© Nova univerza, 2018
DIGNIT AS
Revija za človekove pravice
Slovenian journal of human rights
ISSN 1408-9653
Kant and Civil Disobedience
Rok Svetlič
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To cite this document:
Svetlič, R. (2018). Kant and Civil Disobedience, Dignitas, št. 53/54, str. 25-36.
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25
DIGNITAS n Kant and Civil Disobedience
Clearly one of the origins of Western philosophy is the cognition 
that we can speak about the same phenomenon in many different 
ways. The ambivalence of each situation is perfectly mirrored in 
the Sophist philosophical school that taught the skill to speak 
about any matter in a convincing way. The answer to the state 
of complete disorientation is the emergence of classical antique 
philosophy, starting with Plato’s idealism. The ambivalence of 
discussion is therefore not abolished, although the dividing line 
between real and false manners of speaking about phenomena is 
created. It seems that controversialism in relation to the world is 
an anthropological constant.
And this is why law has always been an essential component 
of all communities. One of the definitions of law – which is 
probably too narrow, but without doubt true – states that law is an 
instrument for resolving conflicts. The mere fact of the existence 
of legal order implies that the judgements contained within the 
legal order shall not always coincide with the judgements of all 
individuals. The philosophy of law does not pay much attention 
to this discrepancy since it is part of the notion of law as such. 
With one exception: when the discrepancy between the legal 
order and the values of an individual becomes extreme and when 
it affects the most vital values, then some authors introduce the 
possibility of civil disobedience. Probably the best known case of 
such resistance is described in Sophocles’ Antigone.
This article is dedicated to a discussion of civil disobedience in 
the New Age, namely from T. Hobbes to I. Kant. We shall observe 
the following fact: the more the emphasis is put on the meaning 
of natural law (or justice) for the constitution of community, the 
higher is the interest in civil disobedience. This pattern is broken by 
I. Kant who categorically rejects the permissibility of disrespecting 
Kant and Civil Disobedience
Rok Svetlič
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DIGNITAS n Teorija in filozofija prava
the law, regardless of its content. By persisting on the validity of 
law also in cases which contain the most unjust provisions, Kant 
approaches the maxim of legal positivism that strictly divides the 
content of law from its validity. We will see that this oddness is not 
the hidden positivistic core of Kant’s doctrine of natural law, but 
a necessary consequence of the development of thinking of New 
Age subjectivity. In the project of critical philosophy, the latter 
cannot be perceived as the naive creator of existence and human 
co-existence. The reasons for this are articulated in greater detail 
by Kant in the philosophy of history.
I. Justice and the Constitution of Sociality –  
from T. Hobbes to J. Locke
T. Hobbes (1588–1679) is an important figure in the New Age 
because he introduces a completely new understanding of the law 
and the state. He introduces the traditional perception of human 
natural sociality (zoon politikon) which is known from Aristotle’s 
tradition. Henceforth, human sociality has been created ex nihilo 
based on a social contract, namely, based on the decision of 
man. If we look at this matter from a current standpoint, Hobbes’ 
philosophical concept contains a unique contradiction. It starts 
with a ‘democratic’ component that only concerns the origin of 
law and the state: free expression of the will of each individual is 
a necessary condition for concluding a social contract. However, 
according to Hobbes, absolutism is the only appropriate form of 
government. Absolutism attributes the individual a completely 
passive national status since the individual does not even have 
the right to judge what is right or what is wrong. The rights of 
individuals are actually concessions which can be or cannot be 
awarded, modified or taken away by the sovereign. Instead of the 
traditional reference to justice, the foundation of the notion of law 
now is authority: Non veritas sed auctoritas facit legem (authority 
and not truth makes law).
The necessity of the absolutistic order is advocated by thesis 
that this is the only way to retain the stability of the social structure. 
If citizens were to have rights and consequently legal subjectivity 
in relation to the sovereign, an issue would arise, namely how to 
resolve a possible conflict among them: “…there is in this case, 
no Judge to decide the controversie: it returns therefore to the 
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DIGNITAS n Kant and Civil Disobedience
Sword again; and every man recovereth the right of Protecting 
himselfe by his own strength, contrary to the designe they had in 
the Institution”.
1
 Therefore, the transition from the natural into the 
civil state should occur as an unconditional dedication of citizens 
to the absolutist.
