The Kantian Republic: essays on Kant’s theory of the state

Kant’s political theory is both historically important as a standard in the history of legal and political though but also philosophically important as an inspiration and productive model for contemporary political theory. Historically, the majority of scholarship has interpreted the Kantian state as either classically liberal or not genuinely republican. However, there has been a growing amount of work which situates Kant’s political philosophy in a more republican light. In this spirit, this thesis aims to highlight and problematize certain liberal assumptions about Kant’s theory of state. However, in doing so, this thesis also pushes beyond some popular republican readings of Kant. The standard republican readings of Kant, I argue fail to acknowledge the ways in which Kant’s republicanism differs from contemporary accounts and that these difference might give Kant an advantage over these accounts. Ultimately, in the course of my discussion in these papers, I present Kant’s theory of state in a new republican light by leveraging under-researched texts such as Kant’s early lectures on political philosophy, known as the Naturrecht Feyerabend and debates with thinkers of Kant’s own time such as A.W. Rehberg and Gottfried Achenwall. The Kantian Republic that will emerge is an internally necessary institution which secures the possibility of rights for its citizens only through a substantially democratic structure. This has advantages, I argue, over contemporary republican systems because it is rights-based, it has a strong account of the necessity of state institutions, and because it secures the necessity of a democratic structure that is internal to the definition of freedom as non-domination.