Kant Notes: General Intro

● The spirit of Kant’s philosophy and the French and American revolutions
Independence of the individual in the face of authority
The problem of human freedom as the very core of his thought
Sympathetic to the aims of the revolutionaries; their main aim to realise the rights of man -
although he was essentially conservative and anti-revolution in his native Prussia
Rousseau was a great influence - respect of the common man
Key preoccupation of both Kant and revolutionaries is their joint call to openly break with
the political past
Guaranteeing the rights of the individual
Note that Kant’s revolutionary translation was not purposeful - he just wanted to arrive at
philosophical principles on which a just and lasting internal order and world peace could be
based - vindication of representative constitutional government
● Where does Kant sit in regard to his eighteenth-century Enlightenment context?
He’s both cumulative of its strands of thought and critical of them - historically and
chronologically positioned well in this respect
He saw the Enlightenment as a continuous process - and his age was undergoing the
process of becoming enlightened
It meant liberation from prejudice and superstition, the ability to think for oneself
Self-determination
Sapere aude
Growth of self-consciousness - subjecting oneself to rational analysis
Using (although unclear as to its exact nature) scientific and empirical methods to examine
daily life, nature, man and society
Scepticism towards authority - particularly religious authority - secularisation - in Kant’s
philosophy it’s important to note that the realms of morality, law, politics and history are
seen in a secular context - yet enlightenment thought maintained that universal laws could
still be created for all of them, religion in a separate sphere - see context Religion within
the Limits of Reason Alone 1793 offending the King of Prussia, Frederick William II -
subsequently royal command to refrain from writing on religious matters. There was
virtually no opportunities in Germany for political participation - absolute monarchy of
Frederick the Great
Kant could assess the revolution in france from an abstracted geographical perspective as
Germany fostered a qualified sentiment for the revolution but was not able to undergo it
itself as it had a bourgeoisie that had not become self-confident and thus was still to be
mentally emancipated from the dominance of aristocracy - little scope for political
freedom in Germany
Smaller German principalities could be surveyed more by rulers
Economic growth stunted by bureaucratic structures
● Pietism (as practised by Kant’s family) was a divergent strand of religious philosophy
focusing on inner life and emotional response to religion
Maybe this is where Kant gets his idea of man’s inward sense of morality
Irrationalism as being a counter movement to the enlightenment - intuition key - basically
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saying that the Enlightenment can’t find universally valid principles as you can’t find
uniform regularity in anything terrestrial
There was no dominating school of thought in Germany prior to Kant - school of natural
law and the cameralists (cameralism (see Machiavelli) is the doctrine that politics is a mere
exercise in statecraft)
● Kant was a great critic of Hobbes - rejected authoritarian sovereignty, his rationalism, his
geometric view of social affairs, explanation of society based on the psychological
assumption that we all have a fear of sudden death
Yet they both want to turn a state of war into a state of peace
Law has to be enforced, sovereignty is indivisible for both - civil state can protect
individualism
Kant is indebted to the school of natural law and believes in an immutable standard of right
- yet he was more radical than that school because he mapped out a theory of politics
independent of experience
● Kant and his work were an enemy to the Romantic mode of through central to German
political thought in the 19th and early 20th century - Romanticism had a note of
irrationalism, rejected Knt’s cosmopolitanism and championed the organic theory of the
state, subordinated the individual to the community, decreasing the importance of
whether the individual was politically free
● The essence of Kant’s political philosophy: in The Critique of Pure Reason, ‘Transcendental
Dialectic I’ (the political essays that I will be studying were written after this)
● Both rationalism and empiricism appeared to be inadequate modes of explanation to
account for maths and science
Key way to explain Kant's theory: ‘we cannot know the world other than as it appears to us,
for we must see it within the framework of our mind.’ natural laws are not inherent, we
construct them in our minds for the purpose of understanding nature
There is no order in nature - we just impose order on it with our minds
Conditioned by particulars of space and time
The actual world as it is is unknowable - we can only ‘know’ it through appearances - this is
what we have to have a priori principles and ideas of reason - the world will not explain
itself to us
So the main question he asks is how are these synthetic a priori judgements possible? How
can we formulate positions that are universal, logically independent of sense experience
and capable of being contradicted?
