The function of ideas of reason in Kant’s political philosophy

Paula Keating

This thesis is submitted to the School of Philosophy, University of New South Wales, in fulfilment of the requirements of a PhD in Philosophy

October 2007 THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Dissertation Sheet

Surname name: KEATING First name: PAULA Other name/s: JANE Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: PhD School: PHILOSOPHY Faculty: ARTS

Title: THE FUNCTION OF IDEAS OF REASON IN KANT’S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Abstract 350 words maximum: This thesis is concerned with the power of ideas in political philosophy and practice. It argues firstly that Kant’s ideas of reason, as he originally defines them as regulative in the First Critique, play an important role in his political philosophy and his dynamic approach to politics. Secondly, because it is fundamentally concerned with political transition and improvement, Kant’s approach to politics is therefore one that has continuing relevance. Evidence for this is provided via an examination of Rawls’ political liberalism and the manner in which the idea of the reasonable fulfils the role of an idea of reason.

The thesis begins with an examination of the regulative use of ideas of reason in the Dialectic of the First Critique: the ideas of soul, world and God become guides for practice, insofar as they are not bearers of truth but instead create essential conditions necessary for human life and meaning. Chapter Two then demonstrates how ideas of reason figure in Kant’s political texts. They condition politics by inspiring the practice of their objects, for example, the establishment of a rightful condition, the security of private property, the perpetuation of peace. That they look to the status quo in order to effect politics, demonstrates their concern with social progress. Chapter Three argues that publicity forms the primary political idea of reason as it enables the polity to use ideas of reason. Because publicity provides the test of efficient and rightful politics, we can say that it is through publicity that Kant’s politics is grounded. Chapter Four investigates Rawls’ political liberalism and observes that the primacy of the idea of the reasonable in his theory works according to a system of ideas of reason as proposed by Kant. Chapter Five then makes a final comparison between Kant and Rawls to demonstrate that ideas of reason, in particular the pre-eminent political idea of public reason, is central to both their conceptions of the political condition.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

Method of Citation ii

Introduction The function of ideas of reason in Kant’s political philosophy 1

Chapter One Kant’s Practical Metaphysics: the Theory of the Practical Use of Reason 14 1.1 The relationship between knowing and thinking 18 1.1.1 Kant’s practical turn 18 1.1.2 The positive achievement of speculative metaphysics 20 1.1.3 Transcendental illusion and the faculty of reason 21 1.2 The regulative use of reason 25 1.2.1 The final aim of the natural dialectic of human reason 30 1.3 The regulative idea of self 31 1.3.1 The critique of rational psychology 31 1.3.2 The soul, the self and the autonomous will 33 1.4 The Antinomies of Pure Reason 36 1.4.1 The critique of rational cosmology 36 1.5 The ideal of pure reason and moral responsibility 41 1.6 Assuming freedom 45 1.7 The function of ideas of reason 55 1.8 Conclusion 56

Chapter Two Ideas of Reason and the Practice of Politics 58 2.1 The problem 60 2.2 What are the ideas of reason in Kant’s political philosophy and how do they frame the political field? 62 2.2.1 The possibility of property and the practical postulate of Right 64 2.2.2 The practical deduction of the idea of Right 68 2.2.3 The idea of the general will 74

2.2.4 The idea of original possession in common: contractual vs progressive 76 2.2.5 The dynamic of cosmopolitan political obligations 81 2.3 Kant’s provisions for dynamic politics 88 2.3.1 The paradoxical logic of political transition in Kant 88 2.3.1.1 The Passage of Pure Revolution 89 2.3.1.2 Ideas as dynamic conditions for politics 92 2.3.2 Ellis’ account of public judgement in Kant 97 2.3.2.1 How Ellis’ theory of Kant’s political philosophy accords with my analysis of the political function of ideas of reason 97 2.3.2.2 Ellis’ account of public judgement 104 2.4 Conclusion 112

Chapter Three Publicity as the Primary Idea for Politics 114 3.1 The idea of publicity: public enlightenment leads to proper politics 118 3.1.1 Public Right, politics and their transcendental foundation 119 3.1.2 The form of publicity, public reason and public enlightenment 122 3.1.3 Publicity and public knowability 128 3.2 The Institution of Publicity 132 3.2.1 The negative principle of publicity: a moral versus political criterion 134 3.2.2 The positive principle of publicity and the true task of politics 144 3.3 True politics and the moral politician 152 3.4 Conclusion 162

Chapter Four Rawls’ Public Reason as a Kantian Idea of Reason 164 4.1 The stability problem and the answer of the idea of the reasonable 167 4.1.1 The idea of a reasonable overlapping consensus 169 4.1.2 The reply to Habermas on reasonable justification 172 4.2. Public Reason as Idea of Reason 177 4.2.1 Publicity and the idea of a well-ordered society 177 4.2.2 The idea of public reason 182 4.3 The proviso and the wide view of public political culture 193 4.3.1 The “inclusive” idea of public reason in PL 195 4.3.2 The proviso in IPRR 198 4.3.3 The wide role of public reason in IPRR 202 4.3.4 Public justification in IPRR 206 4.4 Individual responsibility in public reason 213 4.5 Conclusion 214

Chapter Five Kant and Rawls Compared 216 5.1 The reasonable in Rawls as an idea of reason 218 5.2 Towards Perpetual Justice 223 5.3 Rawls and the reach of public reason 230 5.4 Conclusion 237

Conclusion 238

Bibliography 247

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my parents, Diane and Robert Keating, for their absolute love, and especially for giving me the ability to feel the simplicity and wonder of all things. My loving thanks also to my two boys, David and Sol. To my beautiful, steady man, David, who tirelessly and gently helped me to get back on my bike, after the many falls, when I was adamant I could no longer ride. And to my son, Sol, who makes any ride worthwhile. Connected to Sol are the team of babysitters I have to thank for giving their time and energy to playing with him when I had to go to uni: my parents-in-law, Judy and Peter Bowan, especially Judy for extended periods in her car driving over and for the creative activities she planned for Sol; my sister, Tarnya and brother-in-law, Mark; my ‘other’ sister, Kathryn Freeman; my brother, Anthony; my parents; my sister, Lauren, and Luke Aitken; Sara Sorial; Meredith and Sophie Hope; Michaelis Michael and Stefan Mackenzie; Karen Bland and all the Honeypot girls. Without the friendship of these people to my son, and their belief in my work, I could never have completed this thesis. I want to give a special sisterhood thanks to Meredith Hope for her bottomless teapot and ever-ready counsel; she is a guiding star. This thesis is a testament to the wealth of friends and family I have around me and I thank them all.

So much for the soppy acknowledgements! And yet my thanks to my supervisor, Paul Patton, is no less heartfelt. His role, however, has been much more directly instrumental to the journey and completion of this thesis. I thank him for sharing philosophy with me. He has encouraged me, developed my abilities, given me much- needed advice on thesis writing and been thoroughly supportive throughout. I gratefully acknowledge his intellectual generosity and the effort he has made in finetuning this thesis.

I feel very lucky to have experienced a community in the school of philosophy at UNSW. I especially thank Miriam Bankovsky and Sean Bowden for their friendship, which I feel at any distance. I singularly acknowledge Miriam for her almost-fanatic attention to detail. Our conversations and her direct commentary on my work have noticeably lifted the quality of this thesis. Michaelis Michael also needs a special mention for his personal and philosophical care; he always helped me to stop digging down into the hole and showed me how to reach for the light. Karen Bland has also been very encouraging and supportive in the last phases of the thesis. Other post-graduates and staff I’d like to acknowledge as important emotional and academic parts of this thesis are: Daniel Mcloughlin, Faye Brinsmead, Sara Sorial, Ros Diprose, Damian Grace and Voltaire Michel.

Finally, thanks to Michael Webster, Diane Keating, Judy Bowan and Karen Bland for their editing assistance.

Section 2.3.1 is on related issues of my publication, “Kant’s Logic of Political Transformation” in Cosmopolitics and the Emergence of a Future edited by Diane Morgan and Gary Banham, Hampshire New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007, 15–25. Method of Citation

Kant’s works are referred to in-text by the following abbreviations. The works are cited from the English translation edition given here, except where indicated, and their page numbers are cited by volume and pagination of the Prussian Academy edition. References to the Critique of Pure Reason are to the pagination of the first and second editions in the traditional manner of the letters ‘A’ and ‘B” respectively.

CJ - Critique of the Power of Judgement (1790), edited by Paul Guyer, translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Conflict - The conflict of the faculties (1798), in Religion and Rational Theology, edited and translated by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 233–327.

CPR/First Critique - Critique of Pure Reason (1781, first edition; 1787 second edition), edited and translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

CpracR/Second Critique - Critique of Practical Reason (1788), in Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 133–271.

Groundwork - Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), in Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, 1996, 37–108.

MM - The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), in Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, 1996, 363–603.

Prol. - Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics (1783), edited and translated by Gary Hatfield, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Religion - Religion within the boundaries of mere reason (1793), in Religion and Rational Theology, 1996, 39–215.

RL/Rechtslehre - The Metaphysics of Morals: The Doctrine of Right in Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, 1996, 363–506.

TL/Tugenlehre - The Metaphysics of Morals: The Doctrine of Right in Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, 1996, 507–603.

TPP - “Towards perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch” (1795), in Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, 1996, 311–351.

WIE - “An answer to the question: What is enlightenment?” (1784), in Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, 1996, 11–22.

WOT - “What does it to orient oneself in thinking?” (1786) in Religion and Rational Theology, 1996, 1–18.

John Rawls’ works are referred to by the following abbreviations:

CP - Collected Papers – John Rawls, edited by Samuel Freeman, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.

DPOC - “The Domain of the Political and Overlapping Consensus” (1989) in Collected Papers – John Rawls, 1999, 473–496.

IPE - “Introduction to the Paperback Edition” in Political Liberalism, 2005, xxxv–lx.

IPPR - “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” (1997) in Political Liberalism, 2005, 435–490.

JFPM - “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 14(3), (Summer 1985), 223–251.

KC - “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory”, in The Journal of Philosophy, 77(9), (Sep. 1980), 515–572.

LP - The Law of Peoples, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.

PL - Political Liberalism, expanded edition, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. RTH - “Political Liberalism: Reply to Habermas”, The Journal of Philosophy, 92(3), (March 1995), 132–180.

Theory - A Theory of Justice, revised edition, Cambridge Mass.: Belknap of Harvard University Press, 1991. PAGE

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PAGE 1

Introduction

The function of ideas of reason in Kant’s political philosophy

What is the function of ideas of reason in Kant’s political philosophy? In Kant’s political writings he refers to traditional political concepts as Vernunftideen – ideas of reason. Hence, peace, a republican constitution, Right, the social contract, original possession in common all become ideas of reason. The question that directs this thesis is: how do ideas of reason function in practice to establish, maintain and transform politics?

We find ideas of reason originally explained in the Critique of Pure Reason where they inaugurate Kant’s practical turn away from metaphysical knowledge. In the Dialectic of Pure Reason the primary metaphysical ideas: Soul, World and God, are all proved unfit for human knowledge and yet, in a practical way, are shown to be necessary to human life and meaning. Ideas of reason receive their regulative function as the practical use of reason. Kant is, therefore, in his political texts explicitly drawing on the terminology of the First Critique in order to establish his political philosophy. What significance does the regulative function of ideas of reason have for the political field? How do ideas of reason shape politics and allow for its dynamic? What grounds the political use of ideas of reason or renders them plausible as practical guides for everyday political activity?

These are the questions that frame this thesis. In order to answer them, we begin with the conception of the practical use of ideas of reason in the Dialectic of the First Critique before turning to the political writings and the way they create the conditions for a dynamic politics. We then discuss the priority of the idea of publicity for his political theory before undertaking an analysis of Rawls’ political liberalism in which his idea of the reasonable is analysed as an idea of reason in the Kantian sense. 2

A final comparative chapter shows the advantage that the reasonable as an idea of reason offers Rawls’ political philosophy and, in addition, how Rawls helps us understand further the political function of ideas of reason in Kant’s political thought.

The leading questions and the direction in which they sent me were aroused after a year’s study in Berlin at the Humboldt University. After receiving a very Kantian education in philosophy there, in the sense that we were led to undertake systematic and thorough study of primary philosophical texts, I returned to Australia and wondered why we had no culture of philosophical political thinking. Did we not have time to engage in abstract thought because we were too busy dealing with the inherent instability of our post-colonial presence on this land? Were immediate political problems too pressing to indulge in seeking the guidance of traditional political philosophy? Or was eurocentric political philosophy not only irrelevant to our political conditions, but in fact part of the problem?

Whilst at the Humboldt I was fortunate to experience some of Volker Gerhardt’s approach to philosophy, in particular to Kant’s moral philosophy. His exceedingly practical and relevant approach to Kant left a deep impression. What I learned from Gerhardt is that Kant gives us a framework that is at once, the most and the least, philosophy can offer us to assist us in making our unavoidably practical decisions in our lives and for our communities. This led me to think that the tradition of modern European political philosophy was not completely redundant, but rather that such great intellectual effort could offer wise counsel across the centuries and places. What I have found in Kant, guided by Gerhardt, is that his philosophy is specific only to the extent of providing the compass. We make the map. Kant does not impose a violent cartography onto human thinking and behaviour; rather he offers us the possibility of a principled response to our problems, or what Gerhardt would call, self-determination. General principles, frameworks and ideas are at once the least and the most that practical philosophy can offer. And this belief informs the approach of this thesis to Kant’s political philosophy.

It is only a relatively recent development that Kant’s theory of law and politics can be discussed alongside the canon of political philosophical works. This new 3 interest may be because of the increased interest in questions about a globalised political world and the widespread perception that Kant’s explicitly cosmopolitan politics can be of use here. Katrin Flikschuh also identifies the publication of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice in 1972, a book which invigorated and extended liberal political theory, as another reason why Kant’s political philosophy has aroused more interest. This is because Rawls developed what he called a Kantian approach to liberalism.1

However, there is an apparent paradox here in that, on the one hand, Rawls is supposed to have developed a Kantian liberalism, and yet, on the other hand, Rawls is, especially in his later work, overtly anti-metaphysical in his political philosophy. While I do not enter the debates about the liberal status or otherwise of Kant’s philosophy, this thesis affirms, to an extent, the substantive positions of each side of this paradox. On the one hand, it is agreed, in a way not argued before, that Rawls is certainly following Kant in his political philosophy: Kant’s political philosophy is public and dynamic due to the mechanism of ideas of reason and, in particular, the priority of the idea of publicity. On the other hand, I affirm Rawls’ concern to maintain the public political sphere for politics, with which he justifies his exclusion of metaphysics. I demonstrate, however, that Rawls’ political philosophy is able to achieve this political status by virtue of public reason functioning as the primary idea of reason. In lieu of the perhaps possible conclusion that Rawls is wrong on the non- metaphysical approach of his philosophy, I focus on how ideas of reason, albeit also defined as a practical metaphysical use of reason, bestow a greater coverage for philosophy in dealing with contemporary political problems.

Contemporary political philosophy holds a general anti-metaphysical bias. Some of this can be attributed to the difficulty of answering one of the motivating questions of this thesis, that is, what does it mean, politically speaking, to be led by an idea. The basic approach of Rawls’ political liberalism has set the current trend in political philosophy against what is perceived to be the imposition of metaphysics.

1 See Katrin Flikschuh’s entry, “Kant (1724 – 1804)” in Interpreting Modern Political Philosophy: From Machiavelli to Marx, ed. Alistair Edwards and Jules Townshend, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p143. 4

This trend is best exemplified in his “strategy of avoidance.”2 Rawls believes that metaphysical universalism is an anathema to the fact of pluralism in our modern societies. The argument of his famously “political not metaphysical”3 liberalism is that there is a need and desire for modern plural societies to avoid reliance upon fundamental or a priori ideas that require general substantive allegiance in the justification and elaboration of their basic political structure. The problem with required universal obedience to an idea arises because we all follow different ideas that we regard as comprehensively meaningful for our lives, and organising the agreement of such life-guiding ideas is considered not appropriate political work. Rawls believes in the possibility of a convergence of general opinion; but only as restricted to what is politically desirable and once there is the presence of a minimum assent to the good of political organisation. This agreement on what is politically appropriate occurs independently of or by withholding fundamental ideas and beliefs.

