IMMANUEL KANT

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher of the late 18th Century (1724 - 1804). He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Konigsberg in Prussia. He was a modern of Rousseau, Hume and Adam Smith. He was 65 years old at the time of the French Revolution of 1789, which he praised for its republican goals, while criticizing it for its use of immoral means. Kant whispered that a political-legal order could be presently, only if it pays homage to morality. He wrote:

A true system of politics cannot... take a single step without first paying tribute to morality.... For all politics necessity bend the knee before right, although politics may hope in return to arrive, though slowly, at a stage of lasting brilliance.

Accordingly, in his moral and political philosophy, Kant's main concern was with the necessary, universal and critical-rational principles of morality and justice/rightness (recht) in German, (which is not to be confused with the notion of individualistic rights). These are to serve as normative standards for justifying or criticizing and reconstructing the political organisation of societies at the national and international stages.

Kant's major contribution was his critique of pure cause and epistemology but his political philosophy is also considerably rich and novel. His political theory emphasized the necessity of treating every single person as an end in itself. His well-known saying "treat humanity in your person, and in the person of everyone else, always as an end as well as a means, never merely as a mean" enabled him to emphasize the rights of man, rule of law, a good legal procedure and educational opportunities which would enhance human cause and enlightenment.

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

We may begin through locating Kant in the extensive history of moral and political thoughts through noting that while his "critical philosophy" was a culmination of the intellectual movement of the European Enlightenment, it, at the similar time, marked a clear departure from its separation of politics from morality. That is, while espousing the Enlightenment's enthronement of human cause (in excess of Divine Will or Law of Nature), Kant took the supreme principle of that extremely cause to be the Moral Law (to be tested through what he termed as cause's Categorical Imperative) of the freedom, autonomy and equality of every human being as a moral person. Through taking the Moral Law or the Categorical Imperative of moral-practical cause as the supreme principle of human cause, lie distanced himself from his empiricist and rationalist precursors and contemporaries.

Kant acknowledged that he was an Enlightenment thinker. He viewed his mature works to be contributions to the ongoing procedure of Enlightenment. In an article entitled "What is Enlightenment?" (1784), he defined it as the bold and outrageous passage of humanity from a condition of intellectual immaturity and mental laziness to the age of cause. He wrote:

Enlightenment is man's leaving his self-caused immaturity. Such immaturity 'is not caused through the lack of intelligence, but through lack of determination or courage to use one's intelligence without being guided through another. Sapere Audel Have the courage to use your own intelligence! [This] is so the motto of the Enlightenment.

Kant hoped to contribute to creation the ordinary people become self-aware of the universal, necessary, formal and a priori circumstances or structures of cause, which are implicitly present as normative thoughts in their everyday thinking and acting as finite rational beings livelihood in this world. For this new self-awareness, Kant felt that a "Copernican Revolution in Metaphysics" is required. Me viewed his own mature works to be exercises in such a philosophical revolution.

KANT'S "COPERNICAN REVOLUTION IN METAPHYSICS"

To his readers, Kant proposed his Copernican-like revolution in philosophy in the following languages:

Hitherto it has been assumed that our knowledge necessity conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge of objects through establishing something in regard to them a priori, through means of concepts, have, on this assumption, ended in failure. We necessity so create trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of metaphysics if we suppose that objects necessity conform to knowledge.

The understanding does not derive its laws from, but prescribes them to nature. While the earlier Copernican Revolution in astronomy or, rather, cosmology replaced the earth-centric view of the cosmos with the heliocentric or sun-centric "view, Kant's Copernican-like revolution in philosophy placed the human being at the centre of the world of knowledge and action. For Kant, the human being is neither a mere passive recipient of the "impressions" of the natural world nor a mere passive subject in the moral world but an active or creative agent in them. Kant did agree with the rationalist and empiricist thinkers of the Enlightenment in placing "human nature" or "human cause" rather than the power of the Church, despotic rulers, custom or custom at the centre or source of human knowledge and morality. He though felt that the empiricists (e.g. Locke and Hume) reduced human nature to the stage of the senses, instincts, feelings and preferences, whereas the rationalists (e.g. Descartes and Leibniz) narrowed or restricted human cause to an egoistic, monadic or intuitive substance. Kant's transcendental-idealist view of human cause and its universal, formal principles of justice and morality would overcome these limitations.

