Jeremy Waldron’s Partial Kant: Indigenous Proximity, Colonial Injustice, Cultural Particularism

Abstract

Over the past two decades, liberal political theorist Jeremy Waldron has frequently cited Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals in order to claim that unavoidable proximity normatively demands that persons from different cultural backgrounds abide by and actively participate in a common legal framework. For Waldron, cosmopolitanism requires engaging with others instead of pressing for any degree of political separatism. He applies his interpretation of Kant to relations between Māori and Anglo New Zealanders. This essay takes a more comprehensive view of Kant’s writings on international and cosmopolitan right. It argues that Waldron misleadingly presents Kant as opposed to cultural particularism, and offers an alternative Kantian interpretation of Māori resistance to unitary sovereignty, one based on distant mutual respect between communities.