Kant's Apple: the Moral Grounding of Right and the Interdependence of Ethics and Law

Much has been discussed about the relationship of dependence or independence of the Kantian philosophy of right from his moral theory. The strong independence thesis has been sustained amongst others by Allen Wood and Georg Geismann. The medium-independence thesis has been defended by Thomas Pogge in an attempt to differentiate Kantian philosophy of right from Rawlsian comprehensive liberalisms. There is also the “non-conclusive” position of Arthur Ripstein regarding this dependence. Finally there is the position of Otfried Höffe and Paul Guyer, which defends a strong dependence between right and morals, and states a deduction of the Principle of Right (PR) from the Categorical Imperative (CI) through the notion of freedom. I will base my defense on the discussion between Markus Willaschek and Gerhard Seel regarding this matter because their positions summarize many of the fundamental arguments used by both lines of thoughti and, al last, propose my own defense of the dependence thesis.