Volume 21, Number 2 December 1999

In his essay "Theory and Practice," Immanuel Kant argues that citizens must always obey their government and consequently never rebel against it. He defends this absolute prohibition by claiming that rebellion would violate requirements of duty and morality, 1 which theoretically permit only a government to interpret the moral will of a society and obligate citizens to act according only to a priori reason. Despite Kant's objections, Locke's principles of rebellion not only conform to the Kantian categorical imperative and support the right of a collective to determine and execute rebellion for itself, but also demonstrate paradoxes that in general trouble Kantian political theory.

Kant bases his political theory on the morality that he develops in the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Fundamentally, Kant claims that the basis of morality is a good will that acts only according to a conception of Pure Duty, duty that "help[s] others where one can . . . [with an] inclination for the sake of duty alone." 2 Kant argues that a priori reason compels one to act according to such a conception of duty. 3 Thus, Kant defines duty as "the necessity to act out of reverence for the [universal] law." 4 Thus, only actions consistent with the categorical imperative are moral. 5 Kant then derives two important formulations of the categorical imperative. These are the Formula of the End in Itself, 6 and the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends. 7 When a citizenry upholds the "Kingdom of Ends" by willing laws according to the categorical imperative, it also wills the government's implementation of those laws. 8

Thus, as Kant argues in "Theory and Practice," when a government implements the moral will, the citizenry must comply with even unpleasant actions. Pure reason alone, not the happiness of the citizenry, generates the categorical imperative. 9 From this, Kant discovers an absolute prohibition on resistance because, he claims, resistance universalizes only anarchy, 10 not the Kingdom of Ends. 11 Resistance hinders the implementation of the society's moral will, thus creating a contradiction. 12 Kant also argues that only the "supreme arbiter of public right," even if he is a tyrant, can interpret and implement the moral law; thus, rebellion of the people could never constitute a legitimate execution of the moral will. 13 Finally, any coercion or force involved with the rebellion would involve brutality, which only "perpetrate[s] . . . wrong[s] of the highest degree." 14

John Locke's opposing stance on the right to revolt can help to highlight some of the problems in the Kantian view. Like Kant, Locke argues that society fundamentally values "reason." 15 However, Locke argues that reason compels citizens principally to value property 16 and to create government to help them protect this property. 17 Consequently, once a government fails to protect, or, worse yet, harms, the citizens' property, that government "dissolves" its right to legitimately rule the people, giving right to the collective to establish a new government. 18 Locke argues that only a "long train of abuses," such as the use of tyrannical and capricious power against the collective, enslavement, and arbitrary rule without regard to the moral will justifies such a revolt against the government. 19

The categorical imperative may indeed uphold Kant's absolute prohibition on rebellion. Paradoxically, the categorical imperative also seems to support Lockean justifications for rebellion. First, and most importantly, Locke's conception of rebellion seems consistent with Kant's conception of duty. As mentioned above, even Kant can conceive of the possibility of a ruler tyrannizing the collective moral will. 20 An evil tyrant could arbitrarily murder innocent citizens or commit other moral atrocities against the collective and forbid citizens to oppose these actions. Kant argues that pure moral action is action solely based on the idea of duty. It would seem, then, that, in this scenario, citizens would be morally obligated to violate and resist the law and assume their duty to save these citizens from harm. Thus, the universal maxim that a citizen must always help another individual facing imminent harm justifies resistance to a state that uses unjust force against its citizens.

Similarly, a government that coerces its citizens to act unwillingly would violate the Autonomy Principle. Any government 21 that prevents any citizen from determining and acting upon universal maxims of morality would not respect the individual's ability to will the categorical imperative. This is a violation of the Autonomy Formulation of the categorical imperative. Any Kantian collective striving to achieve moral freedom would be thus morally obligated to resist all forms of external enslavement. Thus, the Autonomy Formulation universalizes the Lockean principle of resistance to a government that enslaves its people. 22

Finally, the Kingdom of Ends also seems to universalize resistance. If the Kingdom of Ends requires government to execute and protect the moral will, any government that neglects its duties, fails to implement the moral will, rules without regard to the moral will, or arbitrarily alters the government, violates the categorical imperative. 23 In these cases, 24 the government would deliberately stop administering the moral will, thus challenging the enforcement, legitimacy, and perhaps even the existence 25 of the moral will. Thus, any Kantian society would be morally obligated to ignore a government that neglected its duties and to establish a new government that would do its job. Thus, the Kingdom of Ends universalizes Lockean principles of resistance when the government neglects its duty.