This convulsiveness in thinking, which is in contradiction with 
the founding idea of Hobbes’ philosophy, namely with the free 
consent of the individual, can be understood through the historical 
context. Leviathan was issued in 1651, only three years after the 
Peace of Westphalia, which ended the bloody thirty-year war. The 
first and only task of the theory of law and the state is to establish 
peace! All other issues related to co-existence become silent.
S. Pufendorf (1632–1694), one or two generations younger 
than Hobbes, is an interesting author since he takes a substantially 
more profound closure from the same premises. He establishes 
that safety is not possible without sociality: “The conclusion is: 
in order to be safe, it is necessary for him to be sociable”.
2
 This 
is why he evolves an extensive doctrine on duties that analyse 
human sociality, where he mostly relates to the positive duty of 
mutual help: “everybody should be useful to others, as far as he 
conveniently can”.
3
However, Pufendorf does not introduce institutes that would 
enable the affected person to pursue their interests in conflict with 
the sovereign. Yet the input of the moment of justice in the system 
of the constitution of sociality presents a step forward, which 
implies the question of how to act when an extreme discrepancy 
arises between the state’s decisions and an individual’s judgements. 
Pufendorf recognises the right to civil disobedience: “Citizens 
ought to obey the civil laws, so far as they are not openly repugnant 
to divine
4
 law, not as if by fear of punishment alone, but by an 
internal obligation which is established by nature law itself, since 
its precepts include the behest to obey legitimate rules”.
5
This testifies to the originating change of the view of sociality, 
which is very clearly articulated in Locke’s political philosophy. 
1 
Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan, Penguin Books, Penguin Classics 1985, p. 230
2 
Samuel Pufendorf: On the Duty of Man and Citizen According to Natural Law, Cambridge University 
Press 1991, p. 35
3 
See above, p. 64
4 
This is not a theological reference. God is understood as the cause of natural law, which is already 
integrated into human nature.
5 
See above, p. 156
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DIGNITAS n Teorija in filozofija prava
The key difference is: Hobbes and Pufendorf focus on what man 
does not have – peace and safety; Locke instead focuses on what 
man inalienably has – rights. Locke (1632–1704), on this side of 
critical philosophy, initiates a healthy and rational premise that 
man simply has numerous rights, e.g. the right to equal treatment: 
“there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same 
species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages 
of Nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal 
one amongst another, without subordination or subjection…”.
6
This pre-recognition of rights impacts the concept of social 
contract: ‘peace’ can no longer be the only answer of the theory of 
law and the state. Locke sets numerous arguments against absolute 
power, the most interesting being the one that contradicts the 
arbitrariness of the conduct of authorities: “For it (legislative, note 
by R.S.) being but the joint power of every member of the society 
given up to that person or assembly which is legislator, it can be 
no more than those persons had in a state of Nature before they 
entered into society, and gave it up to the community. For nobody 
can transfer to another more power than he has in himself, and 
nobody has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any 
other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property of 
another”.
7
This argument refers to the basic principle of civil law, namely 
nemo plus iuris in alium transferre potest quam ipse habet (no 
one can transfer a greater right than he himself has) and is the 
foundation for all derived methods of obtaining rights. This 
principle is the legal articulation of the maxim ex nihilo nihil fit. An 
individual cannot sell another individual a thing that he does not 
own. A man in the natural state does not have the right to destroy 
himself or another person. Because everything the authority is 
originates from the parties to the social contract, the one who 
executes power can in no case have the right to harm the citizens. 
There is no doubt that the authority can be replaced in case the 
contract is violated. This is also confirmed by the historical context, 
namely the essay Two Treatises of Government, which is an ex post 
legitimation of the so-called famous revolution of 1688.
6 
John Locke:Two Treatises of Government, Cambridge University Press 2005, II., §4
7 
See above, II., §135
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DIGNITAS n Kant and Civil Disobedience
II: Kant and the Obscurities Regarding Civil 
Disobedience
Up to this point we were able to observe the pattern mentioned 
in the introduction. The greater the interest of the philosophy of law 
and the state in the issue of justice, the greater the thought based 
on jus naturalism, the greater is the interest in civil disobedience. 
This doctrine is radically revoked by I. Kant (1724–1804) since 
he fanatically and radically excludes the right to disrespect legal 
provisions: “Resistance on the part of the people to the supreme 
legislative power of the state is in no case legitimate”.
