Difference between revisions of "Kant"

Kant (view source)

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 In any case, the conclusion of a Kantian framework is usually a standard of "consistency with the categorical imperative", where the categorical imperative is this imperative previously mentioned to make sure that contradictions do not take place upon universalizing an action. You can refer to the sample cases for examples of Kantian offense employed in debate.
+=== The State ===
+However, many LD debate topics are not questions of an individual's action but rather questions of government action.
+While the categorical imperative applies to individual moral agents (i.e. people), it doesn’t make sense to apply it to states. Unlike individual people, states do not have coherent, unified states of moral action. It would not make sense to say the state of France thought about a decision and pursued it. Individual French policymakers may have, but the state itself did not.
+Thus, if we have an LD topic that questions what a government should do, we must understand how the obligations of a government are distinct from those of an individual.
+This raises a basic question: why should the government exist at all? If Kant cares about freedom, why would he justify the existence of a government that taxes and coerces its citizens by its very nature? Could Kant simply be an anarchist?
+Unfortunately for the budding revolutionaries reading this, Kant was very much not an anarchist. He believed that the categorical imperative grants individuals rights. If the categorical imperative prohibits murder, that is equivalent to saying that agents have the right to life.
+However, rights do not exist as abstract moral entities. If they did, they would be useless. Would a violent murderer be persuaded to stop if their victim explained that, in fact, murdering violates the categorical imperative? This argument might be persuasive to an LD debater but will probably not save our poor victims life.
+Instead, the way we enforce rights is through the state. The Kantian state is responsible for punishing those who commit rights violations. There are a few important things to note about this punishment:
+* First, it is retributive. For Kant, punishment is an intrinsically just response to crime. While it may be nice if this happens to deter future crime, this would be a side benefit. Rather, the state must punish because it is a logically necessary response to a rights violation. For a more complete account of retributive justice, see [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-retributive/ this].
+* Second, it is backward facing. The state cannot punish for a predicted crime, or because it believes punishing someone innocent will deter future crime. The state only punishes in response to crime that has already happened.
+A useful analogy is that of a computer program. Given an input, a computer program should produce a predictable output. It should not change its output due to factors unrelated to the intrinsic qualities of the input. Similarly, the Kantian state receives a crime as an input and outputs a proportionate punishment.
+While Kant is no anarchist, his focus on punishment does lead to a somewhat libertarian state. There are a few other things the state may do, but only because they are necessary for its main role of punishing rights violators. For example, the state may own a limited amount of property to facilitate punishment (e.g. a jail).
+If you have an LD topic that speaks to government action, your framework must make the transition between moral philosophy (i.e. the categorical imperative) and political philosophy (i.e. the state); otherwise, your framework is incomplete.
+For further information, the best resource for Kantian political philosophy is Arthur Ripstein’s Force and Freedom.
 === Readings ===
 [https://archive.nyu.edu/handle/2451/34651 Velleman, A Brief Introduction to Kantian Ethics]
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 [https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199552795.001.0001/acprof-9780199552795 Korsgaard, Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity]
+[https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674035065 Ripstein, Force and Freedom]
 === Sample Cases ===
 [[Media:JF20 - AC - Kant CD.docx|JF20 - AC - Kant CD.docx]]