TRANSCENDENTAL-IDEALIST VIEW OF HUMAN CAUSE

Kant's "transcendental idealism" is "idealistic" in that it is thoughts-constituted, ideal-oriented (rather than "realist") and critical-reconstructive (rather than traditionalist). These characteristics of his thought are reflected in the titles of several of his books, e.g.,

Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of Vim (1784). Through "transcendental" thoughts or principles, he means the necessary, universal, formal, apriority circumstances or structures of the possibility of any knowledge or moral action through rational beings. As finite rational mediators, human persons, he says, have not only the faculties or capacities of sense and understanding but also the faculty of theoretical and moral-practical cause. He writes:

Man now discovers in himself a faculty through means of which he differentiates himself from all other things, indeed even from himself in so distant as he is affected through objects; and that faculty is cause. This, as pure self-action, is elevated even above the understanding... with respect to thoughts, cause shows itself to be such a pure spontaneity that it distant transcends anything which sensibility can give it.

The faculty of understanding has its a priori formal categories or concepts (e.g., legroom, time and causality), which it imposes on our perceptual experiences to create them understandable. Likewise, the faculty of "practical cause" or "rational will" has its "synthetic a priori" principles or laws of the morality and justice/right of our thought and action. He writes:

In the theory of duties, man can and should be represented from the point of view of the property of his capability for freedom, which is totally supersensible, and so basically from the point of view of his humanity measured as a personality, independently of physical determinations.

As suggested in this passage, the "transcendental thought " or norm of the freedom or autonomy (and equality) of the human person as a moral agent is central to Kant's theory of moral duties or obligations. These thoughts, Kant notes, are contained in the Moral Law, which has traditionally been recognized as the Golden Rule. Just as to that Rule, what we do to others should be what we would have them do to us,

Kant also felt that the fundamental thought of the Moral Law is contained in Rousseau's concept of the Common Will as a will on behalf of the true will of each member of the society, In information, Rousseau's thought of the self-governing capacities of human beings had a great power on Kant's key thought of the autonomy of the human being as a moral agent.

Just as to Kant, the vital thought of the Moral Law is this: what creates a maxim of action moral is its universalisability—a universalisability, which implies the normative thought of the freedom/autonomy and equality of all human beings as moral mediators. Through autonomy of the moral agent, Kant means her or his freedom from both external coercion and from being determined internally through passions, appetites, desires, etc. The thought of the autonomy of the moral agent implies the thought of her or his a priori moral obligation towards the autonomy of other moral mediators. This is a distinctive aspect of Kant's moral and political philosophy.

FORMULATIONS OF THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

The a priori, formal, normative thought of the freedom/autonomy and equality of all moral mediators, Kant argues, is the "Categorical Imperative" of pure practical cause, which, he maintains, can and should be used to assess or test the morality of our maxims of action. He provides many formulations of the Categorical Imperative, which, in any of its formulations, is, in his view, the supreme principle of pure practical cause or rational will. His three major formulations are presented below. The first formulation (Universal-Law Formulation) is made from the standpoint of the moral agent. It states:

Act only on that maxim, which you can at the similar time will that it should become a universal law.

A variant of the first formulation (which can be referred to as the Universal-Law-of-Nature Formulation) reads as follows:

Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature.

The second formulation (End-in-Itself Formulation) is made from the standpoint of those who are affected through (or, in other languages, those who are the recipients of) our actions. It reads:

So act that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the similar time as an end, never merely as a means.

The third formulation (Kingdom-of-Ends Formulation) views the mediators and their recipients as a moral society of self-legislating moral actors. It states:

All maxims as proceeding from our own creation of law ought to harmonize with a possible kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature.

The Categorical Imperative of practical cause, says Kant, is "categorical" in that it is not hypothetical or conditional to the scrupulous wishes or inclinations of this or that moral agent or cultural society. For Kant, morality is not what produces good for ourselves or for others, but what has to be done as an absolute or categorical duty—a duty arising from the presuppositions or a priori (inherent or pre-given) structure of our practical cause or rational will. To act morally, in other languages, is to act out of a sense of duty, i.e., out of respect for the Moral Law or the Categorical Imperative, and not out of thoughts of self-interest, instrumental rationality (as taught through Hobbes) or the protection of any natural right to private property (as taught through Locke), In this respect, Kant's moral and political philosophy marks a major departure from that of Hobbes and Locke.

