Kant and Hegel on the Foundation of the State Essay Example for Free

Kant and Hegel on the Foundation of the State Essay Kant and Hegel could not be farther from one another on the question of the state and its moral foundation. It is uncertain even if they define the term â€Å"state† in the same way. Kant remains within the Enlightenment contract tradition, while Hegel leans more towards an intellectual rendering of the romantic and nationalist approach to states and their foundations. (NB–the citations below refer to paragraphs, not pages) Kant holds that there are two major reasons why the state must exist. First, while mankind is not violently predisposed one to another prior to the development of legislation, disputes will have no competent judge prior to the development of the state (44). Hence, even a gentle disposition will render the state necessary in that public right must have a means of enforcing its claims. Here, â€Å"public right† is defined as those sum of laws that bring human beings into rational and orderly contact with one another (43). But further, regardless of the actual condition of man in the state of nature, Kant holds that, at the very least, the only real motive for action is â€Å"that which seems right† to each person, and each group of persons. But these two entities, the individual and groups of persons, both demand the creation of a state: the individual for the sake of rational laws, and the group for the sake of mutual protection against aggression. Either way, the only maxim is â€Å"that which seems right† to the entity in question. The major difference between the state of nature (in which Kant seems to lean towards the Lockeian view) and the civil world is that the laws and agreements that may well develop prior to the state are given the sanction of public law. They are given the means of enforcement. Without enforcement, the same reason that Locke gives for leaving the state of nature holds: the each is the judge in his own case, rendering there no objective and impartial standard (or agency, more accurately) of justice. Kant offers a subtle typology of the nature of civil life, far different from what will develop in Hegel. First, the sum of laws, manifesting a rightful, pre-political relation among individuals under an objective agency is the public right, and living in this state is a civil mode of life. Kant seems to overlap the definitions of constitution and civil right substantially, but at least, the concept of the â€Å"civil† is not an institution, but a state of living and a state of mind where the civil agency is considered right and just, and thus has the right to enforce public right. The state is the sum of all of these: the civil society under a constitution that manifests the proper and rational relations among citizens. There is nothing in Kant that rejects the idea that these relations will develop in a pre-political state as in Locke. Hence, it is rational to hold that Kant is a Lockeian, the state simply existing to judge disputes over property. Even more, in paragraph 47, the legislature is to be the highest form and expression of the state in that the people are fully and completely represented. Here, Rousseau is to be found, since, in this paragraph, the â€Å"people† and the â€Å"legislature† are really one in the same. Rousseau would reject the idea of representation both in Locke and Kant, but the idea is the same: the legislature is the highest organ of the state, the very objectification of the constitution and the popular will. Hence, given the above definitions, the legislature is really the manifestation of the constitution and the civil condition, and a smoothly functioning legislature would be the objectification of the state. To some extent, the legislature being the â€Å"united will of the people† (47) is the real de-ontological basis of state authority. Regardless of the social contract, the legislature can be united with Kant’s more abstract ethics by holding that the legislature is the manifesting of duty: the condition of both universality and autonomy, the latter referring to the lack of any â€Å"special interest† connected to either moral judgements/maxims or civil legislation. If the legislature is the â€Å"united will of the people† then it fits nicely into a de-ontological box, since universality is the maxim of civil legislation in this case. Hegel takes a completely different approach. The Philosophy of Right is a far more satisfying approach to the state than either Kant or Locke, since the state is not merely a sum of laws representing the population, but a synthesis of all other forms of social life and historical development. For Hegel, the development of the state (and one can be suspicious as to whether or not Kant would even define the state this way), is not merely a historical process, but a psychological one as well: the stat is the highest manifestation of human nature manifest in history. It is easy to see how the development of the three general stages in morality, the family, the free market and the state itself, all develop from a specific schema of history. Familial relations were long dominant in social life, but the Enlightenment broke these down, leading to the minds of Locke and Kant, the state is a synthesis of these two, and the completion of the development of human nature as a moral entity. While the history is simple and a little arbitrary, it follows a common Hegelian pattern of unreflective community (the family), individualism ( the market, or â€Å"civil society†), and the concrete, reflective community in the state. There is a far more complex history of European development that Hegel deals with, though it is not found in the POR, but in other writings. The family is the principle of unreflective unity (158). This is in that the family is not based on rational principles (though it does play a rational role), but is united only in love and the willingness to sacrifice. Only when the children grow and the family breaks down does reflection enter into the human person as they function in civil society, the free market where the main motivation is no longer love, but gain and â€Å"expressing oneself. † This is an abstract individualism that can not last. Dialectically, the individual in civil society realizes that a society cannot be based on the individual since social life and economic production are based on a communal approach to living: society can only function as a unit, not a collection of individuals arbitrarily doing their thing. Hence, the corporation develops (250-251), which is a largely economic entity similar to a guild, that manifests the community latent in civil society,. It is the corporations that eventually reveal the seeds of the state, or the unity of corporate bodies, and though here, the development of civil law and right. Hegel does not accept the idea of a contract. The mythology of the state of nature is something that may be found in psychology, but not in history. In the beginning of the POR, the will is seen as â€Å"purely abstract,† that is, completely free, having no restraints, but also having no purpose or end (15). The development of ends for ht will is the real foundation of the POR and Hegel’s mature social theory. The will demands content, that is, guidance and direction. History has given humanity this in the three states of family, market and state. These mentalities have all developed throughout history, but only in the first half of the 19th century have humanity been able to see how they all rationally fit together in an all inclusive unity. Previous societies merely held a one sided approach to things, where one entity was given dominance over everything else. The will seeks content, moral purpose, but it also seeks unity and balance in a rational schema of relations. None of the entities of family or civil society are swallowed in the Hegelian state, they remain, but they remain secondary elements in the broader state, having their latent potential manifest in the state itself (260). This is in that the love of the family is given its reflective basis in the state as an ethic unity, manifesting its own history and struggles, but it also completes the abstract individualism of the market, in that the unity is a reflective one, based on reason and the development of this social reason in the market itself, where communitarian ideas develop in the actual behavior of economic production and consumption which is a communal idea. This paper is far too short to do justice to these giants, but the basic outline is clear: Kant remains in the Enlightenment tradition, being a good generation before Hegel. Kant pictures a simple state of nature which requires a rational legislature, representing the concept of universality, to judge disputes. On the other hand, Hegel approaches the state as an organic unity, not a creation of contract. Ultimately, the two are irreconcilable, and the Romantic era had its rarified champion in Hegel. References: Kant, Immanuel. The Metaphysics of Morals. Trans Mary Gregor. Cambridge University Press, 1996 Hegel, GWF. The Philosophy of Right. Trans TM Knox. Oxford University Pres