Politics, Right, and History in Kant

Kant held the unshakeable conviction that right could only be perfected within a given established order.

Denial of the right of resistance, apostrophized by the German philosopher, derives from a simple argument. The possibility of legal resistance to the monopoly of power implies having authority to define the conditions, analyze the criteria, and choose the means for disobedience itself. Thus, every political opponent assumes the power of decision and acquires the privileges of a ruler. If there is someone in the state holding power, nobody can demand the right of resistance to this ruler, unless he himself is not the supreme ruler of the state, but is the person opposing him in the command of the state. According to Kant, for a people to be authorized to resist, there must be a public law that permits resistance. In other words, the supreme law would have to include a disposition that it is not sovereign, which, by one and the same criterion, would make the people sovereign in terms of subjects in relation to the person to whom they are subjected. “This is self-contradictory,” concludes the juridical teacher, “and the contradiction is evident as soon as one asks who is to be the judge in this dispute between people and sovereign” (Doctrine of Right, 6:320).