To Love, Honor, and Contract: Engagement and Domesticity in Kant’s Rechtslehre

Abstract

Feminist accounts of sexual objectification draw on a surprising source: Immanuel Kant. Martha Nussbaum (1995), Barbara Herman (1993), and Rae Langton (2009) have persuasively argued that the account of sexual objectification developed by Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin are Kantian in character. Kant's theory of objectification has much offer feminists: he argues that sex involves the use of persons as things, points the problematic role that the market plays in both objectifying and corn modifying bodies, and concludes that institutions are necessary protect us from this dehumanizing exploitation. Feminist philosophers suggest that two elements of Kant's theory of objectification might be useful contemporary feminist discourse. First, Kant argues that sexual objectification is reciprocal so that the humanity of both partners, regardless of gender, is compromised by the kinds of use sex involves (Herman 1993). Sex is, for Kant, always a form of use, since it always involves using a person as a thing. By presenting the problem of objectification as equal for both genders, and arguing that a symmetrical solution is called for, Lina Papadaki argues that Kant's ideas seem to be more empowering for an individual woman trying avoid her objectifica tion than MacKinnon and Dworkin's (2007, 346). Second, Kant claims that no contractual agreement can make sexual use permissible. Because Kant's account of contract emerges out of his understanding of commercial exchange in the marketplace, this amounts a prohibition on any form of commodified sex, or any instance of sex where the value of the person is connected their sexual attributes or desirability—a powerful claim for those interested in limiting rights