And yet, necessary to such a convergence is the very idea of the political and its reasonable demarcations. Rawls achieves this through, as will be demonstrated, the primary function of the idea of the reasonable in his political liberalism. Public reason is the idea that creates the split between politically suitable ideas and more fundamental ones that contain “truth” for individuals. This, we will discover, is a practice of regulating the political domain based upon the function of ideas themselves. Such a function is not tied to truths that threaten violence or division. Rather, as will be shown in Kant’s philosophy, the function of ideas of reason aims at making human practice meaningful and workable.

Rawls’ own political philosophy makes the textual and conceptual structure of his political liberalism strongly dependent on the responsive and regulative power of ideas. The first lecture of Political Liberalism, on the basic elements of the theory, revolves around explaining all the major “ideas” of this theory. The list of basic elements that are ideas includes: the political conception of justice; society as a fair system of cooperation; the original position and a well-ordered society.4 In addition,

2 See John Rawls, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 14, No. 3, Summer 1985, pp223-251. 3 See, in particular, Rawls, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical”, and in general, Political Liberalism, expanded edition, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. 4 See Political Liberalism, pp11-46. 5 at the heart of political liberalism are the “three main ideas”: an overlapping consensus; the priority of the right and ideas of the good; and the idea of public reason, which he returns to in a later essay in order to better explain and justify the whole approach of political liberalism.5 Rawls’ philosophy has helped this thesis grapple with the negotiation between practice and theory, nature and freedom, the status quo and the ideal, that is central to all of Kant’s philosophy. There are limits in politics that direct us towards what is right and provide the framework within which we can pursue the good; but these too must be publicly sustainable. This explains why, and I explicitly discuss this in Chapter Four and Five, Rawls creates public reason as the primary principle of a well-ordered society that is apt for political liberalism.

Rawls’ work has been a major incentive in developing the line of argument of this thesis. This is, however, a thesis on Kant’s political philosophy; therefore there is no overt canvassing of the literature on Rawls’ interpretation of Kant. But Rawls’ political philosophy itself, so well-written and justified, has been of great use in gaining a greater understanding of the role and effect ideas of reason, and, in particular, the primacy of the idea of public reason. Rawls’ work, for example, helps us interpret Kant’s qualification in the Preface to the Metaphysics of Morals where he states that the Rechtslehre must properly be called the “Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Right” because “in the application of these principles to cases the system itself cannot be expected, but only approximation to it.” (RL, 6:205) In this sense, Rawls’ political philosophy shows how Kant’s political philosophy is practical: how it is publicly political in the way that Rawls defends as so necessary to modern societies. In particular, Rawls assists in locating the motivational side to Kant’s public reason, thus showing that the a priori status of publicity for Kant also contains the spectrum of modes of reasoning from formal and universal, to pragmatic and specific, through to educational and inspirational.

In return, the learning experienced from Kant’s philosophy also gave me a confident base from which to explore Rawls’ striking achievement in Political Liberalism. Kant provides one with instruments with which to measure and digest

5 See Political Liberalism, pp131-247 and “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” in Political Liberalism, pp435-490. 6 philosophy, which was particularly useful when coming to Rawls. Using Kant I was able to research the theory of political liberalism and discover the guiding framework necessary to achieving it. Kant teaches one the necessity of developing basic concepts with which to build a structure that has at its heart human interests, or as he writes in the third chapter of The Doctrine of Method, the architectonic of pure reason, “general happiness.” (A851/B879) Rawls’ political philosophy certainly takes seriously the need to accommodate human life and meaning. Understanding this practical intention enabled me to read Rawls in a way that appreciates his concern to create a system that people find useful, attractive and meaningful.

In following the thread of the function of ideas of reason in Kant’s philosophy, I have drawn upon a great deal of useful philosophical commentary and Kant scholarship.

Onora O’Neill's various commentaries on Kant’s public reason, constructivism in ethics and comparisons between Rawls and Kant on public reason have all helped clarify the contrasts and connections I make between Kant and Rawls. Her commentaries have, in particular, helped me to draw the connections between the ideas of publicity and public reason, which in turn aided the examination of the character of ideas of reason and their specific practical nature in the political field. O’Neill’s research coincides somewhat with that of this thesis, that is, an interest in understanding Kant’s provisions for politics from the perspective of reason itself, or as based on his constructions of reason. The difference between this thesis and O’Neill is that she uses practical reason as her primary reference point for Kant, whereas this thesis begins with the practical use of reason as exemplified by the function of ideas of reason.

Thomas Pogge’s work has also assisted exploring the Rawlsian dimensions of Kant’s political philosophy. Pogge boldly argues that the RL can be made autonomous of the rest of Kant’s philosophy. He highlights the “freestanding” nature of Kant’s political philosophy such that it is compatible with Rawls’ avoidance of fundamental bases for the public political, as can be found in Kant’s moral philosophy. Pogge’s argument led me to question the nature of the relationship 7 between Kant’s moral and political philosophy and to test the extent to which Kant’s political thought is “public political”. This testing, however, did not result in a thorough concordance with Pogge’s argument for the complete separability of the RL from Kant’s philosophy. What it does lead to though is a partial qualification of this argument. While I find that Kant’s political philosophy contains, in the idea of publicity, a distinct measure for the political good that does not coincide with the moral law, there still remains a continuity with the moral, as especially depicted by the character of the moral politician. Morals remains, in Kant’s political philosophy, the defining limit of politics even while politics maintains its own highest principle, purpose and sphere of operation.

Gerhardt’s work on “Towards Perpetual Peace” demonstrates that this essay contains Kant’s definitive and long-searched for political treatise. While Gerhardt makes no explicit reference to a Rawlsian “freestandingness” in Kant’s political thought, he does advocate, and indeed locates, a strong sense of the political therein. This does not include a denial, however, of the transcendental foundation for Kant’s political philosophy, which is found in the a priori harmony between morals and politics as the guarantee of public Right. I do not analyse or necessarily follow Gerhardt’s “politics as self-determination” arguments. Rather, I emphasise the practical conditioning effect that general metaphysical principles have on our human decisions and actions. They are a part of how we make our lives meaningful, and even if we cannot prove their truth, they remain somehow vital in the framework we give to our lives. It was also Gerhardt who first provoked me to take Kant’s distinctions regarding the moral politician and political moralist seriously, which also caused more focus to be given to the principles of publicity presented in “Towards Perpetual Peace”.

If Rawls provides the background that allows me to define the problem this thesis addresses - the unavoidability of a certain kind of practical metaphysics – and to show how this problem is to be understood, Katrin Flikschuh’s work has also greatly influenced this thesis. Flikschuh writes an explicit defence of metaphysics for politics and given a particular definition of metaphysics that is not incompatible with the way I see Kant’s practical metaphysics, as given by the use of ideas of reason. 8

Nonetheless, I neither follow her definition nor defence of metaphysics for politics, but choose rather to focus on ideas of reason and how they operate to the advantage of political philosophy and practice. This focus presents another point of difference with both Rawls, for whom Kant’s liberalism is the exemplary comprehensive political philosophy, and Flikschuh, who is not directly interested in this question, at least in her monograph on Kant’s political philosophy, although she does innovatively attempt to outline an “economic willing” in Kant that is distinguished from both moral and pragmatic willing.6

Flikschuh’s interpretation forms the starting point of my investigation into the role of ideas of reason in Kant’s political thought. While I do present ideas of reason as part of Kant’s practical metaphysical doctrine, my thesis differs from Flikschuh in that it does not attempt a complete defence of metaphysics for politics. What is useful in Flikschuh’s work is her emphasis on the ability of ideas of reason to establish the civil condition. She employs an approach to metaphysics found in Stephen Körner’s work that defines metaphysics as a “categorical framework”.7 She thinks such an approach suitable for politics because metaphysics is primarily concerned with the search for a framework that can structure our experience and permit revision of this structure. Flikschuh asserts that the main task of Kant’s political philosophy is bridging freedom and nature. This approach is interesting for my thesis because I argue that ideas of reason function in politics in a manner which is necessarily responsive to actual political conditions. From this perspective, ideas of reason are the dynamic component of politics and are not premised upon their theoretical and/or universal validity. Flikschuh aids me in suggesting that Kant’s political philosophy is directed at engaging the local empirical conditions with the directions of freedom and reason.

Flikschuh develops an interpretation of how metaphysics, especially that of freedom, plays a central role in the structure of Kant’s cosmopolitan concept of Right. Her interest lies in the question of the possibility of such a conception of politics, however, while she develops a very convincing answer, this assists my thesis only so

6 Flikschuh, Kant and Modern Political Theory Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, chapter 3, “The morality of external freedom”, pp80–112. 7 Flikschuh explains Körner, pp32–49. 9 far. How Kant’s political philosophy is practically grounded, that is, how we can seek his conception of justice, is less explicit in Flikschuh’s interpretation. Usefully, Elisabeth Ellis takes up both questions simultaneously with her novel focus on the provisionality of Kant’s theory.8 This is at once an interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy and an insight into how it can be activated by political agents. Political judgement is, according to Ellis, the essential activity of provisional politics. I use Ellis’ primary insight into the activity of Kant’s political philosophy, public judgement, in grappling with the question of what it means to seek the justice of which Kant talks.

I think we can view Ellis’ Kant interpretation as a good example of how Rawls’ Kantian political theory has encouraged a re-assessment of Kant’s own political theory because her interpretation is implicitly Rawlsian. Ellis is not concerned with the source of Kant’s dynamic political ideas, but rather with the way they do propel change. Her interpretation takes Kant’s conditions for provisional right as the standard for testing the current political capacity to follow the ideas of absolute right; what drives us towards these ideals then is the sphere of public judgement. Political progress, Ellis believes, is the major concern underpinning all Kant’s political works.

This thesis follows a particular conceptual thread through Kant’s philosophy. It is not focussed on Kantian scholarship. Following and interpreting a specific influence throughout Kant’s philosophy contains dangers of its own; however, the risks are taken in good faith. What results may not be comprehensive or definitive in the account of Kant’s political philosophy, the search for which has and will continue to lure Kant scholars, amongst others, back to the primary texts. And this thesis may exaggerate, to some extent, Kant’s political intentions beyond what may be historically faithful. However, I think that what this thesis does offer is an intelligible explanation for the seemingly haphazard references to ideas of reason in Kant’s political writings. It thereby shows how cogent Kant’s practical use of reason is for contemporary politics. This kind of explanation then has the effect of advancing Kant’s provision of ideas for politics, beyond his own philosophy, and thereby

8 See Elisabeth Ellis, Kant’s Politics: Provisional Theory for and Uncertain World New Haven, Yale University Press, 2005. 10 promoting the general practical power ideas can have in contemporary political practice. The aim is to highlight the advantages of Kant’s function of ideas of reason and respectfully offer them to the political thought that he has influenced, like Rawls’ political liberalism.9 The scope of this thesis is to make a case for the benefits that ideas of reason, as guiding and motivating reference points, offer to the practice and theory of politics.

Chapter One leads with the question regarding ideas of reason and their practical regulative function, as first given by Kant in the Dialectic of Pure Reason. I find that they are ideas that contain much meaning for human life, and yet, this meaning can only be accessed practically. The ideas of reason are for practical human use. Thus they are given to humans as problems which are within their ability to solve or attempt to solve. And, in order to achieve this function, ideas of reason institute themselves as guides for action. So, for example, we solve the problem of freedom, that is, whether it exists or not, by acting as if we had it. The idea of freedom inspires us to behave in a manner that can be characterised as free; and it is in this way that we manage our actions according to a principle of freedom. This demonstrates Kant’s practical turn away from theoretical metaphysics to ideas of reason and their regulative function.

Chapter Two then shows how all Kant’s major political concepts are also called ideas of reason and asks what it means to be regulated by an idea in political practice. I find that the function of ideas of reason for politics is in keeping with that expounded by the Dialectic and that such a function is eminently useful for the establishment, conditioning and responsiveness of political society. This is where Flikschuh’s and Ellis’ work is most prominent in helping to emphasise the ability of ideas to provide for political transformation.

9 This kind of extension of philosophical ideas is the advantage that Thomas Hill Jnr ascribes to Rawls’ reconstruction approach to the history of moral philosophy, as opposed to strict historical scholarship. This kind of approach, Hill writes, “aims respectfully to expand and improve the traditions influenced by authors, in the way one hopes that the authors themselves might have done, had we been able to discuss the matter thoroughly with them.” In “Rawls’ Legacy: An Ideal and a Project” in Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress, Memphis 1995. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1995, Vol. 1, Part 3, Sections 3M-3S, 4,5, p1160.

11

Chapter Three is concerned with elaborating on the practical nature of the ideas of reason by asking, how we follow an idea of reason in politics. Publicity seems to be Kant’s answer to the political question. Publicity forms the primary idea of reason because its practice is central to political activity. Not only does publicity specify the aim of political organisation, that is a happy or well-functioning harmonious society, but it also gives a test to ensure that this goal is in view – any political maxims that cannot be publicly declared are not just. Thus I conclude that politics is, for Kant, distinguished from his moral philosophy, especially the moral law, because publicity is the cardinal principle for politics. This is not to give a strong separation between morals and politics, for the idea and institution of publicity is continuous with the moral law as the limit for political activity. Publicity as the primary idea for politics asserts that politics has its own purpose and supreme principle, whilst at the same time maintaining a harmony with morals for the flourishing of Right. The idea of publicity gives us the means to fulfil our political duty.

Chapter Four continues the discussion of the function of publicity as primary to politics with an analysis of Rawls’ political liberalism and the idea of the reasonable that he presents therein. I argue that the structure and application of Rawls’ political philosophy depends on this unexplained idea of the reasonable. I explain it to be the means by which the public political, the right, is cordoned off from comprehensive beliefs about the good. In addition, the evolution of the idea of public reason demonstrates that public reason itself is the essential political activity. The idea of the reasonable functions like an idea of reason, in the Kantian sense, because we decide to follow it; we become committed to it; it permits political change and through it we discharge our political responsibilities. Thus, the analysis of Rawls’ Political Liberalism proves how Kant’s doctrine of ideas of reason has continuing relevance for modern plural societies, with which Rawls avows he is most concerned.

Chapter Five makes explicit the comparison between Kant and Rawls by highlighting the work that ideas of reason perform for politics. The comparison enables a clearer understanding of public reason and its role in a well-functioning and dynamic polity. I establish that public reason needs to reference both the principle and 12 the empirical. In this sense, then, public reasoning should be both a priori and pragmatic in form. This means public reason both sets out a proper form for political activity, as well as engages with the actual political conditions of the political subjects. This gives public reason great coverage as an idea of reason that can be used across the world.

While I do identify a Kantianism in Rawls that has not been seen before, my main reason for undertaking the analysis of Rawls is to better appreciate how ideas of reason have practical purchase in a political context. Rawls’ idea of public reason is exemplary in this regard and assists in highlighting certain features of Kant’s idea of publicity; for example, in the way it applies to an actual public because it tests political principles that are right under certain circumstances. This is notwithstanding the apriority of Kant’s idea of publicity. And this represents the main theme about ideas of reason themselves: they are practical because they engage the political good with the political actuality. The practice of politics is a bridging of reason and empiricism through Right.

The result of following this path through Kant, from his doctrine of ideas of reason from the First Critique through to the political works, is a demonstration of the applicability of ideas of reason to politics. Ideas of reason retain the function Kant gives them in his practical turn from classical metaphysics, whereby the things we cannot know but need, in order for humans to sustain the meaning of their lives, are given as guides, as questions for us to practically answer. This is a practice of ideas that is eminently suited to political endeavour because we cannot lay down final determinations for all societies over the entire course of history. As Bernard Williams says, “living political philosophy arises only in a context of political urgency.”10 We need immediate political issues in order to negotiate political ideas. Ideas of reason cannot function without lived realities. That the practical use of ideas of reason is regulative, means that they condition empirical conditions; they connect with the status quo.

