When is a right to exist satisfied? Does this create a need for Democracy?

     Take a situation in which you make a choice that limits freedom in one way but expands it in another, for example, mandatory military service. It forces you into a certain occupation, but the security it provides guarantees your freedom and the freedom of others after your service. This action -- if done by an individual -- would not be "right" under the universal principle of right. If done by the state, it seems to be permissible because "the state must, and have a right to, put in place (through public right/law) even though private individuals do not have the corresponding authority" (8).  That right comes from the state reconciling its monopoly on coercion with a citizen's right to freedom. Mandatory service (use of coercion) is reconciled because it protects the general populace's freedom, making it permissible under Kant's framework. However, reconciling by valuing a larger amount of freedom over a smaller loss of freedom doesn't seem to follow the universal principle of right and looks a lot like wealth maximization, where wealth is defined as freedom. 

     There is an argument to be made (by Hobbes), however, that military service (at least the active kind) could be filed under letting the state kill you, which subjects can not be obligated to do, (3).  Potentially sacrificing your life to protect the freedom of others can't be reconciled with a citizen's right to freedom. Now, this situation seems to be a pocket of despotism, where there is violence and law but no freedom. There could be an argument that putting you at increased risk of being killed is not the same as trying to kill you, so you do have an obligation, and mandatory service can be reconciled with a right to freedom. But let's ignore that for now. (A possible counterargument is also that the state can't subject security to the arbitrary choice of people to serve) 

    This presents a fun slippery slope. By conducting nuclear weapons tests, as we know from Gabe's earlier post, the state put people at an increased risk of dying, in addition to many other consequences. The Flint Water Crisis, the formula shortage, loosening vaccine policies, and more are examples of policies where the government caused harm to people's health and, therefore, their right to exist. This now brings up questions discussed in some other blog posts: how many of these incidents need to occur for a pocket of despotism to become an unjust state, does people's obligation to the state exist on a scale related to the state's place on the scale of state of nature to civil society? If there is no obligation to the state in a pocket of despotism, do all conscripted soldiers have a right to defect? Does that right supersede their obligation to not infringe on the right to freedom of their fellow soldiers, which is now in danger due to the defection? 

    A side note, a lot of the examples I bring up are examples of the state not using its coercive power when using it would increase freedoms, which I think is interesting. I think Kant's framework would require the use of this power, given Varden's response to Nozick, (9). This then requires a level of "sufficiently free from harm" as there seems to always be something the state can do. For example, outlawing smoking in many public spaces makes people sufficiently free from second-hand smoke, even though outlawing cigarettes would increase freedom from second-hand smoke. 

   A potential answer to the questions before lies in moral anthropology's ability to determine what "ungrounds us" (17). I might have completely misunderstood this section, but if a pocket is large enough to unground us then the state is not just, but if we are simply slightly askew, then obligations to the state are only slightly lessened or not at all. I understood "unground" as a kind of reaction of the general will. If cultural views see mandatory military service as ok, then the general will is not unground, and that pocket of despotism is not a sign of an unjust state. If the general will is upset by conscription (think Vietnam Protests), then the pocket doesn't lead to a lack of faith in the state. You again fall into the problem of needing a measurement for how much the general will of the people shifts.

  This is where you might have an argument against Kant's argument that any form of government can be just. Voting is the way to judge the general will -- without regular voting, there is no regular accountability of the state to the general will. An optimistic view would see the changing flows of democracy as a state consistently readjusting to avoid becoming an unjust state, addressing pockets that get large enough to threaten "ungrounding".