Johann Benjamin Erhard on economic injustice

Widmer, Elisabeth Theresia (2025) Johann Benjamin Erhard on economic injustice. British Journal for the History of Philosophy. ISSN 0960-8788

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Abstract

Unlike Johann Benjamin Erhard’s views on art, right, revolution, and structural misrecognition, his discussion of economic injustice, here understood as the lawful economic oppression of one’s end-setting human nature, has garnered little attention. To begin filling this gap, I focus on central passages from his 1795 book On the Right of the People to a Revolution wherein Erhard discusses two cases of economic injustice. By reconstructing these claims within his Kantian perfectionist framework, I pursue two goals. First, I seek to demonstrate that his fundamental ‘duty to oneself’ lays out a comprehensive framework for duties grounding moral obligations to remedy economic practices. My second aim is to utilize this framework to explain how he defends a natural law position that views the legal system as both a remedy for and an ideological tool of economic oppression. I argue that this twofold perspective is a strength of Erhard’s theory as it allows for the detection of oppressive economic structures without letting go of a principle of external freedom from where coercive juridical laws can be derived.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Economics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
Date Deposited:	03 Mar 2025 19:03
Last Modified:	10 Mar 2025 19:25
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/127477

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