10 See Philosophy as a humanistic discipline, ed. A.W.Moore Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006, p155. 13

That’s why this thesis continually returns to a pragmatic conclusion about the use of ideas for politics. Ideas of reason have a power, not only because they originate in reason, but also, because their manifestation for a polity depends on what the people decide. Kant’s constant edict about politics is that a sovereign cannot decide for a people what they cannot decide for themselves. But in making decisions humans need reference points. Ideas of reason provide directions for political progress, the compass points that Gerhardt refers to in his approach to political philosophy. This implies that they are by nature dynamic. They are not universal commands to be unilaterally applied. Their adoption requires negotiation. And this is why publicity arises as the pre-eminent political idea of reason. We negotiate and decide upon the ideas of reason by employing public reason. Ideas of reason are for practical public use and are, therefore, activated by public reason itself, which then gauges their suitability for, and application, to current political conditions. 14

Chapter One

Kant’s Practical Metaphysics: the Theory of the Practical Use of Reason

This thesis begins with Kant’s theoretical philosophy and, in particular, the Transcendental Dialectic of Pure Reason in the Critique of Pure Reason11 because it is here that we find an essential structure for making a productive interpretation of his political philosophy. As Kant’s political philosophy explicitly relies on ideas of reason it will be argued that in order to understand Kant’s politics we need an account of his metaphysics and, in particular, the practical metaphysics that is inaugurated in the Dialectic. The argument is that ideas of reason are of relevance to the political philosophy because Kant defines them as a problem, gives them to humanity as a task12 and it is these ideas that we decide to follow in lieu of striving, and failing, to know them. And once we make that decision we are set upon the infinite path of their approximation.

The exposition of the ideas of reason is found in the Transcendental Dialectic of the First Critique.13 These are the ideas of soul, world and God: the quintessential

11 Hereafter referred to as the First Critique with the page numbers cited according to the original pagination of the Ausgabe der königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, W. de Gruzter, 1902-. 12 Henry Allison notes the stylistic difference between the Kemp Smith and the later Guyer and Wood translations of Kant when he is talking about the unconditioned condition being “set as a task” (Kemp Smith) or “given to us as a problem” (Guyer and Wood) from the German aufgegeben. (A498/B526) See Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense, revised edition, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004, p385, fn 63. Here I conflate them for emphasis on the fact that Kant provides ideas of reason as problems for humans to practically solve. 13 There is relatively little scholarship on the Dialectic of Pure Reason as compared with the Analytic, but the two general monographs in English worth referring to are Jonathon Bennett, Kant’s Dialectic, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974; and Michelle Grier, Kant’s Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. However, for the emphasis made in this chapter on the practical turn Kant makes in the Dialectic, I have been influenced by Volker Gerhardt Immanuel Kant. Vernunft und Leben Stuttgart: Reclam 2002, who alerts us to the base human practice involved in the ideas of reason. Gerhardt uses the Dialectic to embolden his existential approach to all of Kant’s philosophy. Henry Allison’s work has also influenced the drawing out of the practical dimensions of the Dialectic, as he takes this part of the First Critique seriously and especially its defence of the positive utility of reason. See Allison, 2004. Susan Neiman was also a useful starting 15 metaphysical ideas that have hitherto been mistaken for objects of actual knowledge. In the Dialectic these ideas receive - along with the faculty of reason itself - a new function. In the three chapters of the Dialectic, the paralogisms, the antinomy and the ideal of pure reason, Kant proves that we cannot know the soul, the world as an absolute whole, or the existence of God. Instead Kant presents them as intrinsically practical, as for our use in the world. After a thorough demonstration that these ideas are not proper objects of the understanding, Kant concludes that their use is regulative: they are a natural part of scientific inquiry and, therefore, they promote practical human endeavour. The primary vocation for reason in general and the metaphysical ideas in particular is practical because reason and the ideas themselves are inherently use-orientated. This is the practical turn of Kant’s metaphysics: he shows us the limits of metaphysical knowledge and lights up the way for metaphysical practice.

Some commentators are forthrightly dismissive of the value of the Dialectic,14 while others are less than enthusiastic about its value. Guyer, for example, believes that the lack of scholarship on the Dialectic is simply because the argument is too “clear and convincing.”15 Even when the Dialectic has been discussed it is mostly summarised as the negative result, i.e., that we can’t know the things that give human life its most essential meaning, and the discussion of the positive upshot of the argument is left for practical philosophy proper.16 This chapter argues for the positive offering that the Dialectic makes to human life, which is an inherently political life because we are born into and live out our days together with other people. The Dialectic offers us guidelines in the creation of human meaning and community. This is already demonstrated in the dramatic negation of the natural but futile “illusions” of point for approaching the practical implications of the Dialectic in her account of the unity of reason. She shows that the structure of theoretical reason for Kant is closer to that of practical reason than much commentary suggests. See Neiman, The Unity of Reason: Rereading Kant Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. 14 See especially Bennett 1974, pp226–231 and Peter F. Strawson The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’, London: Methuen, 1966, p 215. 15 Paul Guyer Kant New York: Routledge, 2006 pp153-54. 16 See for example, Guyer, 2006, in particular the chapter on “The Critique of Metaphysics” which begins with “the positive function of pure practical reason is not yet our concern” (p127) and yet introduces the “grand argument” of the Dialectic as “that theoretical autonomy of pure reason is an illusion, but practical autonomy, self-government in our moral choices and actions, can be achieved only through pure reason.” (p129) Without entering the debates around the unity of reason, my thesis in this chapter is that the whole of the “grand argument” is inaugurated in the Dialectic, that pure reason is here already denominated as purely practical. 16 reason in the Dialectic. The reason Kant goes to such an effort to portray the spectacular failure of metaphysical knowledge with the ideas of soul, world and God is deliberately to impress upon us the need for the positive practical use of reason, indeed he calls it the “real use” of reason. While there is much discussion of the positive context for the ideas of reason in the Dialectic, it is in the Canon of Pure Reason that Kant explicitly establishes their proper practical context and foreshadows the postulation of the ideas in the Second Critique.

This chapter then canvasses Kant’s theoretical exposition of the real use of reason and the essential practical nature of these metaphysical ideas. In so doing the foundations are laid for the interpretation of Kant’s politics by revealing how integral the doctrine of the function of ideas is to his critical philosophy. It is not a random reference that Kant makes in his political essays when he calls peace and a republican constitution, as well as a whole host of other political concepts (like the original social contract, the general will, original possession in common, and even Right), Vernunftideen (ideas of reason). What Kant ascribes to ideas of reason in the Dialectic remains true for their status in his political philosophy: they are given to us as a problem and it is within our nature – and freedom – to work towards solving them. The drama of the negation of the ideas as speculatively knowable merely serves to create the exigency of their use in the world. We can and inevitably do think of them, therefore, we can and must perform them. This will be the thrust of this chapter as we initially witness how Kant “crushes” traditional rational metaphysics.17

Kant deems it necessary first to “humiliate” reason in its pure use by proving that it accomplishes nothing. The real and positive use of reason is thereby asserted as practical. This chapter will outline the way Kant presents reason itself as misleading humans unless it receives a practical application in the regulative use of its ideas, a conclusion that is so relevant to political theory. Kant discusses in great detail the dialectical inferences of transcendent metaphysics that result in transcendental illusion about the self, cosmological ideas and the existence of God. These illusions have three forms, which will be discussed in the order that Kant presents them: as

17 It was Mendelssohn who first said Kant was “all-crushing” to metaphysics based on the chapters of the Dialectic. See Manfred Kuehn’s Kant: A Biography Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp 246-251. 17 paralogisms, antinomies and an ideal. The first form proves there can be no rational psychology, the second no rational cosmology and the last no rational theology.

But Kant equally denies rational scepticism on the basis that we cannot be sure that the ideas of soul, world and God in fact do not actually obtain. Thus what each form of false speculative reasoning demonstrates is the use of these ideas to provide not definitive knowledge but rather a “focus imaginarius”. (A644/B672) Kant leads us away from the land of knowledge he mapped out in the aesthetic and analytic and towards the realm of human ideas and activity. The compatibility of the intelligible and the practical is important. The movement here mirrors the way pure reason works: we inevitably make excursions beyond the field of experience by asking questions that we cannot answer with reference to nature alone. The ideas we come up with then focus us on the problems we can and ought to deal with for ourselves and our world. They direct us towards the real work of regulating human life together. Thus, the ideas remain metaphysical not as concepts but in the practice of using them.

The structure of Chapter One will be as follows. The first section will outline the beginning of the Dialectic where Kant draws the boundary of knowing and understanding to posit the bounds of reasoning. Reason is a different faculty from the understanding. Humans can ask questions beyond what we can know but cannot provide validation for the speculative answers given by reason. The objects of the empirical world are the proper subjects of the understanding, whereas reason can think certain things as existing in a certain way without having to secure objective truth. This is because of the nature of reason itself, which has the role of principle- making. The next and second section of this chapter introduces the Appendix to the Dialectic, which explicitly posits the regulative role of reason and the function of the metaphysical ideas. This disordering of the actual text is necessary to give my argument about the Dialectic its proper focus: the practical use of the ideas of reason.

The third section will cover the first form of dialectical illusion, the paralogisms of pure reason. Here, Kant proves that the soul cannot be known as a permanent and existing substantive self. The fourth section will discuss the second illusion, the antinomy of pure reason in general and the first two antinomies in 18 particular. In the mathematical antinomies Kant denies the claims of rational cosmology, that it is possible to know a whole cosmos and its features of existence. The fifth section will then discuss the fourth antinomy, that of a necessary being, together with the last chapter of the Dialectic, the ideal of pure reason, and the Canon of Pure Reason. This is where Kant directs us to the meaning that the ideas of reason hold for human life, the necessary practical purpose of them for allowing us to hold and believe in human responsibility.18 All of which comes about from the practical use of the ideas of reason. The last section will return to the third antinomy, about there being a causality other than the empirical, in order to set up the discussion of freedom. This last section will examine the debates around the issue of freedom and the various transitions it undergoes in Kant’s practical philosophy, in addition to establishing the status it will have in this thesis. It is important for the following interpretation of Kant’s politics to retain the understanding of freedom as an idea of reason and the practical nature Kant already attaches to it in the First Critique. Again Kant’s ordering of the Dialectic has been changed in discussion to give more emphasis to the concerns of this thesis, which does not purport directly to engage with the cardinal topic of Kantian freedom. But insofar as politics is concerned with freedom as external freedom, which Kant defines in the Metaphysic of Morals, the business of freedom is relevant; and the metaphysics of freedom plays a particular role in the justification of Kant’s useful and reflective practical metaphysical politics.

1.1 The relationship between knowing and thinking 1.1.1 Kant’s practical turn Kant decides to introduce and thereby emphasise the reasoning of the Dialectic in the 1787, second Preface to the First Critique. Here, before Kant presents his own novel and thorough epistemology, we are already presented with the questionable worth of (speculative) metaphysics because it has been up to then a “mere groping, and what is worse, a groping amongst concepts.”(Bxv) Nature, it seems has cursed us – our reason – with the desire for a secure path to knowledge such that when we ask the important and inevitable metaphysical questions our reason not only forsakes us but leads us into endless conflicts and, in the end, actually betrays us! (Bxv) Metaphysics fails because its expectations are greater than its capacity: we cannot possess certain

18 James Van Cleve discusses Kant’s ideas of soul and God in terms of their meaning as metaphysical ideas in Problems from Kant, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, chapters 11 & 12. 19 knowledge of the existence of God, our freedom and immortality. But this does not deny the “positive utility” of reason. What is so profound and surprising about the Dialectic is that in it Kant continues to regard metaphysics or metaphysical speculation as valuable. He demonstrates throughout most of the Dialectic the way reason thwarts itself when it tries to achieve certain knowledge of the objects of metaphysics; nonetheless, and most explicitly through the Appendix, Kant safeguards the worth of the metaphysical ideas as essential to the meaning of life for human beings.

Kant succinctly tells us in the second Preface that the failure to possess knowledge for speculative metaphysics, “touches only the monopoly of the schools and in no way the interest of human beings.”(Bxxxii, Kant’s emphasis) He therefore gives metaphysical endeavour a new goal: the possibility of “practical extension of pure reason.” (Bxxx) At stake in the unprovability of the speculative concepts of metaphysics is the interest of human beings; the hope in a future life and the belief in freedom (Bxxxiii-iv). The assumption of God, freedom and immortality are necessary for humans to gain a sense of the meaning of their lives and for the practical use of their inherent reason. Kant states that he cannot assume these ideas, as human nature needs him to, unless he “simultaneously deprive[s] speculative reason of its pretension to extravagant insights.” Thus the famous comment that he, “had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.” (Bxxx) The negation of knowledge is not that of work, certainty or philosophy (Cf., Bxxxvii), rather it is the affirmation of these things in practice.

In the Aesthetic and Analytic of reason Kant sets out the definite limits of human understanding. Reason, Kant is sure, will always venture beyond these limits but knowledge cannot keep up. This is not a misfortune, as it may appear to rational metaphysicians, for Kant gives metaphysics the new role of investigating the bounds of reason in order to affirm the practical tasks of humanity. Meaning for humanity is not gained through metaphysical proof and yet it still lies beyond the empirical. The moral impulse in humans, in the faith in the ‘ought’ as a human condition, leads us to the idea of “a moral world” (A808/B836). Because we do make ‘ought’ judgements we find ourselves outside of nature. Metaphysics is therefore required to make sense 20 of our connection with the moral, to make sense of our status as animals with reason, as “vernunftige Naturwesen”, rational, natural beings.

Kant demonstrates in the Dialectic that the failures of speculative metaphysics are avoided when we cease regarding the transcendental ideas as constitutive concepts. Constitutive concepts are those that the understanding brings to experience in order to be constitutive of what is presented in intuition. Rather, Kant determines, we should think of the ideas of reason: the soul, the world, freedom and God, even the moral world itself, as regulative principles. So, these are not employed like the concepts of the understanding to constitute objects but to order or guide the understanding. In their regulative guise these ideas are possible and necessary representations but not of particular objects, rather they give us, and science in general, an orientation. Kant derides speculative metaphysics for being at worst a mere groping amongst concepts because concepts are for ordering our spatio-temporal experience. When we abuse metaphysical ideas in this way, according to Kant, we demean our humanity because our freedom is ignored: constitutive principles determine what is, whereas regulative principles determine what ought to be. Practical metaphysics allows freedom to be perfectly meaningful to us, allows us to use it, despite not being able to know if it actually obtains. And this is the practical turn from knowledge to faith.

1.1.2 The positive achievement of speculative metaphysics The Transcendental Dialectic forms the second part of the Transcendental Logic, the first part of which is the Transcendental Analytic. The Analytic has achieved a circumscription of the faculty of the understanding. The transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding shows the conditions of the possibility for the unity of the thinking consciousness, of the I that judges.

Thus Kant appears to side with the rationalists with his assertion that there are synthetic a priori judgements about objects of experience. Time and space as the forms of intuition Kant deems a priori, therefore allowing for the possibility of objective experience. But sensible intuition only applies to our representations of objects and could be mere perception. So, because knowledge always takes the form 21 of a judgement, we therefore need categories to structure those intuitions. The categories of the understanding are what must be applied to our experience of objects in order for us to have an objective experience of objects in the world and not just a perception of them. It is the pure concepts of the understanding that not only allow us to cognise temporal and spatial objects but also directly constitute our experience of them.

This, however, immediately shows their limit: the principles of the understanding cannot apply or constitute anything beyond the empirical. The limits of the understanding are the limits of experience. With the Aesthetic and the Analytic Kant has protected human knowledge by giving experience a transcendental foundation. This is the positive side to metaphysics that avoids the choice between dogmatism and scepticism because, Kant argues, despite not knowing the thing in itself, we can still objectively know things within our cognitive limits.

