Excerpt from

On the Relationship of Theory to Practice in Political Right

Immanuel Kant

1792

Man's freedom as a human being, as a principle for the constitution of a

commonwealth, can be expressed in the following formula. No-one can

compel me to be happy in accordance with his conception of the welfare

of others, for each may seek his happiness in whatever way he sees fit,

so long as he does not infringe upon the freedom of others to pursue a

similar end which can be reconciled with the freedom of everyone else

upon the judgment of the head of state as to how they ought to be happy,

and upon his kindness in willing their happiness at all. Such a

government is the greatest conceivable despotism, i. e. , a constitution

which suspends the entire freedom of its subjects, who thenceforth have

no rights whatsoever. The only conceivable government for men who are

capable of possessing rights, even if the ruler is benevolent, is not a

paternal but a patriotic government. A patriotic attitude is one where

everyone in the state, not excepting its head, regards the commonwealth

as a maternal womb, or the land as the paternal ground from which he

himself sprang and which he must leave to his descendants as a treasured

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