Could there be a right to revolution?

In what follows I shall first explore how it is possible to satisfy the Kantian objection,

namely, that there cannot be a juridical right to revolution, by forwarding an account in which there

can be. I shall then look at how, actually, the Kantian objection is questionable, itself, by conceiving

of what Locke said in favor of revolutions, that a sovereign loses its sovereignty once having

misused its powers, and conclude that a juridical right is not necessary for there to be a moral right.

I shall then explore the ethics of revolution through exemplifying the work of Allen Buchanan, and

by doing so conclude that there can be a moral right to revolution.

Satisfying the Kantian Objection

In Rethinking Sovereignty, Rethinking Revolution, Matthew Noah Smith interprets Kant to

have conceived that there can never be a right to revolution–defined as a ‘i) profound and

thoroughgoing substitution of one governing socio-political institution with another ii) achieved

through means (revolutionary activities) that involve the spectacular rejection of the authority of

both the target institution and its rules’ (Smith 2008: 408)–because a legal right, which is necessary

for there to be a right at all, can never be justifiably attained.

Kant reaches this conclusion by stating that everyone has an innate right to freedom, and thus a

right to pursue certain ends. These include the right to live as one wishes in the state of nature, and

the right to coerce those who threaten that right. In the state of nature, however, there are just

morally conflicting private claims, and ‘no judge competent to render a verdict having a rightful

force’ (Kant 1996: §44) because there is no political authority, ‘there is only the private right of

each to enforce his will, which amounts to the private right of the stronger to enforce his will’

therefore this condition is ‘devoid of justice’ (Kant 1996: §44)

A way to overcome the conflicting moral claims and the state of nature is to establish a juridical

state. For in the juridical state, there would be a public, shared system of rights, consisting of rights

that can be known by all, and whose enforcement is institutionalized such that people can

reasonably be expected to conform with them (Smith 2008: 415); in this condition the ‘the free

choice of each [accords] with the freedom of all’ (Kant 1996: §44). A legal right to revolution can

never be permissible, then, because the very rights revolutionaries call upon are private ones

contrary to the sovereign, undermining its authority in the process. If all those who under the

sovereigns rule had a right to revolt against it, the sovereign would become useless–no rights other

than private rights would exist–and a regression into the state of nature would be imminent.

Therefore, ‘’…people ha[ve] a duty to put up with even what is held to be an unbearable abuse of

supreme authority’ (Kant 1996: §44). In addition, for a revolution to be moral, it must also be legal,

however since revolution destroys the legal order that is responsible for a civil condition where

morality may thrive, it can never be permissible.

Smith, however, believes that a legal right to revolution may be permissible in the right

circumstance; namely, when what he calls, a decentralized global sovereign, and a centralized

national sovereign govern the same population. Here, revolutionaries may appeal to the global

sovereign judicially without undermining the national sovereigns authority. But what distinguishes

these two forms of sovereign allowing the global sovereign, opposed to the national, the right to

allow for revolution? The Kantian objection previously mentioned still applies, for if the global

governance wields sovereign over the national, whilst allowing those ruled a right to revolution,

then the national sovereign seems redundant.

To overcome this, it is important to distinguish between the centralized and decentralized

sovereignty. The centralized form consists of one authoritative body (hub) wielding its authority

over all institutions (nods) under its sovereign (the type Kant may have in mind), whereas with the

decentralized, there is no one authoritative hub, but many, each governing its own node/s. In a

decentralized global sovereignty, a centralized national sovereign may constitute one of many hubs

wielding authority over a domain of political questions, as well as a given space of territory.

A problem with this conception is the likelihood of domain overlap on especially morally pressing

questions, where two national sovereigns have conflicting claims over what their sovereign rules.

For most cases of domain overlap, bilateral negotiation; appealing to default rules conventional in

the Lewisean sense (Smith 2008: 428); and rule shopping will settle such matters, however

instances where the conflicting claims are not settled, and thus where a crisis undermining the

decentralized global sovereign is likely to breakout, it is necessary for there to exist ‘a consensus

commitment to a juridical human rights regime as constitutive regulative norms’ (Smith 2008: 429).

This commitment unifies all institutions encompassed under the decentralized global sovereign,

whilst not undermining its authority over certain political issues. This is because it allows the

national sovereign ample room to rule autonomously on matters within the framework of the global

sovereigns rule. The reason to use the human rights regime as the primary legislative set of norms is

because of its claim to universality, as well as its authoritative claim not restricting the sovereignty

of those encompassed. In addition, all institutions would abide by a ‘patchwork of rights’ that are

‘administered by the global sovereign…associated with each institutions relevant domain of

political questions’ (Smith 2008: 435). For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) would

provide a framework of which national sovereigns would work within, whilst still remaining

autonomous with respect to trade deals, for example, and thus its sovereignty is not undermined.

