The moral status of Kantian Right, or the sphere of legitimate political authority, has been subject to interpreters’ puzzlement ever since. Kant seems to present to us a form of coercively enforceable moral obligation. Yet, the earlier Groundwork’s equation of the moral worth of an action with its being done from duty seems to render it strictly speaking nonsensical to conceive of anything like (externally) coercible moral laws. My paper defends the idea of juridical obligation by linking it with Kant’s account of political freedom, which does not consist in self-determined agency, but in reciprocal interaction under coercive, publicly legislated laws. Drawing on Kant’s distinction between Wille and Willkür, I illustrate why we are free in virtue of acting according to these laws. This is not only the best interpretation of Kant’s Doctrine of Right, but also an original view about the normative status of legitimate political orders.
