Would kant be an anarcocapitalist?

[valenzuela]

If kant came back today and read about anarcocapitalism would he become an ACist?
I personally think AC is consistent with kantian ethics.

[NobodysFreak]

Isn't Kant's theory on ethics based around the principle that if an action is performed out of self-interest than it can't be moral?

[valenzuela]

I kinda want to delete my post and ask " what political view would kant have" instead.
It seems to me that you can argue almost anything using kantian ethics.
For example "what would happen if all of us stole"? Thereby taxes are morrally wrong.
Also arent ppl an end in themselves. People are not means to something.
For instance banning prostitution is morally wrong because we are not letting the prostitute make her own moral desitions so we are using her as a mean instead of someone who is intrinsically valuable.( I apologize I dont know the terms kant uses in english)Btw kant thinks its immoral to lie to a killer who wants to know where his next victim is because he are not letting him make his own moral desitions.

Anyway, hopefully someone who has studied kant can help me here.

[Turn Prophet]

Well, Kant didn't have a large theory of Political Economy, so it's hard to say.

The Categorical Imperative has a tendency to be used to justify whatever people think is moral based off a separate moral system, so I'm not sure how far analogy will get us.

Kant basically thinks that you should act as though by acting, you were writing the universal moral law. Therefore, you should act as you want others to act. However, Kant also qualifies this by saying that moral actions are done out of a sense of duty for an absolute moral law, not out of self-interest. He also says that all actions must be taken, as the OP said, so that people are treated as ends in themselves, not simply as means.

So, if you think something akin to philosophical egoism is the universal moral law, and if you are right, Kant would have to agree that if you could deduce AC from your moral philosophy, then it would be moral.

However, I think Kant and a lot of other people take a pretty big exception to the proposition, "all taxes are theft." Also, it's often unclear in large-scale political decisions whether people are being treated as ends, not simply means. There is some room for argument there.

Really, so far as moral systems go, AC tends to be defended on the basis of either utilitarianism or some version of Political Economy (if you want the "for dummies" version, read Ayn Rand).

[cpk]

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Really, so far as moral systems go, AC tends to be defended on the basis of either utilitarianism or some version of Political Economy (if you want the "for dummies" version, read Ayn Rand).

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Probably better off reading Murray Rothbard, actually. When it comes to political economy, Rand will just confuse you.

[Propertarian]

It has been more often suggested that Kant's theory supports a complete socialist economy, because capitalism involves-rewards-incentivizes people treating each other as a means/tool for making a profit (and it is laughable to dispute this-people who work for a company for twenty+ years are fired when they are no longer useful as a means to making a profit; companies must treat people this way or they are vanquished by competition), which is not acceptable under Kantian ethics. Most modern Kantians focus on the "respect for persons" part of Kant to be the most fundemental.

Robert Nozick infamously tries to derive minarcho-capitalism from this maxim, but of course fails for, among other reasons, the reason given above.

I'm a consequentalist, so I don't really care what Kant's system supports, however.

[Propertarian]

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(if you want the " by dummies" version, read Ayn Rand)

[/ QUOTE ] FYP. ACists quote Mises and Rothbard more often than Rand anyway.

[Turn Prophet]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
(if you want the " by dummies" version, read Ayn Rand)

[/ QUOTE ] FYP. ACists quote Mises and Rothbard more often than Rand anyway.

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Well said.

Kant's conjectures about ethics are open to a lot of interpretation, because notions of "treating people as ends rather than means" are hazy. To Rothbard, Mises, or Friedman, capitalism treats people as ends since everyone must trade as equals--they think socialism treats people as means for society's ends. Marxists and other socialists by contrast see capitalism as exploitative, since employees and labor are treated as means to the end of the capitalist's profit. Who's right? Probably neither, since in any economic system there is bound to be some behavior beyond the individual basis that is anti-Kantian by someone's interpretation.