Practical Application of Love

        Love makes an interesting argument that Kantian freedom requires us to govern our economic system democratically. Since nobody can unilaterally declare property rights without becoming everyone else’s master (violating Kant’s Universal Principle of Right), those rights have to be worked out through a democratic process. Indeed, “our rights cannot be structured unilaterally” because it would make one person “the master of others” (p. 5). Love draws a clear line around some decisions for democratic lawmaking, namely innate rights. Things like bodily autonomy or who we choose to date, for example, can’t be regulated or voted on. Instead, democratic governance only matters for the rights regarding external objects.

However, the diction between them, practically speaking, becomes fuzzy. For concrete property questions, like who owns the land or who can use this specific object, Love’s argument makes sense. But more nebulous ideas like financial markets regulation don’t fit into one camp. Interest rates, for example, definitely shape how people relate to each other economically, but are difficult to categorize as innate rights versus rights over external objects. In fact, almost every significant economic decision structures our relationships with one another in some way, so do they all must be made through “equal democratic citizenship” and processes (p. 5)? 

I think this ambiguity is where someone like Nozick would object. His worry is that any democratic patterning requires constant interference with voluntary exchanges, which creates new rights problems. My objection isn’t that Nozick is right, but more drawing on his idea that continuous interference will be substantial, and how exactly that will play out is unclear. Love does acknowledge that it would require a robust state, but sorting out the details under Love’s framework, practically speaking, could be an interesting discussion to expand upon in seminar. 



 

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