Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T11:54:43.968Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kant on Welfare: Five Unsuccessful Defences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2020

Luke J. Davies
Luke J. Davies*
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
*
Email: luke.james.davies@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article discusses five attempts at justifying the provision of welfare on Kantian grounds. I argue that none of the five proposals is satisfactory. Each faces a serious challenge on textual or systematic grounds. The conclusion to draw from this is not that a Kantian cannot defend the provision of welfare. Rather, the conclusion to draw is that the task of defending the provision of welfare on Kantian grounds is a difficult one whose success we should not take for granted.

Keywords

Kantwelfarerightsleft-libertarianism
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 1 - 25
Check for updates
Copyright
© Kantian Review, 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allais, L. (2015) ‘What Properly Belongs to Me: Kant on Giving to Beggars’. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 12(6), 754–71.10.1163/17455243-4681042CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aune, B. (1979) Kant’s Theory of Morals. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bader, R. (n.d.) ‘Kant and the Problem of Assurance’ (manuscript).Google Scholar
Baiasu, S. (2014) ‘Kant’s Justification of Welfare’. Diametros, 39(1), 1–28.Google Scholar
Brudner, A. (2011) ‘Private Law and Kantian Right’. University of Toronto Law Journal, 61(2), 279–311.10.3138/utlj.61.2.279CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrd, S., and Hruschka, J. (2006) ‘The Natural Law Duty to Recognise Private Property Ownership: Kant’s Theory of Property in his Doctrine of Right’ . University of Toronto Law Journal, 56(2), 217–82.10.1353/tlj.2006.0006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrd, S., and Hruschka, J. (2010) Kant’s Doctrine of Right: A Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511712050CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, G. A. (1995) Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511521270CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, G. A. (1999) ‘On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice’. Ethics, 99(4), 906–44.10.1086/293126CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, L. J. (2014) ‘A Kantian Defense of the Right to Health Care’. In Føllesdal, Andreas and Maliks, Reidar (eds), Kantian Theory and Human Rights (New York: Routledge), 70–88.Google Scholar
Flikschuh, K. (2000) Kant and Modern Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511487187CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, P. (2000) Kant on Freedom, Law and Happiness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139173339CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasan, R. (2018a) ‘Freedom and Poverty in the Kantian State’. European Journal of Philosophy, Advanced online publication, 1–21.Google Scholar
Hasan, R. (2018b) ‘The Provisionality of Property Rights in Kant’s Doctrine of Right’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 46(6), 850–76.10.1080/00455091.2018.1429181CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, I. (1996) Practical Philosophy. Trans. and ed. Gregor, Mary J.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1997) Lectures on Ethics. Ed. Heath, Peter and Schneewind, J. B., trans. Peter Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781107049512CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, I. (2007) Anthropology., History, and Education. Ed. Robert, B. Louden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (2012) Religion and Rational Theology. Trans. and ed. Allen, W. Wood and Di Giovanni, George. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (2016) Lectures and Drafts on Political Philosophy. Trans. and ed. Rauscher, Fred and Westphal, Kenneth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kaufman, A. (1999) Welfare in the Kantian State. Oxford: Clarendon Press.10.1093/0198294670.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kersting, W. (1992a) ‘Kant’s Concept of the State’. In Williams, Howard (ed.), Kant’s Political Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell), 143–65.Google Scholar
Kersting, W. (1992b) ‘Politics, Freedom and Order: Kant’s Political Philosophy’. In Guyer, Paul (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 342–66.10.1017/CCOL0521365872.012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleingeld, P. (2018) ‘The Principle of Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory: Its Rise and Fall’. In Watkins, Eric (ed.), Kant on Persons and Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 61–79.Google Scholar
LeBar, M. (1999) ‘Kant on Welfare’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 29(2), 225–49.10.1080/00455091.1999.10717512CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locke, J. (2012) Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, D. (2014) ‘The Incoherence of Luck Egalitarianism’. In Kaufman, Alexander (ed.), Distributive Justice and Access to Advantage: G. A. Cohen’s Egalitarianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 131–50.10.1017/CBO9781139940924.009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moran, K. (2016) ‘Neither Justice Nor Charity? Kant on General Injustice’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 47(4), 1–22.Google Scholar
Murphy, J. G. (1994) Kant: The Philosophy of Right. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.Google Scholar
Nozick, R. (1974) Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Pallikkathayil, J. (2010) ‘Deriving Morality from Politics: Rethinking the Formula of Humanity’. Ethics, 121(1), 116–47.10.1086/656041CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Riley, P. (1983) Kant’s Political Philosophy. Totowa, NJ: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Ripstein, A. (2009) Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.10.4159/9780674054516CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, A. (1993) Kant’s Theory of Justice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Shell, S. M. (2016) ‘Kant on Citizenship, Society, and Redistributive Justice’. In Faggion, Andrea, Pinzani, Alessandro and Madrid, Nunzia Sanchez (eds), Kant and Social Policies (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan), 1–24.Google Scholar
Simmons, A. J. (1992) The Lockean Theory of Rights. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sinclair, T. (2018) ‘The Power of Public Positions: Official Roles in Kantian Legitimacy’. In Sobel, David, Vallentyne, Peter and Wall, Steven (eds), Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, vol. 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 28–52.Google Scholar
Steiner, H. (1977) ‘The Natural Right to the Means of Production’. Philosophical Quarterly, 27(106), 41–9.10.2307/2218927CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stilz, A. (2011) Liberal Loyalty: Freedom, Obligation, and the State. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Vallentyne, P. (1998) ‘Critical Notice of G. A. Cohen “Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality”’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 28(4), 609–26.10.1080/00455091.1998.10715987CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Linden, H. (1988) Kantian Ethics and Socialism. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Varden, H. (2009) ‘Kant and Dependency Relations: Kant on the State’s Right to Redistribute Resources to Protect the Rights of Dependents’. Dialogue, 45(2), 257–84.10.1017/S0012217300000561CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldron, J. (2005) ‘Nozick and Locke: Filling the Space of Rights’. Social Philosophy and Policy, 22(1), 81–110.10.1017/S026505250504104XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walla, A. P. (2015) ‘When Strictest Right is the Greatest Wrong: Kant on Fairness’. Estudios Kantianos, 3(1), 39–56.Google Scholar
Weinrib, E. (2003) ‘Poverty and Property in Kant’s System of Rights’. Notre Dame Law Review, 78, 795–828.Google Scholar
Williams, H. (1983) Kant’s Political Philosophy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Williams, H. (2013) ‘Kant and Libertarianism’. In Timmons, Mark (ed.), Kant on Practical Justification (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 269–84.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395686.003.0012CrossRefGoogle Scholar