Widmer, Elisabeth Theresia (2025) Johann Benjamin Erhard's critical account of state legitimacy. In: Maliks, Reidar and Widmer, Elisabeth Theresia, (eds.) Kant’s Early Followers in Political Philosophy. Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy. Routledge, New York NY. ISBN 9781032851907
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
There are many ways to conceptualize state legitimacy, one approach being through the lens of human rights. While thinking of state legitimacy in terms of human rights gained prominence after the Second World War, Johann Benjamin Erhard had already compiled a list of human rights in his 1795 moral justification of revolution, positing that a state's legitimacy in exercising coercion hinges on its ability to secure these rights. In this chapter, I shall argue that Erhard's human rights account is novel in two significant respects. First, from a historical viewpoint, I argue that by placing humanity at the forefront of his philosophy, Erhard–alongside other revolutionary Kantians–presented a novel approach to state legitimacy that was notably unconventional before the 1790s. Second, from a systematic point of view, I shall show that Erhard's innovative use of the Kantian distinction between humanity-grounding duties “in themselves” and “in relation to an end” paves the way for a “critical” usage of human rights to identify existing oppressive structures. Highlighting this aspect will support a recently made suggestion to consider him a “proto-critical theorist.”
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Reidar Maliks and Elisabeth Theresia Widmer; individual chapters, the contributors |
| Divisions: | Government |
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) J Political Science > JC Political theory |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Jul 2025 11:15 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Jul 2025 18:09 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/128870 |
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