8
 In order 
to avoid misunderstanding, we have to emphasise that Kant was 
an extremely jus naturalist thinker. His Rechtslehre (RL) presents 
a glorious bow to law, based on purely practical reason. He 
sarcastically writes on positive law (which he calls empiric law): 
“In this search, his empirical laws may, indeed, furnish him with 
excellent guidance; but a merely empirical system that is void of 
rational principles is, like the wooden head in the fable of Phaedrus, 
fine enough in appearance, but unfortunately it wants brain”.
9
All that counts in legal philosophy is the foundation of a priori 
legal institutes that apply on the basis of practical necessity. There 
is no doubt that man has a range of a priori rights already in his 
natural state. The entry into a civil state, the establishment of a 
state does not convey new rights, it only changes their character: 
they change from provisory to peremptory.
With regard to civil disobedience, it seems that Kant draws back 
to the level of Hobbes. Resistance is not permissible in any case, not 
even in the case of the worst tyranny: “It is the duty of the people to 
bear any abuse of the supreme power, even then though it should 
be considered to be unbearable”.
10
 Even more, the mere discussion 
on the origin of authority is not permissible and should be strictly 
sanctioned. How is it possible that the institute of civil disobedience, 
regarding which “From Bodin (1530-1594), Joh. Althusius (1557-
1638), Gotius, Locke and Pufendorf to Mendelssohn theorists of the 
New Age give an affirmative answer”,
11
 is not present within Kant. 
In spite of recognising the rights of people, he claims “Hence it 
8 
Immanuel Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, 320
9 
See above, p. 230
10 
See above, p. 320
11 
Otfried Höffe: Immanuel Kant, Beck’sche Reihe Denker, München 2007, p. 237
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DIGNITAS n Teorija in filozofija prava
follows, that the supreme power in the state has only rights, and no 
(compulsory) duties towards the subject”.
12
 Independently from 
various approaches to these problems, some of them are quite 
futuristic. In contradiction to other critical authors who replace 
pragmatic and principled arguments, it is quite clear that Kant’s 
reasons are not “pragmatic but principled”.
13
 We therefore have to 
abandon the search for an answer through the historical context 
of his thought and, similarly as in Hobbes, e.g. in the bloody 
massacres of the French Revolution, see the reasons for rejecting 
revolution.
For the sake of truth, the prohibition of resistance should 
not be equalled with the complete passivity of citizens, which 
was claimed by Hobbes. The undisputable fact claimed by Kant 
is that they can “appeal” (Gravamina)
14
 and that they can freely 
write about the situation in the country (the so-called “Freedom 
of the Pen”). Therefore, B. Ludwig
15
 suggests that three types 
of opposing authority should be indicated: the resistance of 
peoples, the resistance of the individual, and the right to appeal. 
The latter is not disputable. Ludwig also claims that the right of the 
individual to resist is also not disputable – of course, in the name 
of morals. Man is not only a legal being; he is also a moral being. 
If an individual according to his/her internal forum believes that 
a certain act is unacceptable, then the individual has to resist 
regardless of the consequences. The fundamental provision of 
moral necessity is the type of the sense of obligation, which does 
not need to be referred to a spatial-temporal experience. This is 
why there is a possibility of colliding with the world, which can 
paradigmatically be seen in the case of Antigone. According to the 
abovementioned division, the prohibition of resistance should be 
explained as follows: “Kant’s rejection of peoples’ right to resist is 
no longer nothing more than an establishment that you do not 
resist against the state as a member of the community in the name 
of law, but you can decline your obedience merely as an individual 
in the name of your own conscience”.
16
12 
Immanuel Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, 319
13 
Otfried Höffe: Immanuel Kant, Beck’sche Reihe Denker, München 2007, p. 238
14 
Immanuel Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, 319
15 
See: Bernd Ludwig: Kommentar zum Staatrecht (II.) par. 51-52; Allgemeine Anmerkung A; Anhang; 
Beschluss, in: Otfried Höffe: Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtlehre, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 
1999, p. 189 
16 
See above, p. 191 
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DIGNITAS n Kant and Civil Disobedience
The prohibition of resistance should refer solely to the right 
of the nation to resist. Reading paragraph 52 questions such 
an explanation. The text shows the distinction of two types of 
contradiction that would emerge in case such an institute were 
to be integrated into the legal system. To continue: the nation that 
would resist already assumes the existence of a state. T. Pinkard
17
 
also notes that the legal state is possible only by subordinating 
individuals to legislative general will, which enables the nation to 
become a nation. Kant says “For as the people, in order to be able 
to adjudicate with a title of right regarding the supreme power in 
the state, must be regarded as already united under one common 
legislative will, it cannot judge otherwise than as the present 
supreme head of the state (summus imperans) wills”.
