States of Nature as Theories of Normativity: Kant and His Predecessors

The state of nature in social contract theories tells us two stories, one about who the main political actors are, and another one about the supra-juridical normativity and principles those actors use to judge and act politically once they are in the civil state. In this paper I focus on the latter matter by contrasting Kant’s approach to the state of nature and its role in his social contract theory with the conceptions of the state of nature in Hobbes, Locke, Achenwall, and Rousseau. Following the thesis that pre-juridical normativity functions as supra-juridical normativity once in the state, my main question is: how is “natural”, in the sense of “pre-political”, normativity generated? With this I am referring not only to the source of normativity, but mainly to how pretensions of normativity arise when people interact in the state of nature, and if these are or are not regulated by a moral-legal order independent from that interaction. Fil: Marey, Macarena. Centro de Investigaciones Filosóficas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina