Abstract
This contribution explores the juridical formative background of Kant’s ethics by placing Kant’s legal and ethical thinking in the context of the modern normative discourse about law and liberty. Section 1 outlines the intrinsically republican profile of much of modern political philosophy. Section 2 features the terminological and conceptual distinction between freedom and liberty. Section 3 addresses the juridico-ethical analogy underlying the normative nature of Kant’s practical philosophy. While the contribution’s title, “eleutheronomy,” comes directly from Kant, its subtitle attributes to Kant, not an esoteric political philosophy, but a practical philosophy, including an ethics, that is inwardly, “esoterically,” shaped and animated by key concepts taken from (modern) political philosophy.