Providing a nation (hub) treats its people (nodes) in accordance with the human rights regime as

enforced by the global sovereign, those ruled have no right to revolution, however if a nation abuses

these rights, a people then has a juridical, and subsequently, moral, right to revolution, and so the

Kantian objection is no longer a concern.

No Need for a Juridical Right

The theoretical model sketched above seems to overcome the Kantian objection because it

resolves the problem of a sovereign losing its sovereignty, after a right to revolution is legislated.

The premise on which this objection lies, however, is a moral one, namely, that devolution to the

state of nature would be imminent if a juridical state did not exist to establish public rights for all to

abide by.

Opposed to satisfying the Kantian no-right-to-revolution objection, as did Smith, it is generally held

as an objection overcome by the consideration, that a juridical right is not necessary for a moral

right to exist. That is, whether or not a revolution is called upon legally is no prerequisite for a right

to be morally justified. Kant’s premise that a juridical right to revolution is required for a moral

right is unpinned, once we consider that a regression to the state of nature is not imminent in cases

of revolution. Non-state actors are capable of establishing make-do conditions which provide for

basic justice; this ‘receives empirical support from studies of revolutions’ (Buchanan 2013: 309),

and thus the Lockean dictum–that the people may have a right to revolt against a sovereign that

abuses its power–holds true:

‘Whosoever in Authority exceeds the Power given him by the Law, and makes use of the

Force he has under his Command, to compass that upon the Subject which the Law allows not,

ceases in that to be a Magistrate, and acting without Authority, may be opposed as any other Man,

who by force invades the Right of another’ (Locke 1689: ch. 18).

A Moral Right in Accordance with Just War Theory

For individuals to be morally permissible in their call for revolution, they must satisfy some

principles of just war theory (Buchanan 2013: 295-296), including that a) their initiation of it is

called upon for just reasons; b) their prospects of success are likely; c) the violence they use is

proportional to the ends they seek to achieve; and d) they must not deliberately target

noncombatants.

It is important to note that sovereigns are prone to mistakes, like anything, and consequently ‘…

[r]evolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement in publick affairs…’ for such mistakes

go ‘without mutiny or murmur’ from the public (Locke 1689: 225); if revolution were to erupt

every time a member of the sovereign abused the power it provides them with– like a politician

using the money from the public fund for their own advantage–revolutionaries would be less

justified because the consequences brought about by the means they would employ would very

often unlikely be worth the ends they hope to achieve. For the rest of this paper, then, the sovereign

in question is ‘a regime that persistently violates some of the basic human rights of large segments

of the population, is extremely authoritarian (that is, wholly undemocratic), and is utterly

impervious to efforts to reform it’ (Buchanan 2013: 296). Using this definition will also help to

exemplify the serious moral dilemmas revolutionaries face in their pursuit of a just revolution.

In his thorough work, The Ethics of Revolution and Its Implications for the Ethics of Intervention,

Allen Buchanan begins to explore what the ethics of a revolution may be. There are at-least three

things a revolution needs if it is to have a likely chance of success (a requirement of jus ad bellum).

In fulfilling each of the following, revolutions must also satisfy in some way the rules of just war

theory, however, as we shall see, revolutionaries often face ethical conundrums in their attempts to

keep their moral right to revolution.

In ‘an attempt to overthrow an existing regime and to replace it with a new one, by violent or at

least unconstitutional means’ (Buchanan 2013: 291), revolutionaries often rely on unorthodox

modes of attack, because the prices of military equipment on par with that of the regimes are too

much. These modes of attack meet the conditions set by jus in bello: specifically that

noncombatants are not deliberately targeted in the process. These attacks involve their combatants

not wearing uniforms, blending in with the population, and then disrupting the efficiency of the

regime by targeting one of its administrative facilities. However the reality that is their military

inferiority often leads revolutionaries to commit acts of terror (lethal violence against

noncombatants with the aim of evoking terror or fear that will cause the regime to change its

behavior to suit the political agenda of those who perpetrate the violence (Buchanan 2013: 297)).

