The civil state regarded purely as a lawful state, is based on the following a priori principles:
- The freedom of every member of society as a human being.
- The equality of each with all the others as a subject.
- The independence of each member of a commonwealth as a citizen.
These principles are not so much laws given by an already established state, as laws by which a state can alone be established in accordance with pure rational principles of external human right.
Immanuel Kant, Theory and Practice (1791)
One reply on “Immanuel Kant”
Quotes from Kant like those shown in this post seem to support some of Ayn Rand’s positions. Objectivist denounce Kant as anti-reason. Yet both philosophies lead in many circumstance to give the same results as to the rights of the individual.