What Kant has not yet confronted in the Analytic is the natural inclination of reason to divert its attention away from experience and seek knowledge of questions it cannot empirically answer. So the Analytic, Kant says in the Preface to the second edition, demonstrates the successful part of metaphysics, an analytic of experience that has a “secure course of a science” (Bxix). The second part shows the recalcitrant side to metaphysics because, as the Dialectic shows, it fails in its attempt to fly “beyond the boundaries of possible experience.” (Bxix) Hence the need for a negative critique of pure reason, which is what we receive in the Dialectic. We already have the two conditions for objective knowledge, sensible intuition and the categories of the understanding; now we need a way to guard against illusion. This in turn provides the negative function of reason in its theoretical sense, and sets reason up for its positive function in its practical sense.19

1.1.3 Transcendental illusion and the faculty of reason In the Dialectic Kant demonstrates how reason fails when it attempts to jump from experience to conclusions of truth and reality regarding supersensible objects. This is an

19 Karl Ameriks’ explanation of the analytic concepts is effective in order to demonstrate what ideas of reason are not, see “The critique of metaphysics: the structure and fate of Kant’s dialectic” in The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy ed. Paul Guyer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp272–74. 22 example of transcendental illusion because it misuses the principle of knowledge: “The principles of pure understanding … should be only of empirical and not of transcendental use, i.e., of a use that reaches out beyond the boundaries of experience.” (A296/B252-3) This is a “natural and unavoidable” dialectic of pure reason, and one that must be said to be ongoing. (A298/B354-5)

Transcendental illusion is a constant problem because of the nature of reason itself. Kant has thus far in the First Critique used reason to denote what brings intuition and understanding together as the unity of intellectual effort in general. It is first in the Dialectic, however, that Kant gives reason a unique function. Reason is the faculty of principles which has both a logical and real use: in its logical function it seeks out the conditions of knowledge and draws “inferences mediately”; in its “real use” it produces concepts and principles of its own volition without the senses and the understanding. (A299/B355) That the real use of reason is the creation of principles is not without explicit political importance. Indeed, Kant explains the faculty of reason by analogy: “It is an ancient wish – who knows how long it will take until perhaps it is fulfilled – that in place of the endless manifold of civil laws, their principles may be sought out; for in this alone can consist the secret, as one says, of simplifying legislation.”(A301/B358)

The real function of reason then is about seeking the unconditioned: reason takes the given conditioned object and attempts to find the conditions that make it up. Reason ultimately must produce concepts of unconditioned totalities or absolute unities as it reaches ever higher to more general conditions. This kind of cognition, from principles, is quite distinct from cognition of the understanding because its point of reference is not appearance or anything empirical. The faculty of reason as a cognition from principles is only satisfied when it can connect first causes or final effects with the whole in a closed sequence; when a condition can be understood as a ground or an end of the whole, as the unconditioned. Kant calls the unconditioned, ‘transcendental ideas’, or ideas of reason; they are such wholes or absolute totalities that they cannot be found in experience.20 Reason has an interest or tendency “to find the unconditioned for conditioned cognitions of the understanding, with which its unity will be completed,” and it is this interest that

20 See, Sebastian Gardner’s discussion in Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason London: Routledge, 1999, p217. 23 founds the real use of reason.21 (A308/B364) This is part of the challenge to metaphysics that Kant sets down in the Dialectic: how this malfunctioning interest can be legitimately employed.

We can now return to the problem of transcendental illusion that Kant began with in the Dialectic. The negative task of the critique of pure reason is to prevent reason from making illusory conclusions about the objectivity of the specific idea of the unconditioned. This is Kant’s diagnosis of what has happened to the famous topics of metaphysics. Metaphysical assertions that there is an immortal self, a free will or a God are the examples of illusory dialectical inferences in the form of paralogism, antinomy and ideal of pure reason. To assert real knowledge of these ideas is to commit the error of applying the concepts of the understanding beyond the field of experience. Here, metaphysics errs because the concepts of the understanding cannot extend knowledge, and because reason cannot constitute objects that exist beyond experience. God, freedom and immortality are but mere appearances for the understanding. Only reason can provide for the extension of science through its search first for the unconditioned and then by using such an unconditioned totality to regulate the practical experience of the world. This is the positive part of the challenge with which Kant presents metaphysics in the Dialectic.

Despite Kant’s proofs in the chapters on the Paralogisms, the Antinomy and the Ideal that metaphysical knowledge of these ideas is but mere appearance, his aim is not to rob the ideas of meaning for metaphysics in general and reason in particular. The ideas of reason, the results of reason’s very successful search for the unconditioned, may not be able to constitute certain knowledge of experience but they can regulate experience. The challenge to metaphysics is answered, for Kant, by creating a new - regulative - role for the metaphysical ideas of soul, world and God.

Thus, the Dialectic contains both a negative and positive critique of metaphysics. The limits of theoretical knowledge are severely drawn such that much metaphysical speculation of the past has been disproved and hopefully in the future prevented. Interestingly, Gardner sees in this negative move on theoretical metaphysics a positive

21 Walsh is abrasively critical of this “folly” of Kant’s and thinks that the connection Kant makes between syllogising and seeking the unconditioned is highly questionable. See Kant’s Criticism of Metaphysics Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1975, pp175–76. 24 meaning quite separate from the new method of metaphysical ideas. Gardner calls this delimitation of the understanding creating knowledge about the bounds of knowledge. He says that this theoretical act is consistent with the whole plan of the First Critique to turn around the metaphysical questions from being about transcendent objects to being about the human subject’s cognitive structure: “The problems of transcendent metaphysics are to be reconceived as lying, so to speak, entirely in us.”22

This fits very happily with the positive practical meaning of the Dialectic that recreates the metaphysical ideas of God, world and soul; positing them as reference points, instead of as concepts of our constitutive understanding of the empirical world. The ideas refer themselves to us and our need to create their meaning. This is Kant’s practical revolution. The destruction of false metaphysical knowledge opens the way for the practical work of humans on their freedom. The ideas of reason regulate the behaviour of humans. We will now discuss the positive part of the Dialectic, the Appendix, where Kant turns each idea of reason away from the futile uses of speculative metaphysics and towards the productive endeavours of science and practice.

This practical revolution takes place by virtue of the notion, first sensed by Plato, of the intrinsic practical nature of ideas themselves. Plato is the starting point for the Dialectic, in the way Kant both rejects and invigorates his doctrine of ideas. Kant calls Plato the “sublime philosopher” who was the thinker of pure thought- entities. Kant rejects the way Plato used ideas to cognise the whole of reality by orienting knowledge towards them, as “archetypes of the things in themselves, and not, like the categories, merely the key to possible experiences.” (A313/B370) So for Plato these pure ideas of the mind did create actual reality, for him (what Kant diagnoses as) dialectical inferences lead to truth. This Kant wants to jettison from his adoption of the notion that ideas are practical. What Kant reveres is how “Plato found his ideas pre-eminently in everything that is practical.” (A313/B371) The exemplary practical idea is the political idea of Plato’s republic. Kant defends this idea against being an “example of a dream of perfection that can have its place only in the idle thinker’s brain”(A316/B372). Kant declares: “A constitution providing for the greatest human freedom according to laws that permit the freedom of each to exist

22 Gardner, 2006, p214. 25 together with that of others … is at least a necessary idea.” (A316/B373) Kant, following Plato, avows that ideas are far from idle, they are active and excite action. For ethics, politics, law, religion, even nature itself, humans need an ordering that is only possible according to ideas. Kant assimilates Plato’s insight that ideas show human reason to have its own causality; that ideas are “efficient causes (of action and their objects), namely in morality, but also in regard to nature itself.” (A317/B374)

1.2 The regulative use of reason The comprehensive documentation of the illusions of reason in the three large chapters in the Dialectic could mislead one into thinking that the main role for reason is to guard against its own mistakes, that is, the negative use of it. Although Kant mentions the regulative use of the ideas of reason throughout, it is not until the seemingly minor Appendix that he explains the systematic and positive thesis of pure reason: regulation of practical, that is moral and scientific, human endeavour. The use of reason cannot only be negative, that is guarding against its own mistakes, as according to Kant “[e]verything grounded in the nature of our powers must be purposive and consistent with their correct use”. (A642/B670)

The purpose and correct use of reason is practical, which Kant also advocates in his moral philosophy, including in the doctrine of the primacy of practical reason.23 The transcendental ideas, have an excellent and indispensable necessary regulative use, namely that of directing the understanding to a certain goal respecting which the lines of direction of all its rules converge at one point, which, although only an idea (focus imaginarius) – i.e., a point from which the concepts of the understanding do not really proceed, since it lies entirely outside the bounds of possible experience – nonetheless still serves to obtain for these concepts the greatest unity alongside the greatest extension. (A644/B672)

Reason in its correct use thus gives us “lines of direction” and a focus for our procedures.24

23 See for example the argument for reason being constituted for the sole purpose of regulating human behaviour in the Groundwork. “In the natural constitution of an organised being, that is one constituted purposively for life, we assume as a principle that there will be found in it no instrument for some end other than what is also most appropriate to that end and best adapted to it… the idea of another and far worthier purpose of one’s existence, to which therefore, and not happiness, reason is properly destined, and to which, as the supreme condition, the private purpose of the human being must for the most part defer.” (4:394-396) 26

This definition of the ideas of reason dramatically concentrates our grasp of the faculty of reason on its practical power. Indeed Ameriks attributes to the ideas of reason a “unique force”.25 There is a great degree of confusion around the purpose of Kant’s appeal to our possession of ideas. As Paton writes: “It is not quite clear what Kant gains by his concentration on this special function of pure reason…”26 And it raises the question why Kant expends so much intellectual effort in expounding the failure of reason when it speculates knowledge beyond experience.27 The bulk of the Dialectic seems to convey the futility of fighting for possession of the metaphysical objects of soul, world and God. It is not until the Appendix that Kant consolidates on what he has done in the whole Dialectic. From this and the evolution of the Dialectic as a whole we gain an insight into why Kant gives so much attention to what theoretical reason cannot do, and it is precisely because, he tells us, we must act in the world: “This idea [of God] is therefore grounded entirely respective to the use our reason makes of it in the world.” (A698/B726)

The negative role for reason, however, diminishes in its importance as Kant assiduously avoids becoming the type of monster of speculative metaphysics he criticises, a dogmatist or sceptic, with his practical turn. In the Dialectic Kant demonstrates why speculation cannot help us fathom the ideas we hold as so necessary to understanding ourselves and our place in the world. The argument that this thesis demonstrates as paramount in the Dialectic is that we cannot constitute these ideas; rather we must look to ourselves to employ reason in its proper use. This

24 Gerd Buchdahl notices that there is a tension in reason’s regulative use as opposed to the understanding’s constitutive use because reason must act autonomously and yet needs the constitutive foundation to guide empirical science. See Kant and the Dynamics of Reason Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992, pp171–177. 25 See Ameriks, 2006, p 274. 26 H.J. Paton The Categorical Imperative, New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1967, p239. 27 In the context of the moral philosophy there is also a great degree of confusion around the purpose of Kant’s appeal to our possession of ideas. As Paton writes: “It is not quite clear what Kant gains by his concentration on this special function of pure reason…”See ibid., p239. Ameriks too in his discussion of the presupposition of freedom in the Groundwork also questions the clarity of Kant’s reasons for his belief that we are members of an intelligible world because he merely states that otherwise man is a ‘rational and rationally acting cause, i.e., a cause acting in freedom’ and therefore never gives compatibilism a chance. See Kant’s Theory of Mind: An Analysis of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, p207. Christine Korsgaard, however, has more understanding for the line of argument that I am developing when she interprets the argument for freedom in the third section of the Groundwork as positing the revelation of “our capacity for pure spontaneous activity” in the fact that reason produces ideas. See Creating the Kingdom of Ends, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p170. 27 occurs when the ideas of reason regulate our creation of ourselves, the world and practical necessity. The “proper vocation” of reason is to be found in the immanent use of these ideas. (A702/B730).

In Susan Neiman’s reading of Kant, he actually redefines reason. It is not, therefore, “accidental” that speculative reason fails to hold the holy grail of metaphysical knowledge, because reason’s nature is itself wholly practical. The problems of reason are not solved with final knowledge but rather by rational practice.28 And rational practice, as explained in the Appendix, is self-referential; indeed the ideas exist intelligibly: in the Antinomy, Kant defines them as a being of reason or a “thought-entity” (A566/B594). Already in the Antinomy Kant proves that human reason cannot fail in the cosmological problems it gives itself; this becomes, in the Appendix, “all questions that pure reason poses must be absolutely answerable.” (A695/B723). Thus, the negative doctrine of pure reason, which is pointing out the experiential limits of cognition, is no longer appropriate because, “the questions are not laid before us by the nature of things but only through the nature of reason, and they are solely about its internal arrangement.” (A695/B723)

It is this kind of self-activity that informs the positive doctrine of the practical use of reason in the Dialectic and shows it to be thoroughly different from the attainment of knowledge as based on the relationship between the subject and the object. Kant, Neiman reminds us, grounds practical reason, “not upon the determination of an object but solely on the nature of a subject.”29 The revolution in the definition of reason lies in the activity of self-determination that the abyss of theoretical knowledge instigates. But why does Kant turn from the theoretical to the practical by first denying knowledge of the metaphysical ideas and then introducing them as regulative principles? Precisely to ground reason’s activities within us because there is no transcendent achievement, which then has the effect of invigorating the fundamental capacity of humans to make determinations about their own nature and effects in the world.

28 Neiman, 1994, p4. 29 Ibid., p6–7. 28

The Dialectic, however, does not aim to contradict the Analytic. In the beginning of the Appendix Kant states that the dialectical illusions only confirm the conclusion of the Analytic, “namely that all the inferences that would carry us out beyond the field of possible experience are deceptive and groundless.” The important lesson, though, is about human reason itself and its “natural propensity to overstep all these boundaries” which results in illusion, one that we must criticise but that we cannot “resist.” (A642/B670) Therefore, the scientific method, which is practical and therefore has relevance to morality, is defended whereby we seek to prove a hypothetical truth by projecting a unity. As in the First Book of the Dialectic, the first part of the Appendix affirms and justifies reason’s search for systematic unity: it is reason that creates the collective unity for the business of understanding. Reason posits, indeed demands, this higher unity for the sake of completing knowledge, for connecting all the ends of understanding together under one principle.

And so, the ideas of pure reason can only ever be of regulative and never constitutive use. Science and knowledge are expanded through this practice of projecting a unity, “which one must regard not as given in itself, but only as a problem; this unity, however, helps to find a principle for the manifold and particular uses of cases of the understanding, thereby guiding it even in those cases that are not given and making it coherently connected.” (AA647/B675) Logically, we need to find a principle to unite the manifold but, in postulating the apriority of systematic unity, it is made objectively necessary. Thus, Kant again asserts reason’s legitimate practical focus on unconditioned totality. This is the real and not merely logical use of reason, thereby ruling out metaphysical speculation. Searching for apodictic results is futile, however, we cannot hold reason back in these attempts. Therefore, reason needs to regulate itself and it does this precisely in the denomination of the unconditioned as a projected unity, what Kant also variously calls “hypothetical”, “regulative”, “problematic”, “ordering”, “indeterminate”, “systematic” or “purposive” unity and not as a “touchstone of truth”. (A647/B675)

The first part of the Appendix on the regulative use of ideas argues that we cannot constitute anything in unknown emptiness, as the preceding chapters of the Dialectic have proved, but because reason “demands” that there is a unity of reason 29 and therefore contains a fundamental power. What we can do is employ a procedure for creating the connection between things under the principle of thoroughgoing unity. (A649-653/B677-681) And, Kant avers, scientists and philosophers alike have a long history of using this presupposition for a systematic unity. This procedure, however, is not itself determined, nor does it determine any objects themselves, and it certainly leaves no rest for reason. Ideas of reason are subjective principles, so they form both a “horizon” and a standpoint. The human must acknowledge they are using regulative principles in order to make systematic determinations towards answering the given problem. The horizon reminds us of our indigenous standpoint and serves us now as “a legitimate and excellent regulative principle of reason, which, however, as such, goes much too far for experience or observation ever to catch up with it; without determining anything, it only points the way toward systematic unity.” (A668/B696)

One of the main features, indeed the lone concern, of the regulative ideas of reason that Kant describes in the Appendix is one that has great relevance for this thesis about Kant’s political philosophy and the way it employs the doctrine of ideas of reason. This feature is seen repeatedly in Kant’s approach to political problems and will be tracked throughout the thesis. For this reason I quote the paragraph from Kant in full: What is strange about these principles, and what alone concerns us, is this: that they seem to be transcendental, and even though they contain mere ideas to be followed in the empirical use of reason, which reason can only follow asymptotically, as it were, i.e., merely by approximation, without ever reaching them, yet these principles, as synthetic propositions a priori, nevertheless have objective but indeterminate validity, and serve as a rule of possible experience, and can even be used with good success, as heuristic principles, in actually elaborating it; and yet one cannot bring about a transcendental deduction of them, which, as has been proved above, is always impossible with regard to ideas. (A664-665/B691-692)

It is this asymptotic progress that will be read in the following chapters as the method Kant promotes as necessary to good politics and that will be read into Rawls’ theory of political liberalism as a method for permitting fair, equal and non- comprehensive political change. This is the power of the practice of ideas of reason: they can excite their construction without imposing the manner of the constitution.30

30 Guyer, 2006, makes this distinction in his discussion, p153. 30

1.2.1 The final aim of the natural dialectic of human reason The second part of the Appendix gives the ideas of reason their deduction. Although it cannot be transcendental, as with the deduction of the categories in the Analytic, there must still be one that is appropriate to reason as a faculty of principles, in order for the ideas to have content and meaning given that their status is a priori; there must still be a systematic order.

