Christine Korsgaard, “Kant on the Right to Revolution”

Posted: Mon, Nov 24, 2025

Kant on the right to revolution:

  • Trick question! There is no right to revolution; revolutions categorically and necessarily violate duties of justice and may be rightfully punished.
  • If revolution succeeds, the new political authority so established is legitimate, rightfully commands obedience, and may not be overthrown.
  • Kudos to the American and French revolutionaries; a good person would sometimes feel morally compelled to pick up arms.

Korsgaard tries to reconcile these three claims in a way that puts Kant’s view in the best possible light.

  • I’m interested in both her treatment of the first-order question and her methodology.
  • Two key components of Korsgaard’s interpretation:
    • It is hypothetical history—not actual history—that’s morally relevant to political legitimacy.
    • Any government necessarily expresses the general will of its people.

The social contract tradition:

  • The state of nature: The “natural” state of human existence, in the absence of a common power.
  • By comparing life in the state of nature vs. in political society, we can derive the justification as well as limits (if any) of government.
  • Government is justified as our collective agreement and arrangement—a social contract—for how to resolve the problems of the state of nature.
  • Kant’s social contract is a hypothetical one: We did not in fact agree to a social contract as an actual event in human history.

The irrelevance of actual history (p. 244):

  • Even researching the actual history of how our government came about threatens the very foundation of political society.
  • Property analogy: “Imagine that a congress of Native Americans demands that …” (p. 244)—what?
  • This is why, once a new government is established by revolution, it becomes legitimate: The illegitimacy of its actual origin is irrelevant.

Can governments fail to express the general will?

  • Kant: No. Why?
  • The conceptual argument:
    • Government is by definition the general will instituted.
    • No government can fail to express the general will without at the same time ceasing to be a government at all.
    • Cf. “An unjust law is no law at all.”
    • If it’s true that, say, North Korea has a government at all, we must understand its government as expressive of the general will of North Korean people.
  • The procedural vs. substantive justice argument:
    • Democracy: The mere fact that a decision is made following democratic procedures gives us reason to obey it, even if we disagree with it.
      • This reason is content-independent: It does not derive its force from our evaluation of its substantive merits.
      • This reason is preemptive: Our own moral assessment of the decision has no weight against our duty of compliance.
    • Criminal justice: The jury may set a guilty man free, but justice demands our compliance.
    • Government is our collectively decided procedure for determining and interpreting the general will; it “can do no wrong.”
  • The who-speaks-for-the-general-will argument:
    • The revolutionary says: I represent the general will.
    • The dictator also says: I represent the general will.
    • How do you adjudicate this? (pp. 250–51)
      • Say, everybody except the dictator and his allies wants revolution -> universalizability problem??
      • Majority rule is not a just procedure to settle this because in this political society you figure out what the general will is by consulting the dictator.
      • Majority rule has to have been agreed to by all.
      • (Does the dictator not also have a moral duty to rebel?)
  • The upshot:
    • Revolution sends us back to the state of nature; by definition revolutions cannot be just.
    • We should not pretend that it is: It’s okay to get rid of the dictator, but not try him and execute him according to law; that would be a mockery of justice.
    • The autonomy analogy: Sometimes it’s necessary to take away somebody’s autonomy in order to preserve it; the revolutionary finds themself in a situation where they feel compelled to “leave the moral law behind” in order to preserve morality (pp. 258–59).
    • But when you step outside of morality, you must accept its consequences, including what happens when you fail.
    • This is thrilling from a Kantian point of view because by literally taking morality into our own hands, we are owning the fact that we are the “masters of our own self-mastery.”

Undifferentiated ideal despotism?

  • “It would be extraordinary to believe that people may not be punished for revolting. Of course if people get out their guns and shoot at others and make mayhem in society they may be punished. The fact that their motives were political rather than venal may make us judge them less harshly as human beings, but for all that they may be punished” (p. 252, my emphasis).
  • What kind of revolution is implicitly assumed?

How about a real case study?

  • Shinn v. Ramirez (2022)
  • Oral argument: Arizona’s Solicitor General argued that “actual innocence” was not enough for post-conviction relief.
  • Of course there are limits on the authoritativeness of procedures?