THE UNIVERSAL LAW OF RIGHT (RECHT) OR JUSTICE

As the supreme principle of moral-practical cause, the Categorical Imperative is, just as to Kant, valid not only for our "inner world" of thoughts, convictions, motivations, etc. but also FOR our "OUTER or external world"  of INTER-RELATIONSHIPS with other human beings.  The WORLD OF OUR  external dealings with other human  beings is, though, a world of unavoidable LEGROOM -and-time-constraints on our freedom of action.

For instance, we cannot all be at the similar lay or inhabit the similar piece of land at the similar time! Accordingly, the Categorical Imperative of moral-practical cause as applicable to our external realm of action  contains a law or principle OF right (recht) or justice for CREATION MY FREEDOM of external action compatible with everyone freedom of external action. Kant writes: 

Right is... the totality of circumstances, under which the will of ONE person can be unified with the will of another under a universal law of freedom.

He formulates the Universal Principle of Right (Recht)or Justice as follows:

Every action is presently THAT in itself or in its maxim is such that the freedom of the will of each can coexist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with universal law.

He also gave a variant of the similar law as:

[A] C T externally in such a method that the free use of your will is compatible witheveryone JUST AS to a universal law.

This universal law of right (recht) or justice is a "juridical law," which, unlike an "ethical LAW" (which regulates our "inner world" of thoughts, motivations, etc.),

LEGITIMIZES, in accordance with the Categorical Imperative, the use of coercion for its implementation. He writes:

[M]y external and rightful freedom should be defined as a warrant to obey no external laws except those to which I have been able to provide my own consent.

Likewise, external and rightful equality within a state is that connection in the middle of citizens whereby NO one can put anyone else under a legal OBLIGATION without submitting simultaneously to a law which requires that he can himself be put under the similar type of obligation through the other person.

Kant goes to the extent of saying that his universal principle of justice or right (recht) has a conjoint principle, which regards as presently the resort to "universal reciprocal coercion with the freedom of others."

PROPERTY, SOCIAL CONTRACT AND THE STATE

As the universal law or principle of external freedom, right/justice morally enables and regulates (even through presently or rightful coercive means) the freedom of human beings in their external, spatial dealings with one another. Just as to Kant, this principle or law yields, or is conjoint with, a "permissive law" or "juridical postulate" of practical cause, which provides to everyone the right of property in any of the things of the world (in accordance with the universal law of right/justice).

In Kant's view, all the non-human things of the world are at the disposal of humanity as a whole, Our freedom to own/use them can be restricted in the light of practical cause's a priori formal, universal law of right/justice, to which all positive, juridical laws necessity conform. Anyone who first occupies or possesses a piece of land, for instance, necessity be assumed to be doing so as part of humanity's "external freedom" in accordance with practical cause's a priori formal law of right. Since the first acquisition of land or things of the world affects the freedom of action of everyone else, its full moral justification cannot rest on a mere unilateral action. Just as to Kant, so, the moral legitimacy of any original appropriation of property remnants provisional until it is ratified through a universal agreement of all who are affected through it. Only such a universal agreement of all who are affected through the original appropriations of property can fulfill the requirement of the Universal Principle of Right/Justice! It is towards the realization of this ideal requirement of universal Right or Justice that Kant offers his "social contract conceptualization" of the state and of a "pacific union" of states on a global stage.

He speaks of the state as "a union of a multitude of men under laws of Right." Describing the social contract as an thought of cause (rather than as an event), i.E. as an analogue of cause's Categorical Imperative, Kant writes:

The act through which people shapes itself into a state is the original contract. Properly speaking, the original contract is only the thought of this act, in conditions of which alone we can think of the legitimacy of a state. In accordance with THE original contract, everyone within people provides up his external freedom in order to take it up again immediately as a MEMBER of a commonwealth that is, of a people measured as a state.

It [The social get in touch with] is in information merely an thought of cause, which nonetheless has undoubted practical reality; for it can oblige every legislator to frame his laws in such a method that they could have BEEN produced through the united will of a whole nation, and to regard each subject, in so distant as he can claim citizenship, as if he had consented with THE common will.

