Freedom, Responsibility, and the Inexorable Kant

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Freedom is a powerful idea. Every time I teach a course dealing with economic, political, or moral philosophy, it is not the social justice theorists with their noble causes who seem to capture the imaginations of my students. Rather, they overwhelmingly favor the Austrian Economists and libertarian thinkers such as Henry Hazlitt, Frederic Bastiat, and Robert Nozick. Even my Business Law students would prefer to attempt the type of anarchy proposed by David Friedman in The Machinery of Freedom rather than endure the current regulatory state.

Remarkably, this preference seems to hold regardless of individual background. Indeed, it is usually those students who have had to struggle the hardest to support themselves that argue most passionately for the minimalist state, and sneer at the paternalistic policy recommendations that issue forth from most of academia. Perhaps this should not be surprising. I do, however, find it marvelously encouraging. There is only one sticky problem.

While my students clearly and consistently prefer a libertarian approach to property, government, and justice, there is much less clarity about what to do with one's freedom once it is obtained. In a truly free system, how does one make morally good decisions? The best answer I have found comes from Immanuel Kant in his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Through reason, Kant proposes a moral system to instruct any free and rational being. His Categorical Imperative instructs us to, "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction." He goes on to insist that, by this action, "you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end." He then concludes that, "Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends."

The system Kant proposes is incredible: universal self government of all rational beings, from mortals to gods, through reason. It is such a very demanding idea of freedom as to be utterly unworkable as a principle of government outside the Heavenly realm. However, it is certainly workable as a guiding principle of personal morality and conduct.

The daunting task Kant proposes is precisely why, every year, those same students who so passionately argue for freedom, begin to push back against the Categorical Imperative. Most think it is just too hard to live up to. Others are uncomfortable with its universal nature. Thus, every year I challenge my students to successfully refute Kant's theory. We then spend the remainder of the term searching thorough other thinkers, dissecting and arguing over their ideas, and always holding the best up to the looming standards of Kant. So far, Kant has always been victorious, and his defeated opponents among the students seem to become his greatest acolytes.

When graduation rolls around each year, I watch a line of confirmed Kantian liberty advocates parade across the stage. Whether they enter careers in law, law enforcement and government work, business, or policy, I never have long to wait before letters from the graduates start arriving, each telling me how they faced some ethical quandary, and resolved it after explaining liberty and the responsibilities of the Categorical Imperative to their co-workers, friends, or family. It seems freedom is truly a powerful idea--and an equally powerful responsibility.

http://www.inp.uw.edu.pl/mdsie/Political_Thought/Kant%20-%20groundwork%20for%20the%20metaphysics%20of%20morals%20with%20essays.pdf