Consequently, the only legitimate government in a Kantian sense is a government that adheres to and implements the collective moral will. As I have just shown, when a government attempts to destroy the moral will, denies its citizens the ability to create the moral will, or neglects the moral will (thus preventing the moral will from actualizing itself), the government violates the categorical imperative. Therefore, the categorical imperative universalizes the notion that these forms of government are illegitimate. When a government violates the categorical imperative, the government "dissolves" its legitimate claim to govern. 26 As Locke rightly points out, such an illegitimate government is the true rebel force, since it imposes its own will upon the collective, rather than merely implementing the collective moral will, thus "rebelling" against its duty to enforce the collective moral will. 27

Consequently, there are also many responses to Kant's argument that rebellion requires immoral actions in order to accomplish its purposes. Most importantly, Locke responds with the idea of supreme necessity: in extreme circumstances, a citizen must protect one's own life and the lives of one's fellow citizens. Violence to reinstate a moral government would be a lesser evil than permitting an evil government to reign. A tyranny 28 that destroys the moral innocence of the collective that it is supposed to represent causes far greater, more insidious and more irreparable evils than does the violence that attempts to remedy it. 29 Besides, if the categorical imperative justifies rebellion, then the categorical imperative also justifies the means to accomplish this rebellion. Finally, as Locke observes, "this doctrine of a power in the people of providing for their safety a-new . . . is the best fence against rebellion" because a government that respects the collective's ability to form a new government is a government that understands the limits of its own power. 30

Kant's problems concerning rebellion demonstrate serious flaws in Kantian political theory. First, the categorical imperative leads ironically to moral relativism, not moral absolutism. Both Kant and Locke base their political theory upon the idea of "reason." However, Kant and Locke generate radically different conceptions of reason, one based on a priori reason, the other on self-preservation. Both Kant and Locke use "reason" to justify their very different views on the political right to rebel. The categorical imperative, instead of supporting one idea and disproving its opposite, seems paradoxically to support both. Can an absolute principle still be absolute if its contradiction is also absolute? If the categorical imperative can generate both a principle and its antithesis, then can't the categorical imperative generate any principle? 31 Kant assumes that since a priori reason generates universal principles, everyone will generate the same precepts and act similarly in similar circumstances. Since people reason differently, and since the categorical imperative seems to derive whatever an individual wants it to, the categorical imperative seems to support moral relativism, rather than moral absolutism. Thus, a government that bases itself upon the moral will of the collective would found itself on relativist principles, thereby annihilating the ability of its citizens to unite.

The failure of Kantian logic to defend against Locke's qualifications for rebellion demonstrates weaknesses in Kantian political thought. Since the categorical imperative generates both an absolute prohibition against rebellion as well as exceptions to this absolute prohibition, a collective ought to expect the categorical imperative to derive only relative, not absolute, morality. Kantian limitations on the freedoms of the collective also contradict the moral needs and requirements of the collective. As a result, it seems impossible for a society to adhere to Kantian conceptions of reason and morality and still conform to a Kantian conception of government. Besides, a bitter irony seems to exist suggesting that a moral people would never want to live in a Kantian society. If morality to Kant means compliance with the law even during the darkest times, a moral people could violate laws of duty to maintain personal moral purity, thus committing greater, more morally haunting, sins of inaction in time of greatest need. Great intentions have created marvelous wonders in the world. Yet, even these great intentions, when unchecked, have and will continue to cause far greater moral disasters than those they purport to help. Indeed, we live in a world "where to do harm/Is often laudable, to do good sometime/[is] dangerous folly." 32

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