Making the center hold: Kant on sovereignty and resistance

This dissertation explores the puzzle of Kant's twofold commitment to individual rights and absolute state sovereignty. The focus is on Kant's rejection of a right of resistance, and the dissertation's general claim is that we must understand Kant's argument at three intersecting levels: politics, principles, and institutions. At the political level, Kant's rejection of resistance was motivated by a desire to secure the transition from the unjust and disorderly German empire to the lawful sovereign state. At the level of principle, Kant's basic moral doctrines rule out resistance as incompatible with universal and necessary laws. At the institutional level, Kant's defense of state sovereignty excludes resistance, yet his essentially democratic republicanism incorporates dissent as a regular feature of politics.;The dissertation differs from the existing literature in three main ways. First, methodologically it utilizes not just standard rational reconstruction, but also historical contextualization. Understanding what arguments might have provoked Kant (from Althusius to Herder) enables us to fully recognize his answers. Second, the dissertation does not narrowly focus just on the passages where Kant treats resistance, but demonstrates the pervasiveness of his concern with disobedience, illuminating how it affects other aspects of his ethical and political thought. Third, the dissertation shows that Kant's position is not just a narrow feature of rigid deontology, but an attempt at establishing a separation -- still crucial to modern states -- between subversive resistance and loyal opposition. I conclude that loyal opposition on Kantian grounds should include practices such as civil disobedience.