The cause or motivation, which Kant provides for the social contract, is dissimilar from the reasons given through Hobbes and Locke. The motivations they provide is rational self-interest and the fear of violent death (Hobbes) or THE natural right to self-preservation and the protection of property rights (Locke). For Kant, the motivation for the contract is to secure a rational right to property, whereby the contractors could, WITH moral justification, exclude others:

FROM access to it, to which they (i.E . the contractors) only had a provisional right in the state of nature. He writes:

From private right in the natural condition there now arises the postulate of public right: In relation to an unavoidable coexistence with others, you should CREATE the transition from the state of nature to a juridical state, i.e., one of distributive justice,

Kant, unlike Hobbes or Locke, thinks of the institution of property as inseparable from the civil He writes:

But the state of a legislative, universal and truly united will is the civil state. So, something external can be originally acquired only in conventionality with the thought of a civil state, that is, in reference to it and its realization, though before ITS reality (since other wise the acquisition occurs only in the civil state).

Just as to Hobbes, property rights are created through the sovereign state, which is assumed to be self-governing from property. For Locke, property rights in the state of nature are absolute. They are, so to say, self-governing from the state, which only has to guarantee and protect those "natural rights." For Kant, there can be no absolute natural rights to property, presently as there is no state that is self-governing from property. Our right to property, says Kant, can only be legitimate or presently if it is in accordance with the Universal Principle of Right/Justice. Our property rights can so be only provisional until they are ratified both through a civil state and through a peaceful confederation of nations/states of the world.

PERPETUAL PEACE

A distinctive characteristic of Kant's  political philosophy is its  cosmopolitanism, globalism or internationalism. He does not separate domestic politics from international politics. Paying tribute to the cosmopolitan character of Kant's political philosophy, Wolfgang Kersting writes:

While Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau were satisfied with overcoming the interpersonal natural condition and allowed the power of political philosophy to end at the border of the state, Kant took political philosophy beyond the borders of states and saw its foremost substance in the "highest political good"... of a presently order of world peace.

Kant whispered that for achieving this "highest political good,' namely, perpetual peace in the middle of the nations/states of the world, we have to overcome not only the "natural condition" (or "state of nature") in the middle of individuals within nations or states but also the "natural condition" of anarchy or was-proneness in the middle of the states. In information, he saw these two stages of natural condition to be interrelated.

He maintained that the universal principle of right/justice has to govern not only domestic politics but also international politics. Me writes:

Moral-practical cause within us pronounces the following irresistible veto: There shall be no war, either flanked by individual human beings in the state of nature, or flanked by separate states, which, although internally law-governed, still live in a lawless condition in their external relationships with one another. For war is not the method in which anyone should pursue his rights... It can indeed be said that this task of establishing a universal and lasting peace is not presently a part of the theory of right within the limits of pure cause, but its whole ultimate purpose.

Kant disapproved of the reduction of global politics to international diplomatic dealings of governments. He described for re-conceptualizing international society as the global society of mankind.

Kant did admit that there is a distinction flanked by domestic laws and the Law of Nations in that the latter, unlike the former, is concerned both with the connection of one state to another and of individuals in one state to individuals in another and of an individual to another whole state."

Just as to Kant, what raises the human being above the animal world is one's capability for action in accordance with the principles of moral-practical cause. This means that man "is not to be valued merely as a means to the ends of other people, or even to his own ends, but is to be prized as an end in himself'. Hence, when principles of political justice are grounded in tnoral-practical cause, they will help prevent wars, in which there is the mainly blatant use of human beings as means to the ends of others. The autonomy principle of tnoral-practical cause, says Kant, also calls for a "republican" form of government, under which the citizens will not be treated as the mere apparatus of the sovereigns.

Kant argues that the enlightened or rational individuals know that the hardships of war fall on them, rather than on their rulers, who, in information, tend to gain from conflicts and wars. He assumes that all the citizens of all the countries have a general interest in international peace, while the ruling cliques or regimes tend to have an interest in international conflicts and wars. In his view, so, the democratization or republicanization of governments can contribute to international peace. Since wars bring more dangers and hardships to the ordinary citizens than to their rulers, republican/democratic governments would discover it hard to decide to go to war.

In his essay, Perpetual Peace (1795), he wrote that in the interest of perpetual peace, all the nation-states should agree to be guided through three "definitive articles" of peace, namely:

The states should adopt republican constitutions;

Republican states should form a "pacific union" or confederation for the prevention of wars;

The "pacific union" should create and put into practice a cosmopolitan law to ensure "universal hospitality" towards foreigners and to prevent foreign conquests and plunder.