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Bertram on Ripstein on Kant on the Right to Resist

By Lawrence Solum

Check out Ripstein, Kant and barbarism on SSRN. Here is a taste:

I?ve just completed Arthur Ripstein?s Force and Freedom, his rather excellent book on Kant?s political philosophy. When I say excellent, I mean that Ripstein is clear, precise and does his best to present Kant in an appealing light. I doubt that a better account of Kant?s views will be published in English. Clarity of exposition, however, has two sides to it. And in me it induced both the belief that this was what Kant believed and a revulsion at the implications of such a system. I detected rather more affection in Ripstein?s own response, in fact, I rather get the impression that he believes that something close to Kant?s views are true.  I, by contrast, have had my respect for Rousseau, Hume, Hegel, Marx, Mill and Nietzsche enhanced, especially insofar as they are all prepared to pay at least some attention to welfare, anthropology, and psychology ? all of which Kant (officially) disdains in favour of the sparse metaphysics of freedom-as-non-domination.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on September 21, 2010 (boomark / email).