Kant's Political Philosophy

Abstract

These comments on Professor Gallie's paper, ‘Kant's View of Reason in Politics’ (Philosophy January 1979) are focused on a particular issue, and I shall explain at the outset what it is and why I have concentrated on it. Gallie's account of the details of Kant's political philosophy and his specific comments on them strike me as interesting and reasonable and I have, therefore, little to add. Instead I want to question Gallie's assumptions about, and dissatisfactions with, the philosophic framework on which Kant's political philosophy rests. There is, firstly, his complaint that reason is insufficiently defined (p. 23) though he takes a somewhat more positive view later. There is, secondly, his claim that Kant's moral philosophy is inferior to his epistemology (i.e. ‘less original, less illuminating, less architectonic’, p. 24). On these points Gallie is, in my view, not convincing and not even completely clear. Without disagreeing totally with Gallie's assessments—still less claiming that Kant is invariably right—I want to argue that Kant's conclusions are formidably supported by, and can best be understood in terms of, his own arguments. To me the question about the cogency of his case is more interesting than the details of his political philosophy. How rational are, in fact, his conclusions? So, at the risk of covering some familiar ground, I want to stress some of the general features of Kant's philosophy and argue, in particular, that his political philosophy is based on and, in turn, supplements, his moral one. The latter seems to me to be as intricate, interesting and fruitful as his epistemology and exhibits a similar architectonic. (This would also account for the parallel between the roles of reason in politics and knowledge on which Gallie comments (p. 28).)