Kant presumes a voluntarily infringement of freedom that can not be rationalized within his writings. The underpinnings of Mill’s analysis need not be overstated here for “brevity’s” sake. In short, Mill claims that no moral agent can sell him or herself into slavery or likewise end their own life because in doing so, the agent destroys the conceptual basis of liberty or freedom. Ultimately, freedom as a prepolitical claim that is inherent to all individuals can not be bartered away. In addition, even Locke claims that limiting one’s own natural rights is immoral because an agent can only transfer that which he owns and the ownership of his natural rights belongs to God. To allow freedom to be limited in this way would violate two tenets of the Kantian ethic. First, selling oneself into slavery or generally, limiting one’s own freedom would be done for some better end and is not procedurally valuable. This is to say that the process of limiting one’s own freedom has no value. Consequently, the action of limiting one’s freedom is teleological and if used as the premise for Kant’s deontological theory, diminishes the validity of the theory. Second, if freedom is to be so valuable to Kant, its limitation is an inherent contradiction. The self-imposed and absolute limitation of liberty creates a blind allegiance to laws created or dictated by fallible humans. Without the power to challenge law, whether moral or political, an agent must adhere to unjust regimes, immoral community standards or harsh civil codes. A Nazi who follows Hitler’s orders to execute civilians is surely immoral. When any third party agent coerces individual choice, either explicitly or implicitly, the choice is not free. Political laws, by definition, limit freedom of action while moral laws, by definition, limit freedom of thought and action subversively. The essence of the Kantian ethic resides in universal law because it would be illogical for a universal law to be rejected. For example, if an agent lied, it would eliminate the concept of truth if lying were a universal maxim. In the same manner, an agent can not limit another’s freedom because the universal maxim would destroy the concept of freedom. When, through free will, an agent can limit his or her own freedom the universal maxim violates the integrity of the concept of freedom because an agent can will his or her own demise which Kant regards as morally reprehensible. While it is quite obvious that Kant argues several types of laws, some that are immutable in fact, only now is it clear that those laws do indeed serve to limit freedom rather than increase freedom. Therefore, free will can not exist within the Kantian framework from a definitional perspective because it is logically inconsistent.

hile the general profundity of this claim may be minimal, the implications on Kant’s deontological approach and specifically upon the Categorical Imperative are evident. In establishing the absence of free will within the Kantian ethic, two approaches are necessary: the definitional prohibition of free will and the philosophical inconsistency of free will. Before delving into the thesis, however, one cavea

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