Kant’s Political Philosophy as a Theory of Non-Ideal Normativity
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Christoph Horn
Abstract:
Kant’s political philosophy confronts its interpreters with a crucial difficulty: it is far from clear if (or how) Kant, in his political theory, makes use of the Categorical Imperative (CI). It is notoriously demanding to clarify the relationship that exists between his political thought on the one hand and the ethics of the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason on the other. There are basically two interpretative options available: the more traditional dependence reading and the somewhat provocative separation reading. Following the first option, the normativity included in ‘right’ (Recht) is immediately derived from the normativity of the ‘Moral Law’ as we know it from the 1780s. According to the second reading, Kant’s legal normativity is substantially different from what we know as those foundations and procedures on which the Categorical Imperative is based. In this article, a third interpretation is defended that tries to combine the advantages of the previous two. In the political realm we are, according to Kant, dealing with a somewhat different type of normativity which still shows some connection with the moral law. It turns out that Kant’s political normativity is not just a kind of ‘applied ethics’. Kant has formulated a non-ideal form of normativity, according to which ‘non-ideal’ means: a weaker version of normativity which can be lived up to by human beings, which is appropriate to specific situations and which is intended for a long-term effect, namely that of a historical development.
Translation
Manfred Weltecke
© De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Special Issue Freedom and Coercion. Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy
- Editorial
- Abhandlungen
- Right’s Complex Relation to Ethics in Kant: The Limits of Independentism
- The Twofold Morality of Recht: Once More Unto the Breach
- Kant on Democracy
- Kant’s Political Philosophy as a Theory of Non-Ideal Normativity
- Enactable and Enforceable: Kant’s Criteria for Right and Virtue
- “A Community of Rational Beings”. Kant’s Realm of Ends and the Dinstinction between Internal and External Freedom
- Common Possession of the Earth and Cosmopolitan Right
- Just War, Regular War, and Perpetual Peace
- Buchbesprechungen
- Motivationen für das Selbst. Kant und Spinoza im Vergleich. Hrsg. von Anne Tilkorn
- Karl Leonhard Reinhold: Gesammelte Schriften. Kommentierte Ausgabe. Hrsg. von Martin Bondeli. Bd. 1: Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermögens. Hrsg. von Martin Bondeli und Silvan Imhof. Basel 2013.
- Giuseppe Motta: Die Postulate des empirischen Denkens überhaupt
- Christoph Gottfried Bardili. Kleine Schriften zur Logik. Mit Einleitung und ausführlichem textkritischem Kommentar herausgegeben von Rebecca Paimann.
- Mitteilung
- Prämierung von Studienabschlussarbeiten durch die Freiburger Kantstiftung
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Special Issue Freedom and Coercion. Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy
- Editorial
- Abhandlungen
- Right’s Complex Relation to Ethics in Kant: The Limits of Independentism
- The Twofold Morality of Recht: Once More Unto the Breach
- Kant on Democracy
- Kant’s Political Philosophy as a Theory of Non-Ideal Normativity
- Enactable and Enforceable: Kant’s Criteria for Right and Virtue
- “A Community of Rational Beings”. Kant’s Realm of Ends and the Dinstinction between Internal and External Freedom
- Common Possession of the Earth and Cosmopolitan Right
- Just War, Regular War, and Perpetual Peace
- Buchbesprechungen
- Motivationen für das Selbst. Kant und Spinoza im Vergleich. Hrsg. von Anne Tilkorn
- Karl Leonhard Reinhold: Gesammelte Schriften. Kommentierte Ausgabe. Hrsg. von Martin Bondeli. Bd. 1: Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermögens. Hrsg. von Martin Bondeli und Silvan Imhof. Basel 2013.
- Giuseppe Motta: Die Postulate des empirischen Denkens überhaupt
- Christoph Gottfried Bardili. Kleine Schriften zur Logik. Mit Einleitung und ausführlichem textkritischem Kommentar herausgegeben von Rebecca Paimann.
- Mitteilung
- Prämierung von Studienabschlussarbeiten durch die Freiburger Kantstiftung
