Kant's most significant contribution to political philosophy and the
philosophy of law is the doctrine of
Rechtsstaat. According to this doctrine, the power of the state is limited in order to protect
citizens from the arbitrary exercise of
authority. The
Rechtsstaat is a concept in
continental European legal thinking, originally borrowed from
German jurisprudence, which can be translated as "the legal state" or "state of rights". It is a "constitutional
state" in which the exercise of
governmental power is constrained by the
law, and is often tied to the
Anglo-American concept of the
rule of law. Kant's political philosophy has been described as
liberal for its presumption of limits on the state based on the
social contract as a regulative matter. In a
Rechtsstaat, the citizens share legally based
civil liberties and they can use the
courts. A country cannot be a
liberal democracy without first being a
Rechtsstaat. German writers usually place
Immanuel Kant's theories at the beginning of their accounts of the movement toward the
Rechtsstaat. The
Rechtsstaat in the meaning of "constitutional state" was introduced in the latest works of Immanuel Kant after US and French constitutions were adopted in the late 18th century. Kant's approach is based on the supremacy of a country's written constitution. This supremacy must create guarantees for implementation of his central idea: a permanent peaceful life as a basic condition for the happiness of its people and their prosperity. Kant was basing his doctrine on none other but
constitutionalism and constitutional government. Kant had thus formulated the main problem of constitutionalism, “The constitution of a state is eventually based on the morals of its citizens, which, in its turns, is based on the goodness of this constitution.” Kant's idea is the foundation for the constitutional theory of the twentieth century. The
Rechtsstaat concept is based on the ideas, discovered by Immanuel Kant, for example, in his
Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals: "The task of establishing a universal and permanent peaceful life is not only a part of the theory of law within the framework of pure reason, but per se an absolute and ultimate goal. To achieve this goal, a state must become the community of a large number of people, living provided with legislative guarantees of their property rights secured by a common constitution. The supremacy of this constitution… must be derived a priori from the considerations for achievement of the absolute ideal in the most just and fair organization of people’s life under the aegis of public law." The concept of the
Rechtsstaat appeared in the German context in
Robert von Mohl's book
Die deutsche Polizeiwissenschaft nach den Grundsätzen des Rechtsstaates ("German police science according to the principles of the constitutional state", 1832–1834), and was contrasted with the
aristocratic police state. Kant opposed "democracy"which, in that era, meant
direct democracybelieving that
majority rule posed a threat to individual liberty. He stated, "…democracy is, properly speaking, necessarily a despotism, because it establishes an executive power in which "all" decide for or even against one who does not agree; that is, "all", who are not quite all, decide, and this is a contradiction of the
general will with itself and with freedom." As most writers at the time he distinguished three forms of government: democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy with
mixed government as the most ideal form of government. A distinctive feature of Kant's political philosophy is his conviction that the university should be a model of creative conflict: the philosopher's role within the university should be to "police" the higher faculties (which in his day were theology, law and medicine), making sure their teaching conforms to the principles of reason; likewise, the goal of perpetual peace in society can be achieved only when the rulers consult with philosophers on a regular basis. == See also ==