18
By resisting, it would only oppose itself as a nation. Ludwig 
similarly claims that “only through representation (...), namely 
through a commander, the crowds become a nation, namely the 
carrier of one type of political will”.
19
However, it seems that the inclusion of the right to civil 
disobedience, regardless of whom it refers to (the individual or 
the nation), would present one more contradiction in the legal 
system. The element of the sense of obligation would also fall out: 
law itself would claim its validity regardless of the opinions of all 
addressees (which is implied by the notion of law itself) and at 
the same time it would permit that the addressee could declare 
law as invalid: “And the reason is that any resistance of the highest 
legislative authority can never but be contrary to the law, and must 
even be regarded as tending to destroy the whole legal constitution. 
In order to be entitled to offer such resistance, a public law would 
be required to permit it. But the supreme legislation would by such 
a law cease to be supreme, and the people as subjects would be 
made sovereign over that to which they are subject; which is a 
contradiction”.
20
The explanation determined above which softens the impression 
of radicalism is questioned. It seemed that the predicament with 
17 
Terry Pinkard, in: Otfried Höffe (urednik): Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtlehre, Akademie 
Verlag, Berlin 1999, p. 168
18 
Immanuel Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, 318
19 
Bernd Ludwig: Kommentar zum Staatrecht (II.) par. 51-52; Allgemeine Anmerkung A; Anhang; Be-
schluss, v: Otfried Höffe (urednik): Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtlehre, Akademie Verlag, 
Berlin 1999, p. 191
20 
Immanuel Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, 320
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DIGNITAS n Teorija in filozofija prava
Kant’s fanatical rejection of civil disobedience – which can be 
found in the middle of the most complete jus naturalist concept 
of the New Age – would be explained by distinguishing between 
the individual and the nation. The notion of law would enable the 
right to resist only to the nation mostly due to moral reservations, 
the individual, however, would be excluded from this. Yet we have 
seen that disobedience can in no case become a part of the law. 
It is also not clear why, according to the explanation mentioned 
above, the law would not consist of such an institute that would 
limit the right to resist only to the individual.
The situation becomes complicated since Kant’s system of law 
a priori implicitly gives the right to resist to the nation as well as to 
the individual. To the latter he awards the right in another systemic 
location of the text, where he discusses penal law. Despite the 
inexorable dedication to penalising, Kant also introduces the 
possibility that someone should take the right in his/her own 
hands and take the life of someone else without being punished.
21
 
Secondly, Kant also implicitly recognises the right to resist to the 
nation as a whole, since the RL consists of the prohibition or 
restoration besides the prohibition of revolution:
“Further, when on the success of a revolution a new constitution 
has been founded, the unlawfulness of its beginning and of 
its institution cannot release the subjects from the obligation of 
adapting themselves, as good citizens, to the new order of things; 
and they are not entitled to refuse honourably to obey the authority 
that has thus attained the power in the state. A dethroned monarch, 
who has survived such a revolution, is not to be called to account 
on the ground of his former administration”.
22
21 
In order to understand how awkward this possibility is within Kantian penal law, we should descri-
be the following metaphor. Picture an island, where the community will be dissolved on the follo-
wing day. Each member will go his/her own way around the world. Therefore, all relations which had 
emerged in the past will become irrelevant and can be forgotten. With one exception: all death-row 
convicts must be hanged. Although, we will not meet again, this ought to be done: “This ought to be 
done in order that every one may realise the desert of his deeds, and that blood-guiltiness may not 
remain upon the people; for otherwise they might all be regarded as participators in the murder as 
a public violation of justice” (333). Despite the diligent commitment to punishment that does not 
permit even a fragment of pragmatism, Kant anticipates a situation where punishment should be 
abandoned. The reason is the same as in cases of civil disobedience according to other authors: a ma-
jor discrepancy between natural and valid law. Kant mentions a case when a soldier in a fight caused 
by an allegation of cowardice kills another soldier. Kant argues: the offended soldier did not have the 
opportunity to clear his name of shame with the aid of legal remedies, therefore, he was still in his 
natural state in this sense. Therefore, he did not commit a murder (homicidium dolosum), but merely 
a homicide (homicidium). If the court were to convict such a perpetrator, it would annul the meaning 
of (military) honour, to which he is entitled – today, we would call this according to ‘natural law’. 
