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.

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.

This proposition means that Right is not to be regarded as composed of two different elements—Obligation according to a Law, and a Title on the part of one who has bound another by his own free choice, to compel him to perform. But it imports that the conception of Right may be viewed as consisting immediately in the possibility of a universal reciprocal Compulsion, in harmony with the Freedom of all. As Right in general has for its object only what is external in actions, Strict Right, as that with which nothing ethical is intermingled, requires no other motives of action than those that are merely external; for it is then pure Right, and is unmixed with any prescriptions of Virtue. A strict Right, then, in the exact sense of the term, is that which alone can be called wholly external. Now such Right is founded, no doubt, upon the consciousness of the Obligation of every individual according to the Law; but if it is to be pure as such, it neither may nor should refer to this consciousness as a motive by which to determine the free act of the Will. For this purpose, however, it founds upon the principle of the possibility of an external Compulsion, such as may co-exist with the freedom of every one according to universal Laws. Accordingly, then, where it is said that a Creditor has a right to demand from a Debtor the payment of his debt, this does not mean merely that he can bring him to feel in his mind that Reason obliges him to do this; but it means that he can apply an external compulsion to force any such one so to pay, and that this compulsion is quite consistent with the Freedom of all, including the parties in question, according to a universal Law. Right and the Title to compel, thus indicate the same thing.

• The Law of Right, as thus enunciated, is represented as a reciprocal Compulsion necessarily in accordance with the Freedom of every one, under the principle of a universal Freedom. It is thus, as it were, a representative Construction of the conception of Right, by exhibiting it in a pure intuitive perception à priori, after the analogy of the possibility of the free motions of bodies under the physical Law of the Equality of Action and Reaction. Now, as in pure Mathematics, we cannot deduce the properties of its objects immediately from a mere abstract conception, but can only discover them by figurative construction or representation of its conceptions; so it is in like manner with the Principle of Right. It is not so much the mere formal Conception of Right, but rather that of a universal and equal reciprocal Compulsion as harmonizing with it, and reduced under general laws, that makes representation of that conception possible. But just as those conceptions presented in Dynamics are founded upon a merely formal representation of pure Mathematics as presented in Geometry, Reason has taken care also to provide the Understanding as far as possible with intuitive presentations à priori in behoof of a Construction of the conception of Right. The Right in geometrical lines (rectum) is opposed as the Straight to that which is Curved, and to that which is Oblique. In the first opposition there is involved an inner quality of the lines of such a nature that there is only one straight or right Line possible between two given points. In the second case, again, the positions of two intersecting or meeting Lines are of such a nature that there can likewise be only one line called the Perpendicular, which is not more inclined to the one side than the other, and it divides space on either side into two equal parts. After the manner of this analogy, the Science of Right aims at determining what every one shall have as his own with mathematical exactness; but this is not to be expected in the ethical Science of Virtue, as it cannot but allow a certain latitude for exceptions. But without passing into the sphere of Ethics, there are two cases—known as the equivocal Right of Equity and Necessity—which claim a juridical decision, yet for which no one can be found to give such a decision, and which, as regards their relation to Rights, belong, as it were, to the ‘Intermundia’ of Epicurus. These we must at the outset take apart from the special exposition of the Science of Right, to which we are now about to advance; and we may consider them now by way of supplement to these introductory Explanations, in order that their uncertain conditions may not exert a disturbing influence on the fixed Principles of the proper doctrine of Right.