Kants Begründung des Privateigentums und das Scheitern der Deduktion

Abstract

In paragraphs 1 to 17 of the Rechtslehre (1797) Kant wants to proof that private property can be justified reasonably. He wants to demonstrate that each thing may be and may become private property, i. e. that it is allowed to exclude all others of their use – and the criterion for this being the moral respectively legal law. A detailed analysis of Kant’s “deduction” will show that it fails: The possession or appropriation of each object of the free will as private property is (according to Kantian terms) unreasonable and unlawful, because it contradicts the categorical imperative respectively the rational law. The Kantian right of ownership is not the expression of reasonable social relations, but justifies classstructures. Consequently, there is no duty (in Kant’s sense) to respect civil societies based on private ownership.