22 
Immanuel Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, 323
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DIGNITAS n Kant and Civil Disobedience
If the revolution succeeds, the new authority is legally binding 
– although this provision is a contradictory element of the legal 
system. The law therefore sends a message: you can violate the 
law, if you are strong enough to succeed. The legal system cannot 
judge on the power that can actually enforce respect in the form 
of a new national order. Most certainly, the law must prohibit the 
illegal use of power; otherwise, it stops being an obligatory system. 
But when revolution happens, the law should simply acknowledge 
it. Is this a farewell from justice as the foundation of law? Has an 
equal sign been introduced between power and justice?
III. Kant and the Concept  
of Creativity of the Subject
Law cannot judge the revolutionary power in its court. However, 
it is judged on another level, namely the level of the philosophy of 
history. The dimension of jus naturalism and justice is reintegrated 
into the concept of law. Kant does not integrate his concept of 
the philosophy of history in RL, which would cause extraordinary 
standpoints regarding civil disobedience, which are symbolised 
by the simultaneous prohibition of revolution and restoration, 
to become understandable. Therefore, we have to look at his 
philosophy of history, which he presents in several short essays. 
Two can be pointed out, namely the Idea for universal history 
from a cosmopolitan point of view (1784) and Perpetual Peace 
(1795). In the absence of this reference it is impossible to explain 
the paradox that no understanding of civil disobedience, which 
is quite self-evident for other authors, can be found in the most 
glorious compliment to the natural law of the New Age. We will see 
that this is a necessity for the development of philosophy, which 
cannot affirm the simple creativist premise of early contractualism 
at the stage of entering its critical period.
The resistance against tyrannical authority considered as the 
creation of a more just world is legitimised within the idea of 
expedience (third Critique) and not within the necessity of the 
practical mind (second Critique).
In the introductory part of the Idea, Kant describes the main 
predicament in finding the principle that would explain the course 
of history – including all resistance against authority. Man is a 
rational, yet sensibility-affected being. Man exists between pure 
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DIGNITAS n Teorija in filozofija prava
nature and pure reason. If man were only a rational person, then 
the course of history could be determined based on the second 
Critique. If man were merely a mechanical being, then his history 
would be explained by the first Critique. Thus, the only possibility 
remains to seek our answer on the level of the third Critique 
which sets a comprehension of the expedient course, but only on 
the level of our cognitive abilities. Kant determines: “Since men 
in their endeavours behave, on the whole, not just instinctively, 
like the brutes, nor yet like rational citizens of the world according 
to some agreed-on plan, no history of man conceived according 
to a plan seems to be possible, as it might be possible to have 
such a history of bees or beavers. One cannot suppress certain 
indignation when one sees men’s actions on the great world-stage 
and finds, beside the wisdom that appears here and there among 
individuals, everything in the large woven together from folly, 
childish vanity, even from childish malice and destructiveness. In 
the end, one does not know what to think of the human race, so 
conceited in its gifts. Since the philosopher cannot presuppose any 
[conscious] individual purpose among men in their great drama, 
there is no other expedient for him except to try to see if he can 
discover a natural purpose in this idiotic course of things human. 
In keeping with this purpose, it might be possible to have a history 
with a definite natural plan for creatures who have no plan of 
their own”. 
23
Kant understands it is necessary to abandon the naive idea 
originating from the Enlightenment, namely that man creates 
history as some kind of a fabricate. This idea emerged as a 
consequence of breaking the religious view of the course of 
history, which considered history as the manifestation of the 
hidden prudence of God: if history is not created by God, then 
it is created by the hands of man. At first glance, this is true; 
however, a more detailed view of the problem, illustrated by the 
abovementioned quote, warns that history is not a simple product 
of man. A provocative question emerges, namely, whether the 
image of man – as a reasonable being, affected by sensibility – can 
actually be the basis from which we can deduct the exceptional 
complexity and reliability of everyday relations among humans. 
How is it that millions of people come to their workplaces every 
23 
Immanuel Kant: Idea for universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view, in: R. C. Scharf, V. 
Dusek (ed.): Philosophy of Technology, Blackwell, Oxford 200, p. 38
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DIGNITAS n Kant and Civil Disobedience
day, although it is not hard to predict that if it was up to their own 
judgement they would rather stay at home. And these people 
perform numerous tasks that they would not perform only 
based on their own motivation scheme etc. Based on this, Kant is 
certain that only the notion of ‘man’ cannot present the basis for 
deducting the complexity of the world as we see it. And there is 
even a smaller possibility to deduct the laws that enable history to 
progress.
