Kant on Provisional Property Rights and the Idea of General Will

The provisionality of property in the Kantian state of nature implies two things: firstly, its rights status is deficient, meaning property is not a fully valid right, and secondly, possession of external objects is normatively significant, i.e., it produces certain legal effects. This paper focuses on the normative aspect of the provisionality. I show that normativity of provisional possession is neither the result of the Postulate and the permissive law, nor of the ‘anticipated’ general will in the civil condition, but of the ‘a priori’ and ‘originally’ united will of all in the state of nature. Accordingly, we must distinguish between two instantiations of the general will: one in the state of nature, and another in the civil condition. The latter is, however, not just a ‘reflection’ of the former: the general will in the state of nature does not already recognize property rights over objects, but only makes our unilateral property claims to external objects morally valid. Only the state can provide the title to property rights. Although its role is not just to ‘recognize’ and ‘secure’ what we possess in the state of nature, the actual general will in the civil condition remains, to some extent, normatively bound by the ‘originally united will’ in the state of nature

Meaning (existential · Normative · Possession (linguistics · Property (philosophy · Property rights · State (computer science · Kantian Philosophy and Modern Interpretations · Mathematical and Computational Methods · Philosophical Ethics and Theory