State of Nature, Markets and Epistemic Democracy

In the Metaphysical Elements of Justice (1797) the dynamical categories of modality are assigned the function of developing a synthesis of the legal domain, which is both structurally indipendent from the systems of theoretical and practical categories (categories of freedom), and complete of its own. To this purpose, the first principles of the doctrine of right are articulated according to the use of the freedom of volition (Willkür); that is according to the field of application of the determinate metaphysics of right; and not after the pure rational laws (transcendental freedom). In relation to liberty as volition, the state of nature is conceived as subjective necessity (habit, problematic necessitation) as well as the immanence of conflict (the principles of the law are object of antagonisms); the relation between rights in the state of nature and the transition to civil society, thus, has at least three relevant aspects: Rights in the state of nature, as well as other institutions of civil society within the state of nature, preside over the aggregation of preferences. As a consequence individual relate to a state of law (legitimate expectations), by way of policy rules. Legitimate expectation as procedural fairness is related to the concepts of power and liability. 1. Moreover institutions condition the cultural evolution of norms and the transition to forms of sociability in relation to the possibility for actors to evaluate norms and to understand the difference between procedural criteria (the right) and the good (s. the current debate around the concept of epistemic democracy). In this first respect, nature is the differential of self-amendment (the Hobbesian State breeds the Hobbesian man). The second aspect concerns the forces which act in the state of nature as incentives to leave the state of nature and to establish the law which rational agents give to themselves. The second meaning of nature concerns the fact that, even when abstracting from the moral law (“even a herd of devils”), the hypothetical imperative of a practical-technical reason points in the direction of the principle of right. This second aspect is developed especially in the popular writings (Perpetual Peace, 1795, An Old Question 1798). One question referring to this second point is whether a shared group identity legally entails a legitimate expectation (a procedural criterium for the coordination of substantive principles of justice). In Anthropology from a Pragmatical Viewpoint a fourfold classification of States is given, with three parameters, “freedom, law (by which freedom is limited) and as a middle term force”. A despotic State is neither a Constitutional State (State under the Rule of Law) nor an illegitimate State (a State which rules by force, whereby the question of the rule of Law has no institutional representation and/or authority). What Kant calls Despotism (an iniquitous State), represents a state of nature. Transition to democratic regimes, in the Kantian framework, favours models which integrate structural conditions (economy) and actor-strategies; while ensuring epistemic (procedure-independent) aspects of civil society.