The dialectic of reason arises out of reason’s misuse and not by virtue of the transcendental ideas themselves. And yet, this potential error of reason is important to the nature of the ideas. We know that the ideas offer us no knowledge about a thing in itself, rather they offer us the opportunity to systematise our understanding, for example of necessity, without guaranteeing the existence of something that is absolutely necessary. We only gain the unity necessary to reason’s systematicity when we are led by the idea of a whole. The systematic unity, the previous section of the Appendix provides, is a subjective maxim of reason that directs experience towards completion. So the ideas of reason not only create a systematic unity for the understanding, but also extend knowledge of the empirical cognition of objects.

Reason, therefore, creates objects by proxy because it “cannot think this systematic unity in any other way than by giving its idea an object” (A681/B709). Perfection is, of course, never found in experience so it is the ideas themselves that become the object. Hence, Kant tells us, “[p]ure reason is in fact concerned with nothing but itself” (A680/B708). The ideas are “beings of reason”, Kant calls such a being ens rationis ratiocinatae (an entity created by reason functioning rationally) (A681/B709). Reason’s self-activity extends this far, to create for itself a being, not as a thing in itself, but as a ground to assume (problematically) in order to connect things in the world. Herein lies the “as if” function of reason.

The deduction of the ideas of reason is practical. An idea of reason materialises as a ground and, one leaves it entirely open what sort of constitution in itself this ground, which eludes our concepts, might have, and posits an idea only as a unique standpoint from which alone one can extend the unity that is so essential to reason and so salutary to the understanding. (A681-682/B709-10)

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This starting point that we assume liberates us from theoretical restrictions and encourages creative human endeavour - the practical work of reason. At the beginning of the Appendix Kant states that such “concepts of reason are not created by nature, rather we question nature according to these ideas.” (A645/B673) Kant is explaining our intellectual freedom, we naturally question the given and ask instead what we ourselves can do.

The whole of the Dialectic demonstrates how we can act otherwise – without knowledge. And Kant, in this section of the Appendix, goes through each of the transcendental illusions he covers in separate chapters and explains their practical use. For simplicity, we will now frame the discussion of each of the chapters in the Dialectic on the three transcendental ideas of soul, world and God, with reference to the practical deduction that these ideas receive in this part of the Appendix.

1.3 The regulative idea of self 1.3.1 The critique of rational psychology Kant’s first proof of the Dialectic is aimed at the destruction of “rational psychology”, under which the soul is misunderstood as a type of metaphysical substance analogous to objects. The Paralogisms of Pure Reason is the only part of the First Critique that Kant rewrote in its entirety for the second edition. It would not be correct to say that, here in the 1787 edition of the First Critique, Kant is simply foreshadowing his practical philosophy because by this time he had already written the Groundwork to the Metaphysic of Morals and was just about to publish the Critique of Practical Reason in 1788. He was clearly by then already very much engaged in detailing his moral philosophy. Halting his revisions of the First Critique after the paralogisms means that Kant leaves untouched the remaining chapters of the Dialectic, those that deal with the practical topics of freedom, religion and morality, that is, the Antinomy, the Ideal and the Canon. Less than a year later Kant published the Critique of Practical Reason, which was devoted primarily to the topics of freedom, God and the immortality of the soul. It would appear as though Kant realised the ideas of reason warrant further elaboration in a context that is exclusively practical. And in their further elaboration there are changes made but their regulative origins remain the impetus for their practical existence.

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The aim of this discussion of the paralogisms is simply to sketch how Kant exposes the metaphysical trickery that would assert knowledge only in order to convey how he wants to make room for establishing the idea of the soul as important for human practice.31 According to Kant from the “single proposition I think” (A342/B400) rational psychologists make four incorrect inferences: first, that the soul is a substance; second, that the soul is simple; third, that it maintains a numerical identity; and, fourth, that the soul is determined in its relation to possible objects in space. Rational psychology creates a transcendental illusion, Kant argues, because the I is not its own subject, but rather the I must actively inhabit the position of the subject. The rational psychologists believe that because the I is always the subject of the judgements of the reasoning person, that the I thinks, then the thinking capacity, the unifying function, of the I itself is a basis for asserting the existence of the I as a substance. Kant corrects this “logical paralogism” (A341/B399) and maintains that all we can assert is the place-holding function of the I: it remains an intellectual rather than empirical representation of the I. This fallacious conclusion that the self is a substance forms the basis from which the other paralogisms are disproved. (B409-10)

Thus, we are left with the fact that the I is itself a mere representation of a subject. This means that the human can only understand itself as a condition for the existence of itself as a unity, which it must do in order to assume the position this unity - the I - is given in the world which is also understood as a unity. Kant agrees with the proposition that I think P unifies the world of the I and the P. But where the rational psychologists go wrong is, Kant thinks, when they assume the independent existence of the unifying I. These kinds of unity are not readily shown to us from empirical nature. That is why the illegitimate paralogical inferences must firmly and negatively delimit the concept of soul to the thinking I that judges in accordance with concepts. What Kant begins to suggest in this chapter on the paralogisms, especially in the second edition, and expands in his practical philosophy is that the notion of an independent and unifying I is rather the result of the human capability to spontaneously create concepts. This Kant first ascribes to our faculty of reason and secondly applies to our practical use of reason.

31 For a thorough representation and critical discussion of Kant’s metaphysics of self in the Paralogisms see Ameriks, 1982. 33

1.3.2 The soul, the self and the autonomous will In a wholly new section of the second edition of the First Critique called “General remark concerning the transition from rational psychology to cosmology”, Kant writes: But suppose there subsequently turned up – not in experience but in certain (not merely logical rules but) laws holding firm a priori and concerning our existence – the occasion for presupposing ourselves to be legislative fully a priori in regard to our own existence, and as self-determining in this existence; then this would disclose a spontaneity through which our actuality is determinable without the need of conditions of empirical intuition; and here we would become aware that in the consciousness of our existence something is contained a priori that can serve to determine our existence, which is thoroughly determinable only sensibly, in regard to a certain inner faculty in relation to an intelligible world (obviously one only thought of). (B430-431)

This “admirable faculty”, Kant says, “for the first time reveals to me the consciousness of the moral law…” (B431) This offers absolutely no assistance to rational psychology because the practical application of such concepts as substance stems from a “wholly different principle”. (B431-2) Kant is suggesting that operation of the idea of an existing self takes place above the empirical but within the thinkable. The wholly different principle is that of “freedom and a free subject” (B432), a principle that becomes clearer in Kant’s practical philosophy.

But at this time Kant had already written and published the Groundwork. Thus he had already placed the idea of an “intelligible world” in its moral context. In the third section of the Groundwork where Kant is “proving” freedom, he calls on his practical conception of the term ideas and writes, in a fashion familiar to readers of the Dialectic, that reason shows, in what we call ‘ideas’ a spontaneity so pure that it thereby goes far beyond anything that sensibility can ever afford it and proves its highest occupation in distinguishing the world of sense and the world of understanding from one another and thereby marking out limits for the understanding itself. (Groundwork, 4:452)

This gives rise to the “two standpoints” from which the human can consider herself: natural and rational. The world of understanding is the intelligible world, which gives us a standpoint from which to cognise laws for the use of our powers and all our actions as if we were free. (Groundwork, 4:452)

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Kant argues, obviously calling on the argument of the Dialectic of the First Critique, that we are permitted to take up this standpoint because of the faculty of reason: the self-activity of reason means it gives itself ideas to be enacted. It is through the possession of ideas of reason so purely spontaneous that we become members of the intelligible world.32 The intelligible standpoint then must be taken up by a something with an existence that is capable of possessing and thereby using these ideas: the soul takes up the position of personhood.33 What Kant is trying to explain in the quote from the Paralogisms above is that it is through our ability to think the existence of a self as part of an intelligible world that we can then determine this self’s sensible existence. The idea of the soul is, therefore, necessarily distinguished from and not present in the physical or sensible world, notwithstanding the fact that the intelligible standpoint can only be taken under the physical conditions of the thinking self, the determination of the soul as self takes place for the purposes of action in the sensible world. The “wholly different principle” with which Kant ends the 1787 First Critique is in fact the “different standpoint” he had introduced in the 1785 Groundwork.34

The Groundwork assists the present argument about Kant giving us the practical idea of self in the Paralogisms. In the Paralogisms we are presented with a self that can determine itself, a human self that is “to be legislative fully a priori in regard to our own existence…” (B431) The idea of a self that can practically determine itself becomes clearer in the definition of autonomy in the Groundwork: “if there is a categorical imperative (i.e., a law for every will of a rational being) it can only command that everything be done from the maxim of one’s will as a will that could at the same time have as its object itself as giving universal law.” (4:432, my emphasis) This statement encapsulates the idea of a willing self or an autonomous self that Kant proposes in the 1785 Groundwork and that we witness in the 1787 Paralogism as the idea of the soul.

32 There is an issue about the interpretation of freedom here that I will approach in the section on freedom. At the moment I will refer to Allison’s comment that Kant uses freedom in two different ways: as spontaneity and as autonomy. At this stage in discussion of the idea of self I think it is acceptable to conflate the two. 33 Gerhardt, 2002, making his existential interpretation of Kant, says that the practical idea of soul becomes nothing other than the general form of person because the soul is what we can from our own action bring into existence, p189. 34 Gerhardt, ibid., simply nominates the soul, as an idea of reason, as the intelligible standpoint of freedom as given in the Groundwork, p189. 35

Thus we can compare the second edition First Critique presentation of the idea of the soul as a means to regulate the human being’s determination of itself as a self on one hand with the Groundwork assertion of autonomy as a will legislating universal laws upon itself on the other hand. The a priori cognition for both, that is the existence of the soul as a self-determining I and the will of every rational being as being autonomous (a law unto itself), takes place intelligibly, that is not in the world of sense and causality, but that of reason and freedom. In both the First Critique and the Groundwork Kant begins with the idea of a determining self or autonomous will before he moves to the “cosmological” or “moral” ideas of a whole world (“kingdom of ends”) and freedom (autonomy of the will). The world of thought, or the intelligible world, is not only what necessitates a turn to the practical for Kant but also designates the very possibility of human practice. In the First Critique, rational psychology cannot prove an empirical self to exist but such an idea is necessary to begin the discussion of the cosmological ideas where the practical use of reason comes to prominence.

Thus, while the concepts the rational psychologists trick the understanding into positing the existence of a unified self, in the Paralogisms Kant permits those concepts to be applied, “in regard to their practical use”. (B431) This is because the practical use of reason does not make the I an empirical object nor thereby attempt to extend knowledge of the I. The idea of the I or of the self is used to create the necessary unity upon which thinking depends. The I is the first form of intelligible unity building because all other forms of unity, which is the task of thinking in general, are dependent upon it. The idea of self is the starting point and the logical subject for every perception because perception per se requires a self consciousness. The idea of the self is, Kant endorses in the Appendix to the Dialectic, a practical necessity because only the I can determine itself as it must do through itself: while thinking depends on the I, only a self in practice, which is the person, can itself determine the I.35 What the faculty of reason discovers in the Paralogisms is that this unity of a human self, as an unconditioned condition, can only represent a principle of reason’s use, as an idea of reason. (A684/B712) And this is the real explanation for why Kant thinks the transition from the metaphysics of the self to cosmology occurs so readily:

35 Buchdahl, 1992, thinks that the “determinable” and not indeterminate nature of the ideas of reason in general is what argues for the progress from the understanding to the autonomy of reason in Kant’s philosophy, p170f. 36 only a self can feel itself as a soul, understand itself as a part of a world, or see itself vis-à- vis a God.36

This meaning for human practice of the metaphysical idea of soul lies not in assuming a self as analogous to an object, rather the meaning lies in the task of creating a self. The positive conception of the idea of soul is re-born in the Second Critique as a postulate of practical reason. This I will discuss below in conjunction with the ideal of pure reason and the way it too becomes a postulate of practical reason as God. What must now follow from the discussion of the idea of self are the illusions of rational cosmology and the idea of freedom.

1.4 The Antinomies of Pure Reason 1.4.1 The critique of rational cosmology Kant follows his critique of rational psychology with a critique of rational cosmology in the second chapter of the Dialectic, “The antinomy of pure reason”. While the paralogisms show that the “I think” cannot deduce the I as a permanent substance, the antinomy of reason is about the attempt to make appearances cosmological truths. There is a methodological difference here because while reason simply errs in the metaphysics of the self, in the metaphysics of the world it compulsively contradicts itself with its own reasonable conclusions. Reason contradicts itself regarding the truth of the world as a whole (a cosmos) because it naturally strives to reach the unconditioned through using the given conditioned as the sum of its conditions. Sensible experience cannot apply the unconditioned in order to extend the purview of the understanding: the antinomies prove that we cannot have certain knowledge of cosmological concepts. Here again Kant is concerned with preventing dialectical illusion from being mistaken for actual knowledge. The cosmological concepts are not of experience like those given in the analytic deduction; rather the world-whole is an idea of reason, and reason is defined as the faculty of giving principles for use in the world.

36 Gerhardt, 2002, makes this point when he argues that the idea of the self is what permits the metaphysical ideas to represent the basic unifying function of reason, p187. 37

Rational cosmology claims it can prove the objective reality of the world as a whole. According to Kant the contradiction of this claim is fourfold. He argues instead that cosmological reasoning as to the beginning, composition, necessity and meaning of the world properly ends in antinomy. Kant sets out perfect proofs for the theses of the cosmological ideas and then in exact logical and textual juxtaposition sets out the four equally perfect proofs for the antitheses. He presents the best arguments for theological and rational positions in the theses, and those of empirical and sceptical positions in the antitheses.37 Kant also divides the antinomies into two groups: the first two antinomies are called “mathematical” because they deal with concepts about the world as “great and small” (A418-420/B446-448); the last two antinomies are called “dynamic” because they concern the world as nature, that is, its causality and existence. The structure of the arguments in the antinomies is uniform: all the theses prove that X is correct because not-X results in absurd consequences; and all antitheses proceed by showing that not-X must be right because the assumptions of X are groundless.38 Again for the antinomies, the detail will be brief so as to remain with the main project of showing how Kant establishes the cosmological ideas for practical use and not a subject of speculative truth.

Kant’s critique through the antinomies of traditional metaphysics is directed at the false grounds they give for knowledge of cosmological concepts. Kant’s fundamental claim that he builds up from the Aesthetic and the Analytic in First Critique is that in order for knowledge to be legitimately founded it requires the application of concepts of the understanding to our direct experience of objects that are the sensible intuitions. Thus because none of the cosmological ideas arise in sensibility it is fallacious to derive a real object based on a pure concept alone. But Kant also proves that the ideas about the whole world cannot be pure concepts of the understanding because the unconditioned is not justified within the conditioned experience of the world. The unconditioned is indeed a totalising form of thought but

37 Sadik Al-Azm disputes the characterisation by T.D. Weldon and Norman Kemp Smith of the theses as rationalist and the antitheses as empiricist, and argues it is actually the inverse. Al-Azm inteprets the whole chapter of the antinomies through the Newtownians like Clarke and his opponent Leibniz because he argues that they should be pproperly read as arguing positions the theses represent in an experimental – empirical and sceptical – fashion. See The Origins of Kant’s Arguments in the Antinomies, Oxford: Clarendon, 1972, in particular pp3–9 & pp52–60. 38 Al-Azm, 1972, notes that this form of “indirect proof” is an ancient method famously used by Clarke and Leibniz in their controversy, p2. 38 even when we represent the world as the sum total of all existing things it cannot refer to a real object of experience. The unconditioned condition for the whole world, therefore, is an idea of pure reason. There is no basis in the world for assuming the existence of limits to the cosmos. The basis for the assumption of these ideas involves the intelligible world - that of pure reason. Thus, in the lengthy discussion following the presentation of the antinomies, we come to the core of the First Critique, which mostly revolves around the idea of freedom.39 The antinomies around freedom and the existence of God will be given separate treatment in later individual sections.

The first antinomy concerns the spatio-temporal character of the world. The thesis is that the, “world has a beginning in time, and in space it is also enclosed in boundaries.” (A426/B454) Kant validates this statement with an argument that proves the illogical conclusion of the inverse: if the world had no beginning in time or no spatial boundaries then it could simply not exist because all series must begin somewhere and sometime, it could not begin with something unconditioned. The antithesis states that the, “world has no beginning and no bounds in space, but is infinite with regard to both time and space.” (A427/B455) The proof here again begins with the inverse scenario, that of the thesis, a world bounded in space and time, but concludes this could not be a world because it would be preceded by a nothingness that has no space and time and, therefore, cannot be intuited. The issue of the beginning of the world cannot be answered because we are thinking causally, that is within time and space, and reason can never know something outside of these conditions. Therefore cosmological postulations about the origin of the world can never be proven, according to Kant, because it relies on something unconditioned and we cannot posit an unconditioned within the conditioned world as we know it.

