Kant conflated negative freedom with its positive side in duty

Evidence

By his bold identification of doing one’s duty with freedom, Kant ruled this character of duty out of court, but thereby confused the negative side of freedom with its positive side. We are apparently free to do or not to do the duty we feel above us as an ideal; but, actually, complete freedom exists only in regard to not doing it, since to do it follows from a psychic imperative, from a coercion which is the inner equivalent of the legal coercion of society. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 9374

Categorization

• XREF: A direct philosophical rebuttal of Kant useful in any essay on obligation, gift economies, or the nature of duty — connects to: Kant’s reason holds utopia and calculation in unresolved contradiction; Enlightenment liberal democracy defines freedom negatively as freedom from interference. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 358
• SEED: Article angle: challenging Kant’s freedom-duty identification using the first-gift asymmetry — duty is always a constraint, and only initiating acts are truly free.