argument in the Metaphysics of Morals

Abstract

The problem of political obligation is the question of what justifies our obedience to the laws imposed upon us by a political authority, or alternatively, what makes a civil condition necessary. In this thesis, I provide an answer to this question through a study of Immanuel Kant’s theory of right in his Metaphysics of Morals. My main claim is that, from a Kantian perspective, a civil condition is necessary we take ourselves to be rational beings. The crucial concept by which Kant establishes the necessity of a civil condition is the concept of freedom as independence from being constrained by another’s choice. First, I argue that the concept of freedom is a demand of the very principle of our rational, free agency. I then show that a civil condition is necessary for our innate right to freedom.