The second antinomy covers the conflict about whether there must be something simple and indivisible in the world, or if everything in space and time can be infinitely divisible. The thesis runs, “[e]very composite substance in the world consists of simple parts, and nothing exists anywhere except the simple or what is composed of simples.” (A434/B462) And the antithesis states that, “[n]o composite

39 Gardner, 1999, believes that sections 3-7 of the latter part of the Antinomy is the “climax of the Dialectic, as well as being one of the most beautiful and profound stretches of argument in Kant’s writings.” See p245-46. 39 thing in the world consists of simple parts, and nowhere in it does there exist anything simple.” (A435/B463) So to prove the validity of the thesis again, that the world is simple, Kant argues that if we say that composite substances have no simple parts then we find that nothing remains of a substance once we take away its composition: there are no parts left. But this nothing contradicts the notion of substance, which includes parts; therefore, in order for composite substances to be given they must consist of simple (non-composite and indivisible) parts.40 The antithesis counters that substances exist in time and space and therefore are constituted by an infinity of parts. Both conclusions suppose that an unconditioned exists in the world, either as simple or divisible. And again, we cannot know, that is experience, this unconditioned, so neither conclusion can stand.

Pure concepts of reason are not pure concepts of the understanding; Kant insists on the difference between reason and experience. For example, the first antinomy shows what results when we judge whether the world has a determined magnitude is only a regressive synthesis that can always be extended. In the series of appearances that we use to reach for the unconditioned we are not given the thing in itself. (A505/B533) The assumption then that the world exists with a certain magnitude can only be regulative because, the ground of the regulative principle of reason is the proposition that in the empirical regress there can be encountered no experience of an absolute boundary, and hence no experience of a condition as one that is absolutely unconditioned empirically. (A517/B545).

This proposition cautions us against assuming the unconditioned as based in experience because all conditions in a spatio-temporal regress are empirically conditioned. And yet we must not, given the nature of human reason, abandon the search for the unconditioned as even this cautionary proposition, Kants tells us, also contains the rule that, “I must always inquire after a higher member of the series, whether or not this member may come to be known to me through experience.” (A518/B546)

So we cannot prove the world to exist as a whole. Furthermore, the adventure of reason in the field of cosmology can only be one that is determining and cannot produce a determinate concept. (A523/B551) This regulative truth is what keeps us from blurring concepts of experience with those of reason. In a similar way to the soul being represented

40 Gardner, 1999, p236. 40 by the determining self of the “I think”, the world remains for us to determine because it has no transcendent reality. What we learn in the Antinomy is that the cosmos exists not as a determinate whole, but rather only in the indefinite extensions that we can create for it: Since through the cosmological principle of totality no maximum in the series of conditions in a world of sense, as a thing in itself, is given, but rather this maximum can merely be given as a problem in the regress of this series, … thus for the subject in initiating and continuing, in accordance with the completeness of the idea, the regress in the series of conditions for a given conditioned. (A508/B536)

This is the principle of reason that is not constitutive in allowing the explanation of the world to exceed possible experience, but is rather given to us as a higher principle for us to effect or enact in our experience for we must give an answer to the problem of the existence of a world. This, is a principle of the greatest possible continuation and extension of experience in accordance with which no empirical boundary would hold as an absolute boundary; thus it is a principle of reason which, as a rule, postulates what should be effected by us in the regress, but does not anticipate what is given in itself in the object prior to any regress. Hence I call it a regulative principle of reason… (A509/B537)

The maximising and totalising unity we reach through the regulative principle cannot give us real objects and events in the world, rather such a unity is only postulated as a problem for human consciousness. That the world is an idea of reason means humans have a problem to actively solve.41 And we must remember that our practical use of reason cannot err like theoretical metaphysics because there is no perfect mathematical solution at which to arrive. Kant is not giving up on the mathematical project of complete knowledge, rather he thinks the project is properly a continuing human journey. Practical metaphysics is on the side of humanity, it is about helping us to make sense of and improve our life together in the world. And this is the hope and faith in action that Kant wants to share; lying within human nature is the ability to respond to the problems of our reason.

41 See Gerhardt, 2002, who says that because the world-whole is given to humans as their own problem, one that they therefore create and determine, they cannot fail in this task, p194. 41

1.5 The ideal of pure reason and moral responsibility The fourth antinomy already sets out the subject matter of the final chapter of the Dialectic. As will be shown in the next section, in the third antinomy, too, both sides are shown to be logically correct: the thesis the world needs a necessary being is just as plausible as the antithesis that there is no absolutely necessary being either in the world or outside of it. (A452-453/B480-481) That there is a highest intelligible condition and that we cannot prove the non-being of a highest cause to be impossible means, Kant explains, that reason remains in conflict with itself because by its nature it demands the unconditioned. (A562/B590) The alternative is, then, to follow the idea of practical freedom and posit the unconditioned outside of the series in the intelligible realm: the existence of an absolutely necessary being thereby becomes a regulative idea. (A561-565/B589-593)

The fourth antinomy admits no hope for a successful proof of the existence of God and yet this is the very topic of the last and not immodest chapter of the Dialectic. Kant goes to great lengths in the Ideal to demonstrate that speculative philosophy cannot posit an ultimate being that provides all possibility. In this chapter Kant destroys all theoretical and theological attempts at proving God’s existence. At the end of the refusal of the second proof of God’s existence Kant dramatically portrays this situation: “The unconditional necessity, which we need so indispensably as the ultimate sustainer of all things, is for human reason the true abyss.” (A613/B641) And this is exactly where, according to Kant, speculative philosophy leaves us hanging. And yet he continues to drive us to the abyss, to prove that this is where we find ourselves when we realise the failure of the three possible proofs of the existence of a necessary being.

The opening section of the Ideal of pure reason, both aligns and distinguishes the ideal from the previous ideas of the soul, the whole world and freedom. Rational theologists make the same mistake as the rational psychologists and cosmologists when they apply the constitutive principles of the understanding to something outside of experience, i.e., God as the unconditioned ground of all possibility. However, the ideal of pure reason is distinguished from the other transcendental ideas in the way it is an idea “not merely in concreto but in individuo, i.e., as an individual thing which is 42 determinable or even determined, through the idea alone.” (B596) In other words, there can only be one ideal, one individual being. The ideas of soul and world are universal and therefore can include many individual things. This singularity is necessary to the idea of God, because an omnitudo realitatis (an all of reality) (A575/B603), or a “sum total of all possibility” (B601), or a “this possession of all reality” (B604) can only occur once.42 This singular thing that determines itself will be nothing other than the ideal of pure reason.

Kant states that the aim of the ideal of pure reason is a thoroughgoing determination of all things in accordance with a priori rules. (A571/B579) But what he does is to prove that all such attempts (as he states that there are only three conceivable proofs at A591/B619) at determining the existence of God fail. Thus, like the other metaphysical ideas we cannot know them as the unconditioned. The three proofs Kant invalidates are the ontological, physico-theological and the cosmological proofs. From the outset he declares, “reason … spreads its wings in vain when seeking to rise above the world of the sensible through the mere might of speculation” and he begins with the “transcendental” argument because it is this ontological proof that leads the empirical proofs astray when claiming that an ultimate being exists. (A591/B619)

The first proof is the ontological argument that God exists because the concept of an all-perfect being includes the concept of its existence because this too is perfection. Kant’s response it that being is not a “real predicate, i.e., a concept of something that could add to the concept of a thing.”(A598/B626) Kant allows that being is a grammatical or a logical predicate; but to state that “God is” fails to add anything to a determination of the concept of God. Thus existence cannot belong to the idea of God and also cannot be inferred from it. Thus, even to think the necessity of a divine master cannot give such a being positive content or the characteristics of perfection. God is merely a concept that expresses possibility and existence cannot be analytically attached to it. (A599-601/B627-629)

42 See Giovanni B Sala, Kant und die Frage nach Gott, Kantstudien Ergänzungshefte, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990, p233. 43

The cosmological argument introduces the fallacy of the empirical attempts to ground the existence of God. This takes the form similar to that of Descartes, whom Kant appears to be paraphrasing: “Now at least I myself exist, therefore, an absolutely necessary being exists.” (A604/B632) This demonstration of God’s being, according to Kant, makes an illogical jump from an empirical condition “I exist” to an ontological premise, which is that an absolutely necessary being exists. And we have already seen that we cannot apply the idea of an unconditioned to our experience. But what really undermines the proof of the cosmological argument, Kant reveals, is the reliance on the ontological premise; that is, it still relies on an a priori inference from the necessity of an ultimate being to the necessity of its existence. The concept of the highest being does, as Kant remarks in the beginning, distinguish itself as an individual thing; but it cannot answer questions about its own existence. (A611- 612/B639-640)

It is in the discussion of the cosmological proof that we hear Kant’s desperation that we are at the abyss of human reason: we are continually lured to the thought of the existence of a highest being which sustains the duration of all things but we cannot secure its existence. (A613/B641) Thus Kant already here concludes that the assumption of a necessarily existing being is warranted as a regulative principle of reason. (A615-619/B644-647) To save humans from the abyss of meaninglessness Kant grants that we can connect necessity and existence in the form of a regulative idea. This means we can maintain our natural search, for, “everything given as existing to seek something that is necessary, i.e., never to stop anywhere except with an a priori complete explanation”, but also “never to hope for this completion, i.e., never to assume anything empirical as unconditioned, thereby exempting oneself from its further derivation.” (A616/B644) We may still ask the question that we cannot “resist” anyway, “from whence then am I?” (A613/B641) But the answer can only be given in practice. The “inscrutable” ideal (A614/B642) of the necessity of existence is a “formal condition of thought” (A620/B648), or a subjective need of human meaning.

The third and actually empirical proof for the existence of God is the argument from design or, as Kant calls it, the physico-theological proof. Kant thinks it is the 44 one most worthy of “respect”, for it is “the oldest, clearest and most appropriate to common human reason” (A623/B651). This proof also begins with human existence and the awe aroused in us by the purposive and wonderful nature that is our context. From this and again from the desire for meaning we impute the knowledge of a “degree of perfection exceeding everything else that is possible.”(A623/B651) However, Kant proves there can be no certainty of another productive force outside of us, and states that all this proof can amount to is reference to a “highest architect of the world, who would always be limited by the suitability of the material on which he works, but not a creator of the world, to whose idea everything is subject” (A627/B655). Furthermore, the predicates of this architect, who causes the world but cannot create its materials, like “’very great’ or ‘astonishing’ or ‘immeasurable power’ and ‘excellence’” can determine nothing about the architect but at best demonstrates the likeness between the intelligent human observer and what he desires to have a determinate concept of: this ultimate albeit unknown cause. (A628/B656)

Despite showing that the desire for meaning is the seat of transcendental illusion, Kant maintains his link with traditional metaphysics because God still has a role to play in his practical philosophy. His objection to the tradition is that, when we take God to be the ultimate goal of all thought, we confuse it with a real being and attempt to find solace there. Instead, Kant gives God a “real use” as an ideal, as the ens realissimum (A576/B604), which is the supreme individual perfect thing that grounds all possibility because it completes the metaphysics of experience. This is a perfection that cannot be known in experience but is necessary as a ground for determining our reality. The question of God, like that of soul and freedom, finds its proper place in practical philosophy. The fact that we cannot know God’s existence implies that we are responsible for the practical possibilities of our own existence. The ideal of pure reason places human agency in the spotlight. The idea of God is not about what exists beyond us but about what actually lies within us. What lies within us is practical reason: our ability to act with responsibility in the world.

45

1.6 Assuming freedom To discuss freedom in relation to Kant can be a fraught enterprise.43 Hopefully the designation of freedom as an idea of reason gives it a greater simplicity than is usually attributed to freedom in Kant. This section limits the discussion of freedom to the third antinomy and its subsequent explanation in the Dialectic to give an interpretation of freedom that is based on its elucidation as an idea of reason. The idea of freedom is important for this thesis on Kant’s political philosophy because politics is about external freedom. As is obvious from the theoretical beginning of the thesis, it does not follow the main trend of analysing Kant’s political philosophy from the perspective of his moral.44 It will become increasingly clear how the theoretical philosophy is more salient to his political writings, but for the moment it is important to establish his practical metaphysics. It is well-known that, as Kant states in the Second Critique, freedom is the “keystone” to his whole critical philosophy. (CpracR, 5:3) The metaphysics of freedom is an essential part of the assessment of Kant’s political theory even though most other commentators on Kant’s moral and political philosophy ignore the cosmological beginnings of Kant’s approach to the problem of freedom.45

The third conflict that cosmological argument produces is about the world having an uncaused cause, which leads to a question about causality in the world. Kant also uses the structure of indirect proof for this antinomy. The thesis states, “[c]ausality in accordance with laws of nature is not the only one from which all the appearances of the world can be derived. It is also necessary to assume another causality through freedom in order to explain them.” (A444/B472) The thesis is proved indirectly true by arguing that causality itself presupposes a first uncaused cause without which any links made in the world of nature cannot be explained: the

43 Allison calls it “the most difficult aspect of his philosophy to interpret” in Kant’s Theory of Freedom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p1. 44 This is with the exception of Katrin Flikschuh, who says she begins with the third antinomy not only because it has implications for his political conception of freedom but also because she sees a version of the conflict replayed in the Rechtslehre in the antinomy of Right, which she argues then provides the ground for an account of political motivation in Kant. Her work is very influential in the next chapter. See Flikschuh, Kant and Modern Political Theory, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp53–54 & 129–134. 45 This tradition in the scholarship on Kant’s moral philosophy as seen in for example, Korsgaard, Hill, etc, takes its cue from the tradition in the analytic tradition of ignoring the cosmological origins of the idea of freedom in favour of a wholesale validation of practical freedom, see for example, Bennett, 1974, who says that that the cosmological issues in the third antinomy are “irrelevant to the problem of human freedom”, p189. 46 world originates in a free act as the unconditioned condition of causality. The antithesis proposes the direct opposite, “[t]here is not freedom, but everything in the world happens solely in accordance with laws of nature.” (A445/B473) The antithesis is also argued to be true insofar as everything must have a determinate position in space and time, which can only be understood causally. Everything takes place in a causal chain that is infinite, therefore the thesis, that something begins this chain, controverts the very concept of causality.

As in the fourth antinomy on the existence of God, Kant believes that both the thesis and antithesis are logically convincing and solves the apparent contradiction by saying that we can imagine the existence of a causality through freedom not in accordance with the laws of nature “at least does not conflict with” everything in the world happening in accordance with the laws of nature. (A558/B586) Allen Wood has convincingly argued for Kant’s metaphysical position on freedom as being a unique kind of compatibilism.46 This means that Kant holds freedom and natural determinism to be co-existent but not in an incompatible dualistic way, because he is not withdrawing humans from the determinism of natural events when they are acting freely. Rather, he wants to unite both causalities without ascribing to human freedom a mere psychological Humean kind of causality, where freedom is when the agent acts without interference and with the mere belief that they are choosing their course of actions. Wood briefly summarises Kant’s position as, “that our actions may be simultaneously free and causally determined because we belong to two worlds; this means that our existence can be viewed from two different standpoints.”47 Wood argues that because humans cannot know whether we are noumenal or not we may postulate that this side of ourselves is free, and that this explains the moral impulse. It is when we are being conscious of morality that we are being free. We, therefore, postulate freedom, as above the empirical, in order to believe in and act according to moral principles at the empirical level.48

46 See Allen Wood, “Kant’s Compatibilism” in Self and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy ed. Allen W. Wood, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984, pp73–101. 47 Ibid., p74. 48 Leibniz, a compatibilist known to Kant, presents a different kind of compatibilism whereby there is no spontaneity, no freedom from law, because nothing is undetermined empirically, that is, by the internal principles of the monad. A classic incompatibilist believes there is spontaneity of choice but that such choices are not caused. Where Kant agrees with both positions is the assimilation of freedom into the normal causal pattern of the world. For Kant, freedom is transcendental. Some commentators, 47

This is clear enough from Kant’s sudden interpolation of “the ought” in his argument for the validity of the thesis, that is, that there is an additional type of causality. In accordance with the project of the Dialectic, Kant denies rational knowledge of transcendent freedom. But what he wants to affirm is its existence in thought, which means that as an idea freedom can be used in practice rather than given certainty in theory. Part of Kant’s argument for the intelligible necessity of the idea of freedom comes from the presence of “ought judgements”: “The ought expresses a species of necessity and a connection with grounds that does not occur anywhere else in the whole of nature. In nature the understanding can only cognise what exists, or has been or will be.” (A547/B575) It seems that the need for an idea of freedom is already explained by the mere existence of “imperatives that we propose to ourselves as rules to our powers of execution in everything practical.” (A547/B575) Kant is arguing that because we do believe in the freedom of our own actions and even condemn others for abuses of freedom, for example blaming the person for maliciously lying even though we can understand the empirical causes that brought them to act in this way (A554-555/B582-583), we can conceive of an idea of transcendental freedom.

