Possession in Common: A Response to Angela Breitenbach’s ‘Kantian Climate Justice’

Abstract

This paper investigates the relation between Kant’s categorical imperative and his account of right in the Metaphysics of Morals, with particular focus on his account of property. I use this to explain Breitenbach’s idea that Kant takes our ethical obligations to be indeterminate without the right political institutions. In resolving this indeterminacy, Kant takes the primary role of legal and political institutions to be the creation of a framework in which people are entitled to pursue private purposes for themselves. However, his systemic starting point means that we cannot secure everyone′s individual freedom without climate justice.