The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Literature of Liberty a Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought
• Editorial Staff
• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: William Marina, Revolution and Social Change: the American Revolution As a People's War
• I: Autonomy
• Paternalism
• Autonomy Vs. Cooperation
• Selfish Benevolence
• Self-esteem and Helpfulness
• Self-responsibility
• Democracy and Self-esteem
• Obedience Vs. Self-ownership
• Self-determination
• Freedom and Learning
• Intolerance Vs. Self-actualization
• II: Civil Liberties
• Liberty In America
• State Schooling and Freedom
• The Right to Bear Arms
• An Armed Militia
• The Right to Die
• Pornography
• Ideology and Justice
• III: Political Economy
• Adam Smith's Achievements
• Smithian Scholarship
• Smith As Political Economist
• Protectionism Vs. Free Trade
• Protectionism and Politics
• Say's Law of Markets
• Political Decentralization
• Information Costs
• Free Market Banking
• Income and Motivations
• IV: Values
• Social Determinism and Objective Values
• Relativism
• Health and Objective Values
• Ought Vs. Is
• Values In Research
• Rights Vs. Right Judgment
• Prima Facie Values
• Fetal Rights
• The Greatest Good Or Number?
• Politics and Objective Values
• Ontological Values
• V: Justice
• Justice, Lockean Rights, and Liberty
• Justice and Adam Smith
• Rawls's Social Contract
• Rawls's Methodology
• Justice and Social Welfare
• Compensatory Justice
• Nozick's Legal Code
• Legal Justice and Coercion
• Justice, Punishment, and Deterrence
• Justice and Self-actualization
• VI: Property
• Liberty, Property, and Social Welfare
• Prima Facie Rights
• Lockean Property and Social Welfare
• Nozick, Taxes, and Property
• Locke Vs. Women's Property
• Indian Property Rights
• Kant On Property
• Just Price and Balancing Rights

Kant On Property

Susan Meld Shell

• McMaster University

“Kant's Theory of Property.” Political Theory 6 (February 1978): 75–90.

Kant's concern with the question of property and its appropriation, as well as his theoretical philosophy, can be understood only if we appreciate his politics. Two forms of appropriation are distinguishable: one form is the theoretical and epistemological, which concerns objects of knowledge; the other is practical and political, concerning objects of the will. Kant's thought, in this perspective, is an attempt to overcome the problem of alienation. The central theme uniting Kant's speculative philosophy and his politics is his perception of man as a stranger who must appropriate and transform a world which is “other” than him and not made for his purposes.

Man unifies the world through what Kant calls a “transcendental unity of apperception,” which, in turn, constructs an a priori act of synthesis. Thus, the world of flux is transformed into a rational order informed by the categories fabricated from our own minds. This theoretical property entails a right to use, but not to possess, objects which elude the grasp of our synthesizing power.

The next issue concerns the practical (or juridical) property—that over which one claims a right of exclusive use. Kant asks the question: how is this juridical possession possible? That is, what practical connection can exist between the human will and an object? He answers that juridical possession, like epistemological possession, requires a transcendental synthesis, but now it entails a unity of wills rather than of apperception. Therefore, this united, or general, will confers on men the right to appropriate. Individual appropriation arises from an a prior transcendental appropriation of the earth by all men as members of the general will.

Private possession of property presupposes an “innate common possession of the earth's soil corresponding to it.” Kant explicity denies the Lockean situation, in which individual possession of private property precedes the coming together of men to form a contract. Kant justifies private property not on grounds of utility, but of logical necessity.

This interpretation of Kant's theory of property integrates it with the rest of his philosophy and views Kant through a Hegelian perspective.