We cannot, however “get beyond” the intelligible cause and know that actions could be or are free; this is the rationale behind the compatibility of the idea of freedom with natural necessity. (A557/B585) This compatibility is, however, in theory only. If we want to demonstrate, as Kant does in his examples of blame and in the decision and deed of rising from my chair (A449/B479), that there is this human causality we cannot stay within theory. Kant declares that the idea of transcendental freedom grounds the assumption of practical freedom (A533-534/B561-562). Freedom, therefore, is an appropriate subject only for practice. In human action we

who still want to assert Kant’s idea of freedom, have nonetheless questioned the compatibility thesis because of the principle of the second analogy. This is the view that all events are caused and this rule also governs the chosen actions of rational agents. See, for example, Lewis White Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960, pp191-195. Note too, that Bennett, in commenting on Woods’ two-worlds compatibilist theory of Kant’s freedom, thinks that the contrast between the view of the empirical actor and the noumenal view is better replaced by two problems: accountability and agency. This provides, what he calls “a pair of contrasts”: first, between the observer and the emotional responder; and second, between observer and agent. See Bennett, “Commentary: Kant’s Theory of Freedom” in Self and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy ed. Allen W. Wood, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984, pp193-217. 48 simply cannot and do not sit on the fence between determinism and indeterminism. Freedom concerns the humans in their environment and not what lies beyond the world and in speculation. The interest of reason, which is especially obvious in the presence of ought judgements, is about faith in the practice of living.

Wood is right to emphasise the compatibilism in Kant’s theory of freedom but perhaps placing humans in another (noumenal) world in order to justify the unification of freedom with nature, he has misunderstood the source of the unification of the two causalities. If the human is noumenally free then how are they also natural beings? The logical lack of conflict of thesis and antithesis simply means that we are given the opportunity to use this compatibility in practice, as a regulative idea. The fact of noumenal freedom is not given in the third antinomy, only the idea of human freedom is, and as with the other ideas of reason it is only validated by its regulative use. So, it is correct to say, as Wood does, that the human is part of both causalities because we are both natural and rational but we can never be exclusively one or the other. It is humans who assume the standpoint of the noumenal or the phenomenal; therefore, it is humans in lived reality that unify both the causality of nature and the causality of freedom. When we stand under freedom we cannot possess a “timeless agency” as Wood believes49 because we can never be outside of nature. So the unification or non-conflict of a conception of freedom with the laws of nature can only take place in nature as it were, and specifically within the human as a natural, rational being.

Thus, in order for this present interpretation of the third antinomy to progress we begin with the idea of freedom as for regulative use. As quoted above, we are given the ideas as problems, as a task. We are not yet concerned with the grounding of practical freedom in the idea of transcendental, as it is important to keep drawing out the implications of the creation of an idea of freedom itself, and how it helps us understand how freedom works as a regulative idea.

The affirmation of the thesis and antithesis, that the world has an uncaused first cause and that nothing can precede the causal chain, leaves us with an idea of

49 Wood, 1984, p89. 49 freedom that can be reconciled with the laws of nature. The existence of this antinomy is exactly what is needed for an idea of freedom at all. This is where the cosmological setting of the idea of freedom is important; the thesis that there is an uncaused first cause to the world becomes a warrant to assume spontaneous beginnings in time.50 This is Kant’s idea of transcendental freedom. And transcendental freedom, as the capacity of reason to begin a chain of events in the world, has no guarantee except as an idea for humans to take up and use. But it actually needs the very thing that threatens its theoretical existence – natural causality. This use humans make of the idea of freedom does not become Wood’s moral willing of a noumenal self because human beings exist already in the causality of nature, even whilst acting morally or freely.51 That is to say, Kant’s insistence on a spontaneous capacity in humans that at least does not conflict with the original causality of nature, actually emphasises the necessity of time for the actions of freedom. Natural causality is what permits the idea of freedom to have effect; the former is a necessary condition of the latter. So this is an inverse state of affairs to the grounding practical freedom receives from transcendental freedom. Thus, the idea of freedom as a kind of causality is dependent on the concept of empirical causality. Freedom could not establish itself or carry out its proper (moral) ends without the existence of a causal order. If there is no causal ordering in nature then an intelligible causality is redundant because there is nothing to effect.52

Andrews Reath’s discussion of Kant’s “critical account of freedom” also seems to ignore the necessity of the practical (human) unity of the causalities of freedom and nature when he too he speaks of the difference “in kind” that the opposing laws have and effect.53 Reath characterises human freedom as an intelligible or noumenal source of connections, which means the laws of freedom are normative rather than causal. This is not an unsound proposition in itself. Reath, however, wants to save Kant’s account of freedom from its dismissal as implausible due to its

50 Flikschuh, 2000, refers to Allison’s worry about the gulf between the cosmological setting of the dispute and the practical solution as a change from cosmological concerns to anthropocentric use, pp60–63. 51 See Wood, 1984, p89f. 52 Flikschuh, 2000, makes this point in a different, though I think compatible way, by emphasising how Kant attributes to freedom a need to be “law-like” as in the Groundwork where Kant refers to the laws of nature as a ‘typic’ for the laws of pure practical reason, pp77–79. 53 Andrews Reath, “Kant’s Critical Account of Freedom” in A Companion to Kant ed, Graham Bird, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006, p277. 50 metaphysical origins, something Wood can be seen to promote, by arguing that the noumenal and the phenomenal are “two different standpoints that we adopt toward action in different contexts.”54 So, just as the above comments may also suggest, Reath intimates he thinks Wood’s “timeless agency” lacks a real context. I think that Reath overstates the different context for the existence of the laws of freedom, which is similar to Wood’s “other world”. I agree with Wood and Reath, however, that ideas are of the intelligible realm because we cannot experience them; but what these commentators neglect is that as normative guides for our behaviour, their context of operation cannot be different from the context of the effects of the laws of nature.

What unites the two causalities in practice is, as Kant puts it, “the human power of choice” that is indeed sensible (sensitivum) and yet not “brutum”(animal), but rather “liberum” [free] because sensibility does not render its action necessary, but in the human being there is a faculty of determining oneself from oneself, independently of necessitation by sensible impulses.” (A534/B562) A human embodies both causalities and thinks and acts in one context. The ideas of reason work because they do have an intelligible causality and there is only one context for giving practical effect – time and space. Reath is correct when he says that the normative principles that rule rational activity is different to empirical rules, but he does not make the connection that is so essential to understanding how Kant’s practical metaphysics work: ideas are in themselves practical. They only have existence as practical, and they are necessarily linked to the empirical because it is only in the empirical that their effect can take effect, that is, receive their object, be manifested. This returns us to the determining self of the paralogisms and the intelligible character that we must effect in practice and that is already effected insofar as we perceive ourselves to be capable of spontaneous action.55 We have already witnessed with the self of the “I think”: the “I” cannot be cleaved off and be speculatively known separately to the effects of thinking but it can be proved by the activities of the “I” itself. Personhood is achieved when the soul becomes an idea of reason to act upon rather than think of as real. Freedom too works in this way, that we

54 Reath, 2006, p277. 55 Indeed Ameriks points out in his book on the Paralogisms that: “Although Kant eventually tried to locate the idea of freedom under the rubrics of cosmology and practical philosophy, there is an obvious sense in which it is treated most naturally within the domain of rational psychology.” See Ameriks, 1982, p189. 51 can think it means that we can use it; that it is a human task to create in order to carry out further human tasks. This is the practical nature of both the ideas of freedom and the self.

Flikschuh’s representation of the issue of the metaphysics of freedom is influential for my interpretation of Kantian freedom. She argues that we need to remember the origins of Kant’s concept of causality, and in agreement with Hume, as something we bring to nature. However, and in contrast to Hume, she demonstrates that for Kant, the concept of causality is a necessity of experience; it is the human mind that applies it to nature. Flikschuh uses this approach to solve the problem of how the issue of freedom arises from the cosmology of causality; how Kant inserts human freedom into the problem of there being a first cause to the world’s causality.56 But I think this compatibility of the cosmological problem and question about human freedom helps us model the idea of freedom too as something we bring to our understanding of the effects in the world. The ideas of reason are supposed to be modelled on the categories of the concepts of the understanding such that the antinomies are organised according to quantity (the beginning of the cosmos), quality (the composition of the cosmos), relation (causality of and in the cosmos) and modality (the necessity of the cosmos).57 This means we bring the ideas of reason to ourselves in the world in the same way the understanding applies concepts to sensible intuition.

We could not bring ideas of reason to nothing; therefore, we need a causality to exist in the world before we can bring another causal force to bear on it. The antithesis of the third antinomy argues against the thesis because it negates the very definition of causality: causality is our primary concept. Therefore, it is only through the causality in the world that we can conceive of a causality outside of it. The mere contemplation of the existence of “another causality” can only take place because of the base concept of causality itself. This conceptual modelling Kant also uses for the practice of freedom: the laws of nature provide the only way we can understand the

56 Flikschuh, 2000, pp56–57 & 65–67. 57 For a good discussion of the similar genesis between the categories of the understanding and the concepts of reason see Allison, 2004, pp313–322. He speaks about how for Kant all general concepts are analytical unities, so the ideas of reason are like the concepts of the understanding are a product of reflection and are not inferred, ie., not innate. 52 laws of freedom to operate, that is, causally. As Kant also writes in the third section of the Groundwork, natural causality gives us a model on which to structure the formal operation of human freedom.58 But more than that, it gives us the structure for the application of freedom. The laws of freedom depend on the laws of nature for their very existence.

Flikschuh defers to the metaphysics of freedom too in her very cogent representation of the compatibility of the laws of freedom and the laws of nature, as permitted by Kant’s freedom as an idea of reason. She stresses the analogy between the causality of nature and the causality of freedom in order to explain how freedom is a “framing capacity” for humanity at large and not just individuals, “to create a lawlike order within the sphere of practical reason and agency, that is, within the sphere of morality broadly understood.”59 This gives us the hope of a future that I have already noted Kant refers to in the second edition Preface. Flikschuh also stresses freedom as a problematic idea of reason, which she says places humans as the “mediator” between the two causalities. She suggests that it is through the lack of certainty about freedom that humans can conceive their future as open and thereby conceive of themselves as having a capacity to effect this in the manner of the movement of natural causality, that is, our action is prospective; we must be able to reason through our behaviour in the here and now. Thus, there is an important disanalogy between the laws of nature and the laws of freedom, because the latter are regulative and not determinative, that is, action guiding and not action determining.60

Reath bases his discussion of the relation between freedom and nature on the way that Kant characterises the intelligible as grounding the empirical,61 which is, of course, the way in which Kant provides that we need an idea of transcendental freedom in order for there to be practical freedom.62 This is the inverse, however, of how this thesis wants to employ Flikschuh’s interpretation. At this stage in the

58 Cf Flikschuh, at footnote 42 above. 59 Flikschuh, 2000, p75. 60 Ibid., pp74–79. 61 Reath, 2006, p285. 62 For more thorough discussions on Kant’s distinction between transcendental and practical freedom see, for example, Bernard Carnois, The Coherence of Kant’s Doctrine of Freedom, trans. by Theodore Talbot, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987, chapters 1-3 and Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 1990, especially chapter 3. 53 discussion of the metaphysics of freedom we are emphasising the primary need for the causality of nature in order to be able to conceive of another causality. This is what explains the persistence of the ought and the “unification” of the two different types of causality. It is not the two different contexts that permits the existence of the two different causalities, as Reath intimates, but rather that both causalities take “place simultaneously in one and the same occurrence.” (A536/B564) Reath does denote the difference between transcendental freedom and practical freedom using the concept of experience, as he states that the latter is our experience of ourselves as agents.63 But he fails to recognise that already in transcendental freedom there is a supposition of the experiential: our intelligible cause cannot give an effect if it cannot be experienced.

This explains Kant’s strange passage in the second edition Preface about how the human soul is both free and determined. (Bxxvi-xxx) The soul is thus free, not because it is capable of a dualism, but rather, because it is the site of unification for the laws of freedom with the laws of nature. Kant gives the example of a free action in the conditional: If (for example) I am now entirely free, and get up from my chair without the necessarily determining influence of natural causes, then in this occurrence, along with its natural consequences to infinity, there begins an entirely new series … For this decision and deed do not lie within the succession of merely natural effects and are not a mere continuation of them … (A451/B479)

So when we view ourselves as capable of freedom (the intelligible standpoint) we assign free choice to our actions. Gerhardt too underlines the importance of the human as the source of unification of the two causalities. He argues that the reason why “this decision and deed” are more than a consequence of previous natural causes is because it is the “I” that lies between them - because I am the one that rises from my chair.64 Flikschuh argues for the metaphysical reconciliation of freedom and causality because of the practical need to bridge freedom and nature. Gerhardt endorses the metaphysics of freedom because of the essential relation between the human and the world, and this relation arises in the context of the issue of freedom. Gerhardt argues that precisely because it is the human that lies between the two causalities (nature and

63 Reath, 2006, p288. 64 Gerhardt, 2002, pp196–97. 54 freedom) there is no contradiction. And, in practice, the human “opts” for freedom, despite remaining in both causalities.65 This we witness in Kant’s own words: … an intelligible cause, however, will not be determined in its causality by appearances, even though its effects appear and so can be determined through other appearances. Thus the intelligible cause, with its causality is outside the series; its effects, on the contrary are encountered in the series of empirical conditions. The effect can therefore be regarded as free in regard to its intelligible cause, and yet simultaneously, in regard to appearances, as their result according to the necessity of nature; this is a distinction which, if it is presented in general and entirely abstract, must appear extremely subtle and obscure, but in its application it will be enlightening. (A537/B565)

This section has examined the application of the idea of freedom. We are not here concerned with the moral necessity of freedom, where freedom is the ground from which the moral law can be enforced, as this is properly considered in discussions of Kant’s moral philosophy. What is of interest for this investigation of Kant’s political philosophy is the guiding function of the ideas of reason. They are not enforced, but rather, as explained above, come about because of the interest of reason in unconditioned wholes. So, because reason exceeds the boundaries of the understanding and compulsively questions that which it cannot know, it can create concepts for itself, “a being of reason”, that then acts as a principle. The ideas of reason cannot be enforced, they are guaranteed by nature and by the natural capacity of reason to set principles for itself to follow. This is different from the way Kant develops practical reason in the moral writings, whereby practical freedom is the guarantee for the moral law.66 We are still here concerned with how freedom operates as an idea like soul or God. It is the structure of this operation that will become crucial in the later chapters and the interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy.

Thus in the third antinomy we are not so much concerned with the transition from transcendental freedom to practical because Kant already posits the idea of freedom as wholly practical. So, when freedom is a regulative idea, what it causes us to do is enact it. This means that we assume it to exist for humans in order to conceive of human actions in the world as a whole. The idea is for practice and can only be a

65 Ibid., p199. 66 Although Dieter Henrich insightfully observes that Kant’s defence of freedom in the Groundwork is based primarily upon theoretical grounds in terms of our faculty of reason and its ideas. See Henrich Aesthetic judgement and the moral image of the world: studies in Kant, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992, p80f. 55 subject of practice, again an argument Kant also makes clearly in the third section of the Groundwork: when we perform our judgements and decisions as if we had freedom, our actions are indistinguishable from the case where we knew we held actual super-sensible freedom.

It is arguable that the third antinomy gives a biased solution to the problem of freedom, as there is a clear favouring of the thesis.67 What is important, however, is the practical nature of the metaphysical idea of freedom. We do not need to dismiss or avoid the idea of freedom in order to get to the necessary idea of practical freedom because Kant presents it as already in itself practical when we take the idea seriously as a practical use of reason. The contradiction of speculative metaphysics around freedom is not relevant to the practice of freedom. For the practice of freedom involves us acting as if we are free, which means we determine ourselves and our behaviour towards others as if we were controlling it; and this behaviour thereby becomes the behaviour of someone who is “truly” free, therefore, in practice, in our knowledge and action, we are free.