● The emphasis on the function of the mind in ordering scientific experience in order to
understand the external world Kant calls the copernican revolution in philosophy
● ‘Noumenal’ = possessing the character of real rather than phenomenal existence
Man is both noumenal and phenomenal - moral decisions can only be made if you’re free to
act
Will is to decide on an action
An action is moral only if it is enacted for the sake of duty - yet there are often conflicts of
interest between duty and desire - the general moral law that allows us to distinguish
between these is called the ‘categorical imperative’ - it categorically enjoins us to act in
accordance with morality - universal and necessary force - it’s a subjective maxim that we
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choose to follow “to choose maxims is to choose a policy” - the test of the morality of a
maxim is whether or not it agrees with the moral principle of the maxim becoming
universal law - the CI is an objective principle of morality - it indicates which maxims can be
willed as universal laws - man can be his own law-giver - we do not have to use ourselves or
others as means to our subjective ends - everyone is subject to universal will
● “Acts always in such a way as if you were through your maxims a law-making member of a
universal kingdom of ends” - thus to act for the sake of duty is to act in order to conform to
some self-imposed law - man’s actions always exist in relation to other men
● Kant’s vision of politics is part of his metaphysics of morality because it is concerned with
criteria by which we can settle public conflicts of interest (asking the question of what we
ought to do as a society)
● The law to Kant is the universalised expression of politics - attempting to regulate actions
so that one's duties to society are ‘perfect duties’ (which are an object of law) - moral
actions can only be commanded, legal actions are enforced
● Kant’s politics is based on principles of right - the legal and the political are intertwined -
justice is universal so law needs to entrench it in the political system
Kant’s politics are normative - applications of the principle right to experience
Law is coercive but man’s inner life should not be coerced - external freedom is freedom
from any coercion except that of law - so you can pursue your own ends to the nth degree,
providing that you do not encroach upon the freedom of anyone else - all must have the
same unlimited scope of freedom - when it comes to private property / possessions
acquisition that falls in line with the desires of others, this cannot happen in the state of
nature as it must be regulated by law - key factor encouraging those to enter civil society
Advocates for a constitution to secure rights
● Happiness is not the aim of politics because it is subjective - condemns utilitarianism -
political institutions should give men the freedom to cultivate happiness on their own
terms - institutions should not be made with the aim of promoting happiness - he rules out
benevolent despotism
● Men should be treated as an ends not a means - rousseauian paradox - men can only be
free if they submit to coercion (in Kant’s case, laws) (man is born free, and everywhere he is
in chains) yet kant solves the paradox by saying that it is a necessary condition of
civilization
Kant differs from Hobbes as the ruler is above the law - the sovereign commands law to the
people
● Freedom is the first right of a citizen according to Kant, equality is second - all men must be
equal before the law, independence is third, private property is one also - economic
independence is a criterion for active participation in politics
● Independence = each citizen should have an equal right to participate in gov - ie through
voting, 1 vote
Slightly unenlightened as to who should be able to legislate - active and passive citizens -
active can both vote and legislate - women as agents are disqualified
Laws must be made as if the passive citizens are active
Independence (political activeness) qualified economically
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● Kant differs from rousseau as he believes that the state of nature was not a state of
innocence - man is not corrupted by society - society has a civilising function - Kant’s view
of the state of nature is more Hobbesian - war of all against all
● Like these guys he uses the analogy of the social contract yet it should not be seen as a
historical fact, rather a practical idea of reason (a regulative principle of reason) - ie: it can
be applied to the phenomenal, practical world to say something about a state that ought to
exist, one in accordance with principles of right - using the analogy of the social contract
just means that people in kant’s vision of society have reconciled with the idea of universal
will, which is not a practical phenomenon, just an awareness of the will of reason
● Social contract indicates that we must attempt to secure a civil constitution but this is so
difficult because quis custodiet ipsos custodes when making it?
● Republican government is preferred - kant is sceptical of democracy - neglects those who
differ from the prevailing majority view (see p29 in blue book for run down of republic) -
separation of powers key - legislature must represent the people by representatives of
them - anti-monarchic
Sovereign authority should rest with the people or their representatives and the sovereign
should possess no private property so that no private power or private interest
● He supports the french revolution yet people should not be able to possess a right to rebel
if they consent to the SC / universal will as it will fold upon itself - the civil constitution
must be sacred and irrefutable - yet there is the right to criticise the government and a
right to free press (freedom of the pen is the only safeguard of the rights of the people)
● Tolerance naturally sits well with kant’s ideas - as long as all views are tolerated without
any infliction of harm to others - they should not advocate for the overthrow of the
constitution either
● The principles of right are predicated on peace - this is the problem of politics
A world state would be the ideal solution to avoid war or the preparation of war according
to Kant - cosmopolitanism is a goal - yet impossible cos states have sovereignty that they
would refuse to give up (and different cultures which Kant doesnt recognise as much)
A federation of states opposed to war could be an option - use a priori principles of right to
decide on actions
● On nature: nature throughout history works to educate humanity on the state of freedom -
nature endows man with reason, nature’s purpose is to help him realise his essence - this
teleology is internal - explains why sometimes reason cannot be realised within the lifetime
of an individual, but throughout the lifetime of a species - this explains why enlightenment
is a process rather than an achieved and fixed destination in time and progress
culture , similarly, is not an individual effort, but the product of mankind as a whole - being
rational is thus a historical process