Even if it seems a paradox, creating a more just order cannot 
(only) be the work of man.
24
 It is obvious that we need to assume 
one more instance that cohabits with us and focuses us on order and 
progress. Kant calls it the expedience of nature, which made man 
sociable and unsociable at the same time: “The means employed 
by Nature to bring about the development of all the capacities of 
men is their antagonism in society, so far as this is, in the end, 
the cause of a lawful order among men. By ‘antagonism’ I mean 
the unsocial sociability of men, i.e., their propensity to enter into 
society, bound together with a mutual opposition which constantly 
threatens to break up the society.”
25
 If people were more sociable, 
then they would not live like cattle, which has been grazing grass 
without progress and without conflicts for thousands of years. If 
they were merely unsociable, they would grow as lonely trees that 
idly surrender to dwarfish growth in the clear field. Unsociable 
sociability, however, is summarised by the metaphor of the forest: 
condensed cohabitation and the continuing process of attempting 
to beat the other is what lures growth from trees, and invokes 
strong trunks, because only growth towards the light enables a 
tree to survive.
Unsociable sociability leads us to conflicts which we are 
forced to resolve by applying (just) law. At the same time, this is 
a mechanism that ensures increasing the presence of just mutual 
relations in the world. The Kantian vision of this process is the 
24 
Similar doubt is provided by the problem of the hierarchy of control that necessarily leads to re-
gression: “The difficulty which the mere thought of this problem puts before our eyes is this. Man is 
an animal which, if it lives among others of its kind, requires a master. For he certainly abuses his fre-
edom with respect to other men, and although as, a reasonable being he wishes to have a law which 
limits the freedom of all, his selfish animal impulses tempt him, where possible, to exempt himself 
from them. He thus requires a master, who will break his will and force him to obey a will that is 
universally valid, under which each can be free. But whence does he get this master? Only from the 
human race. But then the master is himself an animal, and needs a master”. (Immanuel Kant: Idea for 
universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view, in: R. C. Scharf, V. Dusek (ed.): Philosophy of 
Technology, Blackwell, Oxford 200, p. 41)
25 
See above, pp. 39-40
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DIGNITAS n Teorija in filozofija prava
regulative idea of perpetual peace: when at the end, all relations 
among people and states will be regulated by applying reasonable 
law, all conditions for war shall be abolished on a systemic level. 
This is also the element of RL, which in the chapter on cosmopolitan 
law includes the imperative “There shall be no war”,
26
 although 
its realisation does not depend on the practical mind but on the 
expedience of nature.
The key element for our purpose determines that man is not 
the one who leads history to a better level, but it is the mechanism 
which willingly or unwillingly directs us in the exactly determined 
direction: “Individuals and even whole peoples think little on this. 
Each, according to his own inclination, follows his own purpose, 
often in opposition to others; yet each individual and people, as if 
following some guiding thread, go toward a natural but to each 
of them unknown goal; all work toward furthering it, even if they 
would set little store by it if they did know it”.
27
This is why civil disobedience in RL is at the same time 
forbidden and recognised. It is forbidden because it would dismiss 
the nature of law, which lies in the obligatory sense of its rules. 
At the same time, the Kantian prohibition of civil disobedience 
does not bring a moral contradiction between the unjust order 
and the just vision of the individual, who is ready to realise it 
by (passive or active) resistance. Because intentional acts of the 
individual are completely irrelevant for justice on the level of the 
community’s cohabitation. When a step forward is made in the 
justice of a certain order, this will happen independently of the 
direct will of individuals – just like the French Revolution, which 
Kant observed with great inclination. In the period of unjust 
order, man is left with hope, provided by the vision of perpetual 
peace; or with resistance that is demanded by a sufficiently loud 
command of the internal moral forum, like in Antigone. In this 
case, the individual takes over the tragic consequences that do not 
speak about the rejection of the sovereign, but about the destiny 
of the (not yet) reasonable cohabitation of people. The real tragic 
meaning, however, is that according to Kant such sacrifice in no 
case contributes to a more just future.
26 
Immanuel Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, 354
27 
Immanuel Kant: Idea for universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view, in: R. C. Scharf, V. 
Dusek (ed.): Philosophy of Technology, Blackwell, Oxford 200, p. 38
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