Kant on Natural Right and Revolution

FIORELLA TOMASSINI

The Kantian Subject

Routledge

Año: 2023; p. 199 - 212

In this essay, I examine the question of whether a moral permission to oppose an unjust sovereign can exist, grounded on a natural law (i.e. a juridical law valid a priori) or on a natural right. If our only innate right is tantamount to freedom, we may consider that a people’s revolt against a despotic regime that constantly violates it, and has the purpose of establishing a new order based on the rights of human beings, should be permissible. However, Kant considers this reasoning to be wrong: opposition to political authority cannot be justified on the basis of an individual right to freedom or in the name of the people’s right to self-determination (despite his strong defense of these two principles). I try to show why Kant maintains that a right to revolution is incompatible with natural law, both on an individual (I) and on a collective (II) level. Finally, I will argue that an exception to the prohibition to revolt can be justified from a Kantian perspective by appealing to the concept of permissive law (III).