Another requirement for revolutionaries hoping to fulfill the jus ad bellum requirement of having a

reasonable likelihood of success, and consequently, although less obviously, the requirement that

the violence employed by the revolutionaries is proportional to the ends they hope to achieve, is

effective leadership (for sufficient leadership if surely a necessity for both of these). In the

oppressed conditions such revolutionaries find themselves in, however, the acquisition of a leader is

difficult to come by. The regime is likely to imprison and/or kill candidate leaders for the revolution

to hinder their prospects of its success. Moreover, anti-regime activism shan’t be condoned under

the brutal rule making it even harder to locate appropriate applicants for leadership. Consequently

rivalry for leadership breaks out which ‘are often characterized by violence, betrayal, and

manipulation of the population's beliefs and emotions’ (Buchanan 2013: 298). All of which are

often unethical means, unsatisfying the jus in bello specification of not targeting noncombatants.

A requirement that is necessary for a revolution to succeed is a mass following from the public.

Despite the oppression the regime may inflict upon the peoples freedom, a people may still reason

that the revolution will either succeed or fail, regardless of their participation; a ‘one vote doesn’t

matter’ process of thought. In addition to this initial reluctance, the people may be deterred by

considering the detriment their participation would impose upon their families; they may not decide

to join, where there is no assurance that others will, out of reciprocal fairness; and they may also

assume that until a certain threshold of participants is met, their participation is pointless. Those

people who reason that the costs of participating outweigh the negatives of not (where the regime is

so brutal) may still be put off by the regime raising the consequences of their joining. To overcome

these obstacles, it is likely that revolutionaries will have to coerce the populace through unethical

means. They will carry out ‘summary executions or mutilations, [levy] fines, [confiscate] property,

[and/or] bar nonparticipants from food and other emergency relief’ (Buchanan 2013: 301). Other

tactics they may employ include baiting the regime to harm innocents out of retaliation for the

revolutions own heinous, antagonizing acts; and manipulating the publics views by killing

noncombatants making it seem as though the regime had done so. All of the above instances, of

course, would lose the revolutionaries their moral right to revolution against the regime, because

they would not meet the conditions set by just war theory.

Having said this, some may feel that these otherwise morally prohibited actions are condonable

considering the ends the revolutionaries hope to achieve, namely, the replacement of a truly

abhorrent regime. In other words, although the revolutionaries use of terrorism to gain mass support

may violate the jus in bello condition of not targeting innocents, it satisfies many jus ad bellum

conditions: including, that their prospects of success are high; that their cause is just; and that their

carrying out of such actions is a last resort. Well the revolutionaries are expected to meet the

conditions of a legitimate authority as much as the conditions in which they function may allow

(Buchanan 2013: 308). Although they cannot meet these conditions fully (not being able to secure

justice for their followers for example), this is because the regime disallows them from achieving

such. However, like one does not deem a state who uses terrorism to secure its position a legitimate

one, so too, shall a revolutionary group not be granted legitimacy nor a moral right to revolution if

their actions explicitly fail to meet the standards of just war theory.

Although there are some acts of coercing the public, under strict circumstance, that remain

permissible such as fining them, and confiscating their goods (including their property) to increase

their prospects of being successful in their revolt. As a further matter, those who support the

revolution after its initiation may be deemed morally permissible even if its initiation is unjust. For

example, the moment in which a person decides to join the revolution may be when it most fully

satisfies the just war principles, and so whether or not its origins are based on unjust ground matters

not to the moral stance of those late interveners. As a whole, this conclusion will come as

unfortunate news to revolutionaries who wish to satisfy the jus ad bellum requirement that their

prospects of success are likely, whilst remaining morally permissible, for seldom is the case. As

Buchanan notes, successful revolutions that meet these conditions are rare. Those involving Nelson

Mandela and Mohandas Gandhi, for example, were exceptions in history (Buchanan 2013: 305).

This does not, of course, take away from the fact that a moral right to revolution does exist; when

revolutionaries take it upon themselves to replace a regime of injustice through means that do not

violate the rules of just war–but nevertheless may be morally problematic (like fining the public for

lack of cooperation)–they do so with this very right-their moral right to revolution most firmly

intact.

In conclusion, I would like to note that just because a revolutions likelihood of being successful is

severely reduced when it satisfies the rules of just war, it is not to say that its prospects of success

have been explored fully here. For example, the external support of fellow nations intervening early

can advantageously increase revolutionaries’ prospects of probable success. (Buchanan 2013: 318).

It is simply that this factor of external intervention has little bearing on the revolutionaries right to

revolution, of which this paper has been most concerned with.

Bibliography

Noah Smith, Matthew (2008), Rethinking Sovereignty, Rethinking Revolution, Wiley

Kant, Immanuel (1996), The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. And ed. Mary Gregor, New York: Cambridge University Press

Buchanan, Allen (2013), The Ethics of Revolution and Its Implications for the Ethics of Intervention, Wiley Periodicals

Locke, John (1689), Two Treatises of Government, Awnsham Churchill