Immanuel Kant as a Philosopher of Freedom

Last week, I met with the MVHS students to discuss Section 2 of The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. We looked at the way Kant derived a “categorical imperative” from the idea that morality commands us categorically rather than hypothetically. For instance, morality says “do not murder,” not “if you don’t want to go to jail, do not murder.” We also briefly discussed the way Kant’s categorical imperative supports the idea of personal rights, that is, duties of others to respect your person and property.

In this blog post for the Institute of Humane Studies’ Learn Liberty project, I further explore Immanuel Kant as a philosopher of freedom. Kant went on to write about what his moral philosophy meant for politics. The results might surprise you, especially if you come in with misconceptions about Kant’s philosophy.