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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Kant's conception of legitimacy is linked to the justification of coercion.

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.For Kant, the civil state is grounded in the idea of a universal will, not merely in the management of coercion.
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    • 2.Legitimacy in Kant derives from conformity to rational principles of public right, which are prior to and independent of coercive enforcement.
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    • 3.Conflating the instrument of legitimacy (coercion) with its ground (rational consent) misreads Kant's transcendental framework.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Rawls and Habermas both argue that Kantian legitimacy requires public justification acceptable to free and equal persons, not simply authorized force.
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    • 2.If coercion were constitutive of legitimacy rather than merely its enforcement mechanism, Kant's account would collapse into legal positivism, which he explicitly rejects.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Rights are constitutively coercive, since every right restricts others' freedom.
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    • 2.The civil state is defined by the establishment and securing of rights.
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    • 3.Legitimacy of the civil state must therefore account for the coercive nature of rights.
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