Carlos: Ripstein on Mandatory Cooperation

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In the selected reading from Force and Freedom by Arthur Ripstein, Ripstein examines how Immanuel Kant's conception of freedom justifies the authoritative powers the government has over individuals. As a part of these powers, "Kant supposes that the state has ... a duty to support citizens incapable of supporting themselves" (Ripstein 232). That is because the support for welfare and public goods are necessary to "sustain a condition of equal private freedom" (Ripstein 256). Although I can agree with Kant's reasoning for state welfare, I find it hard to agree with his use of mandated cooperation as a protection for public goods and against free riders. After all, some of the beneficiaries of public goods could be labeled as "free riders" when they are unable to give back to the public good and would therefore be harmed by the mandatory cooperation. 

Kant's Universal Principle of Right deems actions right if the action can coexist with other people's actions; one's action cannot hinder another person's freedom. From this principle, all people have a claim to their innate right, "independence from being constrained by another's choice" (Ripstein 13). The innate right grants a person power over their own body, their property. Furthermore, the innate right would require individuals to have a private right over private property, otherwise others could dictate how one can use their possessions, therefore violating their innate right. Nevertheless, competing interests and desires would lead individuals to use others' property for their own use. As such, the public right, exercised through the government, is necessary to secure individuals' private and innate rights. Ripstein explains that the public right is only interested in upholding what is right: maintaining equal freedom. The public right does not involve issues of inequality unless it is a result of a violation of equal freedom. Ripstein further explains that although the public right can require cooperation of individuals for the sake of equal freedom, this power is only legitimate through reciprocity. In the creation and protection of public goods, cooperation is not only necessary but mandatory. People's innate rights require that people not be used as a means to an end. Therefore, when people cooperate towards public goods, individuals can be forced to cooperate so that the original cooperators' innate rights are not violated by the "free riders". 

Still, I am unsure how an individual with limited means can be realistically expected to cooperate towards the public goods, especially when that individual is the one that makes the most use of that public good. The argument is usually made that some people take advantage of society's contribution towards welfare programs without ever giving back to those same programs while those that do give to the public goods feel taken advantage of. So, it would seem that mandatory cooperation would prevent the free rider problem by forcing cooperation from those who would benefit from said public good. Even so, it seems wrong to force mandatory cooperation from the folks who would benefit from the public good. These folks' reliance on said public goods (welfare) goes to show their already limited means and why it would be wrong to take more from them. For a struggling single parent that makes use of Medicaid, while their inability to give back to the program may label them as a 'free rider', Kant's mandatory cooperation could force the parent to give up whatever little means they have to the public good. Although Kant does explain that the public right allows for the correction of inequality due to violations of equal freedoms, this exception does not seem to do enough to reign in the power of mandatory cooperation. It still seems to me that the power of mandatory cooperation could be used to further harm those who already have little to begin with.

Comments

  1. Paul HurleyMarch 21, 2023 at 8:55 AM

    Such a nice account of the interplay of innate right, private right, and public right as securing the conditions for private right!

    I do wonder, however, whether characterizing the conditions of equal individual freedom as "public goods" invites confusion. Roads, for Ripstein's Kant, are certainly not public goods in the economic sense, and neither is housing for the homeless -- they are required conditions of legitimate private right.

    Your point about mandatory cooperation is also really interesting. Ripstein's Kant wants to put the libertarian free rider in a dilemma. You can't take your property and leave the state, because without the conditions of equal individual freedom established by the state you have no legitimate claim to property. So either you are a cooperator in the state with property, or you are not, but lose any claim to property. You can't take your ball and leave, because if you leave, it's not your ball.

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