The Online Library of Liberty

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• Translator’s Preface.
• Bibliographical Note.
• Prefatory Explanations.
• Prolegomena. General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals.
• I.: The Relation of the Faculties of the Human Mind to the Moral Laws.
• II.: The Idea and Necessity of a Metaphysic of Morals.
• III.: The Division of a Metaphysic of Morals.
• General Divisions of the Metaphysic of Morals.
• I.: Division of the Metaphysic of Morals As a System of Duties Generally.
• II.: Division of the Metaphysic of Morals According to Relations of Obligation.
• IV.: General Preliminary Conceptions Defined and Explained.
• Introduction to the Science of Right.
• General Definitions and Divisions.
• A.: What the Science of Right Is.
• B.: What Is Right?
• C.: Universal Principle of Right.
• D.: Right Is Conjoined With the Title Or Authority to Compel.
• E.: Strict Right May Be Also Represented As the Possibility of a Universal Reciprocal Compulsion In Harmony With the Freedom of All According to Universal Laws.
• F.: Supplementary Remarks On Equivocal Right.
• Division of the Science of Right.
• A.: General Division of the Duties of Right.
• B.: Universal Division of Rights.
• C.: Methodical Division of the Science of Right.
• The Science of Right. Part First. Private Right. the System of Those Laws Which Require No External Promulgation.
• Private Right. the Principles of the External Mine and Thine Generally.
• Chapter First. of the Mode of Having Anything External As One’s Own.
• Private Right: Chapter Second. the Mode of Acquiring Anything External.
• First Section. Principles of Real Right.
• Second Section. Principles of Personal Right.
• Third Section. Principles of Personal Right That Is Real In Kind.
• The Rights of the Family As a Domestic Society.
• Title First. Conjugal Right. (husband and Wife.)
• Rights of the Family As a Domestic Society.: Title Second. Parental Right. (parent and Child.)
• Rights of the Family As a Domestic Society.: Title Third. Household Right. (master and Servant.)
• Systematic Division of All the Rights Capable of Being Acquired By Contract.
• Episodical Section. the Ideal Acquisition of External Objects of the Will.
• Private Right.: Chapter Third. Acquisition Conditioned By the Sentence of a Public Judicatory.
• Transition From the Mine and Thine In the State of Nature to the Mine and Thine In the Juridical State Generally.
• The Science of Right. Part Second. Public Right. the System of Those Laws Which Require Public Promulgation.
• Public Right. the Principles of Right In Civil Society.
• Public Right.
• I.: Right of the State and Constitutional Law.
• Constitutional and Juridical Consequences Arising From the Nature of the Civil Union.
• Public Right.
• II.: The Right of Nations and International Law.
• Public Right.
• III.: The Universal Right of Mankind.
• Conclusion.
• Supplementary Explanations of the Principles of Right.
• Objection As to the Faculty of Desire.
• Apologia. Kant’s Vindication of His Philosophical Style.

PUBLIC RIGHT. THE PRINCIPLES OF RIGHT IN CIVIL SOCIETY.

43.

Definition and Division of Public Right.

Public Right embraces the whole of the Laws that require to be universally promulgated in order to produce a juridical state of Society. It is therefore a System of those Laws that are requisite for a People as a multitude of men forming a Nation, or for a number of Nations, in their relations to each other. Men and Nations, on account of their mutual influence on one another, require a juridical Constitution uniting them under one Will, in order that they may participate in what is right.—This relation of the Individuals of a Nation to each other, constitutes the Civil Union in the social state; and, viewed as a whole in relation to its constituent members, it forms the political State (Civitas).

1. The State, as constituted by the common interest of all to live in a juridical union, is called, in view of its form, the Commonwealth or the Republic in the wider sense of the term (Res publica latius sic dicta). The Principles of Right in this sphere, thus constitute the first department of Public Right as the Right of the State (jus Civitatis) or National Right.—2. The State, again, viewed in relation to other peoples, is called a Power (potentia), whence arises the idea of Potentates. Viewed in relation to the supposed hereditary unity of the people composing it, the State constitutes a Nation (gens). Under the general conception of Public Right, in addition to the Right of the individual State, there thus arises another department of Right, constituting the Right of Nations (jus gentium) or International Right.—3. Further, as the surface of the earth is not unlimited in extent, but is circumscribed into a unity, National Right and International Right necessarily culminate in the idea of a Universal Right of Mankind, which may be called ‘Cosmopolitical Right’ (jus cosmopoliticum). And National, International, and Cosmopolitical Right are so interconnected, that if any one of these three possible forms of the juridical Relation fails to embody the essential Principles that ought to regulate external freedom by law, the structure of Legislation reared by the others will also be undermined, and the whole System would at last fall to pieces.