The Principle of Autonomy’s Enduring Validity

Abstract

Pauline Kleingeld has argued persuasively that Kant’s Principle of Autonomy draws an analogy between two relationships: 1) that between an individual agent and their maxim, and 2) that between a legislator and their legislation. She also suggests that Kant’s evolving views on the normative significance of popular elections made his analogy inapt, which explains its disappearance from his later writings. This comment concurs with Sorin Baiasu that the merits of Kant’s analogy were untouched by his evolving political views. The analogy presupposes that when lawmakers legislate, they do so as representatives of the people, but even Kant’s mature writings posit that unelected lawmakers are representatives of the people in the necessary sense. Facts about whether a lawmaker acquired legislative authority by election, heredity, or conquest do have normative implications in the larger context of Kant’s political theory, but such facts are necessarily temporally upstream of the relation between legislator and legislation, just as facts about how an agent became rational are upstream of the relation between individual agent and maxim. Because the analogy focuses exclusively on these two relationships, it cannot be damaged by such upstream facts. Moreover, we should consider the possibility that Kant’s Principle of Autonomy compares a human will to the united general will of the people itself rather than to the will of a fallible public official or institution. On this alternative reading, it is even more clear that Kant’s evolving views on the significance of elections could have no possible relevance to the Principle of Autonomy.

Kant’s Formula of Autonomy: Continuity or Discontinuity?

“…In that case, the formula was never tied to the perspective of the enlightened autocrat to begin with. This would further strengthen the case for the formula's 'enduring validity' (Newhouse 2023).…”

“…I am very grateful to Sorin Baiasu and Marie Newhouse for their perceptive comments concerning these two essays (Baiasu, 2023;Newhouse, 2023). I am glad that they endorse my claim that Kant's legal and political theory underwent significant development from 1784 until the late 1790s and that the Formula of Autonomy as such disappears from Kant's later writings.…”

“…Newhouse adds that whether the people's representatives acquired their legislative authority 'by election, heredity, or conquest' is irrelevant since this is 'temporally upstream' from the representation relation (Newhouse 2023). If it does not matter how representatives came to occupy their role, then the introduction of elected representatives in Kant's later theory cannot explain the disappearance of the Formula of Autonomy in the 1790s.…”

“…Newhouse argues that the perspective the moral agent should adopt according to the Groundwork's Formula of Autonomy is perhaps not best understood as that of a sovereign legislator giving laws to all. Rather, she suggests, 'Kant may well have intended to compare a human will to the united general will of the people itself' (Newhouse 2023) rather than the will of an enlightened autocratic legislator. If Kant's phrase '[eines] allgemein gesetzgebenden Willens' (quoted at the beginning of Sect.…”

“…If Kant's phrase '[eines] allgemein gesetzgebenden Willens' (quoted at the beginning of Sect. 1 above) is translated as '[of a] universally-legislative will', she argues, this could perhaps-Newhouse calls this an 'intriguing suggestion'-refer to the 'united general will' (Newhouse 2023). This possibility is obscured by translations that turn the phrase into an adverbial clause ('[of a] will giving universal law').…”