Type I- Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals

According to Kant, a ruler has the right to inflict pain onto a subject who has committed a crime. There are two kinds of public crimes, which endanger society, not just one person. First, there are crimes that arise from a mean charcter. Second, there are crimes that arise from a violent character.

Punishment is an unconditional moral obligation, a categorial imperative, and it is futile to search for a way to reduce or eliminate punishment as an argument to better wellbeing of the individual (eudaimonism). Kant explains that justice cannot and should not be able to bought or bargained with, because at that point, justice loses value which is the whole point of life.

Punishment equal to the undeserved inflicted evil is necessary to achieve public justice. Punishment for crimes or undeserved evils is measured by the law of retribution (ius talionis) which specifies “the quality and the quantity of punishment” (Kant 332). Thus, if you commit murder, which is an undeserved evil, then the only punishment that can achieve justice is your death.

Kant’s argument that “the best equalizer before public justice is death” is refuted by Marchese Beccaria who asserts “that any capital punishment is wrongful because it could not be contained in the original civil contract” because everyone signing the contract would be consenting to lose their life in the case that they commit murder (Kant 334).

Kant unpacks this rebuttal against the death punishment as retributive. Kant states that “[n]o one suffers punishment because he has will it but because he has willed a punishable action” (Kant 335). Kant explains that it is impossible to will to be punished. Instead of Beccaria’s view that people willingly consent to losing their lives in this contract, Kant explains that the court dictates capital punishment, not each individual in the society. Thus, it is impossible for each individual to consent their death. Kant goes onto to explain that if Beccaria’s view was true, that “the authorization to punish [is] based on the offender’s promise”, then the criminal would be left to act as his own judge (Kant 335).

In the case of the two crimes infanticide of an illegitimate child and murdering a fellow soldier, like in the case of a duel, Kant argues that legislation imposing the death penalty would be unauthorized. Giving the death penalty to the mother will not remove her shame of having a child outside of marriage. In the case of the duel, it can’t be called murder because both parties consented to this public fight that could result in death. While there is still an unconditional moral obligation to punish the unlawful killing of another by death, the undeveloped law is responsible for the discrepancy between honor in the people and the measures to achieve justice, according to Kant. This is how “public justice arising from the state becomes an injustice from the perspective of the justice arising from the people” (Kant 337).

Kant discusses the sovereign’s right to grant clemency. Recalling that there is a moral obligation to punish, when the sovereign grants clemency to a subject who commited a crime against another subject, he is failing to punish and creates injustice. The only time that the sovereign can grant clemency and uphold justice is when the crime is committed against him. However, if the grant of clemency would endanger society, the sovereign should refrain from granting clemency altogether.

Lastly, Kant ponders how to achieve retributive justice in cases where returning the undeserved evil as punishment is inhumane. In the case of unnatural crimes, which are perpetrated against humanity itself, a punishment outside of the criminal act they committed is necessary, such as exile from society.

Kant, Immanuel. (1991). The Metaphysics of Morals. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.