Ambiguity of Human Rights in Kant

In this paper, I argue that human rights have an important yet ambiguous status in the Kantian framework. He distinguishes between innate rights that individuals have by nature and acquired or statutory rights we have by virtue of acts or agreements. This innate human right, for Kant, is singular; only freedom or autonomy can serve as an innate human right and is the basis of all practical philosophy, ethics and politics. We have both an individual and an institutional prohibition against infringing the innate human right of freedom of others. But Kant prohibits coercive political force for the sake of protecting the human rights of some because it would infringe on the rights of others. This leaves us with the odd conclusion of a perfect duty in conflict with itself. In this way human rights have great ethical than political demands on us.