1.7 The function of ideas of reason This chapter has offered a general outline of the specific ideas of reason in the First Critique in order to demonstrate their shared practical function – regulation. This practical function is what establishes our understanding of Kant’s further uses of the concept of an idea of reason. Although there are significant differences between the ideas of reason in the First Critique and the explicitly practical ideas of the second critique, and even though the re-emergence of ideas of reason in the political texts is unexplained, it is my thesis that the regulating function, inaugurated in the First Critique, persists. What we learnt from the presentation of the ideas of reason in the Dialectic is that the function of these ideas is uniquely practical.

67 On the third antinomy and the bias towards the thesis see Norman Kemp Smith, who calls this the “spiritualist tilt” of the critique of traditional metaphysics. See A Commentary to Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason”, rev edn., New York: Humanities Press, 1962, p454. Also regarding the bias – Bennett, 1974, thinks that the superobjective of the third antinomy is exclusively about confirmation of freedom for morality, i.e., he thinks we should “forget the cosmological route to the question”, p189. 56

The preceding analysis of ideas of reason in the First Critique demonstrates the features of their function. Thus, ideas of reason function by providing the focus for our practical questions. They are a focus imaginarius that demand a presence in our reasoned decisions and actions. In this way they are objective but remain useless unless we validate them by setting upon a path of their approximation. In the First Critique Kant talks of the possibility of extension of experience whereby we apply ideas of reason to our human situation. Such a dedicated and yet indeterminate task of ideas of reason sheds much light on how we can understand Kant’s use of the concept in his political thinking. The real work of ideas of reason is in regulating shared human life. We must work together on our possible political realities. In the First Critique Kant argues that we need wholes to guide us, which is paramount in the political experience of unifying and extending our decisions. Ideas of reason demand action from us as they are grounded entirely in use. This is part of the progress they provide for, that is, a construction of their approximation without a determination of the idea itself as absolute. The function of ideas of reason is to give our problems an object, one that we must then negotiate and create for ourselves. We have seen that the ideas of the self, of God and of freedom function as a task, a problem, showing us the human capacity for responsibility in creating the conditions of their existence. Ideas of reason affirm the human power of choice, which may also be a moral necessity in the way the Second Critique presents these ideas, but they also function in general as normative guides for our choices. So, although there may be a difference between God as an idea in the First Critique and, say, the social contract as an idea of reason in the political texts, their underlying function remains. Their real use is regulative, which means we must act with responsibility for our world in the way we choose to represent and act upon its possibilities.

1.8 Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated that the doctrine of ideas of reason teaches us about practical metaphysics: how we use ideas to expand our experience of the world. The ideas of soul, world, God and freedom ground our human activity. Kant states this succinctly in the Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, where he writes that the ideas of reason teach us about, “reason’s own use, complete and directed to the 57 highest ends, in the field of possible experience. But this is all the utility we can reasonably wish for, and we have cause to be satisfied with it.”(Prol., 4:362-63) The utility of ideas of reason is the real expansion of our field of experience because they guide the constant determinations we make in and for our world. Their productivity has obvious political importance, as it helps us direct and guide human endeavour towards shared highest ends. The arguments of the following chapters build on this notion of productive ideas in the political context. As with the above ideas of reason they are particularly apt for collective human practice. The felicity of a practice of ideas in politics is the basis of this thesis. Hence I have sought in this first chapter to show the inauguration of the use of ideas of reason and their practical regulative function. The next chapter will then examine how the function of ideas of reason and politics have been and could be linked, in addition to painting the picture of what a politics that makes use of ideas of reason looks like and is capable of. 58

Chapter Two

Ideas of Reason and the Practice of Politics

Chapter One introduced a definition of Kant’s practical metaphysics based on the regulative use of ideas of reason. This chapter links this practice of metaphysics to politics. The underlying argument of this second chapter is that we need to understand Kant’s political philosophy in light of his practical metaphysics. Metaphysics does not impose a universal truth for politics, but rather offers practical ideas for regulating political activity. In particular, this means that the ideas of reason Kant presents in his political writings have an important function for establishing the political condition and allowing for its dynamic. The ideas themselves are formal and empty; therefore, as I demonstrated in Chapter One, they are only meaningful or useful insofar as they are instantiated. They rely on humans to perform this work. The exemplary ideas of reason in Kant’s political writings are perpetual peace, a republican constitution (which, as has already been shown, was first mentioned in the beginning of the Dialectic), and Right itself. The list, however, includes most of the classic political ideas so that the original contract is an idea of reason, as is original possession in common, cosmopolitan Right and the general will.68

So Kant does not simply invoke the traditional concepts of political philosophy in order to develop a structure and institutional meaning for them. Rather, as he does with the traditional ideas of metaphysics, he gives these political concepts

68 It is worth noting here a problem in Kant’s political work identified by Katrin Flikschuh in relation to the proliferation of ideas of reason in the Rechtslehre (e.g republican state, perpetual peace, the general united will of the people, the social contract, original possession in common). Flikschuh remarks that we are not advised as to the possible different status that they may assume. Perhaps, for example, some may be derived from others or from the idea of Right itself, and, if there are lower order ideas, do they have different functions? She asks if they of the same order of apriority as the idea of freedom itself. See Flikschuh, Kant and Modern Political Theory, 2000, p163. This thesis attempts at least a partial solution to this problem, as in Chapter Three I examine publicity as the primary political idea of reason, the one that grounds our enactment of the others. 59 a new function: they are to guide, regulate and incite political practice. Thus the two questions that this chapter will address are, first, how Kant employs ideas of reason in his account of the civil condition, including its establishment and maintenance and, second, the dynamical implications that Kant’s conception of politics, based on the regulative use of ideas, has for political activity. Kant’s ideas of reason are not simply about the way he justifies his approach to politics but are also, as we will see, themselves key dynamic components of justice. This chapter is mainly concerned with the dynamisms of Kant’s political thought as based on the practice of ideas of reason; how he allows for political progress.

While I am most keen to isolate and examine the active power of ideas of reason for politics, Kant’s account of the civil condition is a necessary precursor to this discussion. So we begin with the latter. To demonstrate the importance of ideas of reason in Kant’s image of civil society, I will employ Katrin Flikschuh’s interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy in Kant and Modern Political Theory,69 in particular, her reading of Kant’s account of political obligation and justification based on the metaphysics of freedom and the unique function of a priori ideas of reason. This interpretation places much emphasis on Kant’s obscure theory of property and its resulting postulate of Right to defend a cosmopolitan and non- contractual account of the duties of justice. This will be contrasted with Guyer’s account of Kant’s property argument and his contractual liberal conclusions. Flikschuh argues that Kant is ill-suited to be situated within the contractarian liberal tradition and that his radical conception of politics is inherently cosmopolitan. This argument about Kant’s conception of the civil condition and political obligation relies on an identification of the status of political concepts as ideas of reason. The focus of the thesis in general, and specifically in this chapter, is the political function of ideas of reason and how they lend themselves to political practice. Thus Flikschuh’s exposition of political obligation in Kant (although it is not her primary focus) provides some of the essential elements for my own argument, on the basis of which it can develop an interpretation of the function of ideas of reason for politics.

69 Flikschuh, 2000. 60

In relation to the second question of this chapter, how ideas of reason function to make politics dynamic, Flikschuh is again useful, as I draw out some such implications from her conception of Kant’s political philosophy. We will consider two examples of the dynamic nature of the operation of ideas of reason in politics. The first example is called pure revolution. This forms a conceptual explanation of how ideas of reason function for general political responsibility and transition. The second example comes from Elisabeth Ellis and her theory of Kant’s political philosophy as provisional, with the “motor” of such politics being public judgement.70 For Ellis, public judgement is a pragmatic tool for employing ideas of reason to effect political change. This is, importantly, a public-based tool, which, as such, demonstrates the link between the subjects of politics, people, and ideas of reason.

2.1 The problem In the preceding chapter the operation of ideas of reason was set out: ideas of reason must be actively sought and given reality in practice. This chapter portrays politics as employing ideas of reason in this way; that is, the political ideas of reason have an important regulative function for political practice.

This presents a problem, however, about how we seek these ideas of reason in our political practice. This problem is perhaps best encapsulated in a quote from the essay, “Towards Perpetual Peace” [TPP]: “Seek ye first the kingdom of pure practical reason and its justice, and your end (the blessing of perpetual peace) will come to you of itself.” (TPP, 8:378) Kant’s political philosophy raises questions about the nature of the relationship between seeking the kingdom of pure practical reason and obtaining its justice (that is, the relationship between morality and politics, which will be discussed in the following chapter), but also about how the ends toward which we aspire become real for us. We can define the conditions we seek: the kingdom of pure practical reason is a state where we all behave according to the laws of freedom as if they were the laws of nature (Groundwork, 4:463). The political import of this condition is perpetual peace, brought about by cosmopolitan Right, where the freedom of each is maintained by the freedom of all. But as to what it means that the

70 See Elisabeth Ellis Kant’s Politics: Provisional Theory for and Uncertain World, 2005. 61 end, as a blessing or otherwise, will come about of its own accord, we know very little. Kant, in Groundwork, states that the kingdom is “admittedly only” a “noble ideal” (4:434 & 4:463), just as he repeatedly acknowledges in his political texts that the justice of perpetual peace is indeed an impossible state for humanity. But we may well ask, especially in a political context, by what power is an idea able to achieve itself? What does it mean to be led by an idea?

The question was originally raised in one of the first reviews of Kant’s Rechtslehre [RL], the first part of the Metaphysics of Morals [MM]. Friedrich Bouterwerk in 1797, the same year as the MM was first published, asked: what is the authority of ideas? Kant includes this question, and his response, as an Appendix to the 1798 edition of the Rechtslehre. Bouterwerk writes: So far as we know, no philosopher has yet admitted that most paradoxical of all paradoxical propositions: the proposition that the mere idea of sovereignty should constrain me to obey as my lord whoever has set himself up as my lord, without asking who has given him the right to command me. Is there to be no difference between saying that one ought to recognize sovereignty and supreme authority and saying that one ought to hold a priori as his lord this or that person, whose existence is not even given a priori? (RL, 6:371)

In effect Bouterwerk asks how the idea operates in context. We are given the idea of sovereignty and an empirical representative, ‘my lord’, but what bridges these two entities? Really, he is asking a variation of the question about seeking the highest political condition of justice from our conditioned conditions. It is a question about the nature of Kant’s political philosophy regarding the ideal structure he creates and its plausible application. On the one hand, Kant presents us with ostensibly noble ideals and hope for humanity, and on the other, the empirical limits so real to human life.

Kant’s response to Bouterwerk amounts to little. He concedes the paradox of his proposition about ideas bridging absolute authority and conditioned power, but insists that maintaining the power of ideas is not a flamboyant proposition. And yet Kant presents little by way of proof as to how and why the idea is so powerful. His reply is more like a rhetorical justification, as he insists that the idea of a rightful constitution is a thing in itself; a command that practical reason gives to every people and, as such, it is “sacred and irresistible.” (RL, 6:372) Kant believes that the 62 principle of creation is contained a priori in the idea and, writes in the conclusion to his response to Bouterwerk, “although no example in experience is adequate to be put under this concept, still none must contradict it as a norm.” (RL, 6:372) It seems, though, that creation of an idea, or the conditions for it, is not the same as the manifestation of the idea itself. This is an important point to remember when we are considering the political work that the ideas of reason, of themselves, command of us. The regulative function of ideas implies that they are more than ideals. An ideal is set in order to be achieved, whereas the substance of ideas of reason is found in the way they are used, in how they condition their practical application. In this sense, we do not focus on the actual accomplishment of the idea; but rather on their ability to be politically regulative - they aid reform.

The reason I think that Kant’s practical metaphysics can be employed to shed light on his political philosophy is because it explains his account of political progress. And although this helps explain the nature of the political vision, we must first, however, have some insight into how Kant establishes the domain of politics itself. In the next section, we will establish a conception of Kant’s political theory that makes the link between the regulative function of ideas of reason and the political context itself.

2.2 What are the ideas of reason in Kant’s political philosophy and how do they frame the political field? To answer this question we rely in part on Flikschuh’s interpretation of Kant’s account of political obligation. She employs Kant’s almost haphazard presentation of the ideas of reason of Right, a general will, the social contract and original possession in common to establish an understanding of the civil condition. Her Kantian civil condition is one established not by a decision to contract, but instead by the use of freedom under the principle of Right, which is then regulated by the ideas of an ahistorical social contract and original possession in common as cosmopolitan. The civil condition is not a final or preliminary achievement, as we are always moving towards it and are not necessarily referring back to it as a historical fact. Let us 63 examine then Flikschuh’s philosophical reconstruction of Kant’s account of the civil condition.

The focus of Flikschuh’s work is the RL because she thinks that it is here Kant provides his fullest account of Recht.71 Flikschuh gives primacy to the concept of Right because, she argues, three central metaphysical categories are at play within it: the concept of causality; the idea of freedom; and the notion of human finitude. And these elements all contribute to Kant’s non-contractarian, cosmopolitan account of political obligation. Although Flikschuh comments that her treatment of the RL is selective, she thinks that this enables her to make the most sense of the significant issues in Kant; what she takes to be an important connection between his account of the possibility of private right or intelligible property as based on the antinomy of Right and his cosmopolitan justification of political obligation. To understand how Flikschuh explains this we need to remember the metaphysics of freedom and begin with Kant’s very focussed discussion of the right to private property.

Kant’s antinomy of Right is one of the more opaque and unsurprisingly unexamined sections in the RL. Flikschuh goes to some effort to substantively reconstruct the argument of this antinomy, with which Kant concludes the practical postulation of Right. Kant justifies the postulate of Right based on the necessary condition of intelligible property. Interestingly, in the very same year that Flikschuh published her discussion of the antinomy of right and Kant’s complex theory of private property (2000), Paul Guyer published his book Kant on Law, Happiness and Freedom, which also provides some insight into these issues.72 This is interesting because, as they both note, there had been almost no examination of the problem of Right, the problem of individual property claims, in Kant and his difficult discussion of it in the RL, at least in English language scholarship. So, suddenly and apparently coincidentally Flikschuh and Guyer wrote about the relation between politics and property in Kant. As neither references each other, but instead refer to the same scant

71 To better convey the original meaning of Recht I will capitalise the English, Right, throughout the thesis. This is because the German Recht contains a broader meaning that the English right, and Kant, in particular, distinguished between the condition of Right and the holding of legal rights. 72 Guyer, Kant on Law, Happiness and Freedom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 64 discussion of it in the literature, I will attempt to compare their respective reconstructions of Kant’s argument regarding the central political notion of property.73

2.2.1 The possibility of property and the practical postulate of Right The first problem we confront in Kant’s discussion of Right is that of the possibility and justification of intelligible possession. Empirical possession is readily understood. If I am holding an object it is mine. If you grab it for yourself you may injure my person but I cease to have any claim to it: it is mine as long as I am holding it. But if I am not physically holding the object and you take it, in order for your use of my object to constitute a wrong, there needs to be a special link between it and me. That is, there has to be intelligible possession. Kant defines possession thus: “That is rightfully mine (meum iuris) with which I am so connected that another’s use of it without my consent would wrong me. The subjective condition of any possible use is possession.” (RL, 6:245) It is important to note in this definition that possession is about use, having and not simply holding, and that the central relationship for possession is between another and I. In this sense Flikschuh argues that Locke is Kant’s primary interlocutor; that the labour-based justification of private property is what Kant rejects as “old” theory.74

73 At the outset I can say that while they have radically different starting positions, i.e., Flikschuh arguing for a metaphysical cosmopolitan non-liberal non-contractarian account of Kant’s political philosophy and Guyer keen to keep Kant within the liberal social contract theory tradition based on discreet states, they do come to similar conclusions about how Kant’s argument for private property can be reconstructed. This is important as Kant does very little by way of direct explanation in the text. Interestingly, the difference in their views about Kant’s theory of property, and the kind of implications it has for his conception of justice, revolves around Rawls. This is pertinent to the argument of Chapter Four, where I undertake a comparison between Kant and Rawls but, more importantly, to the present task of investigating what politics is for Kant. Flikschuh wants to distance Kant from the liberal contractarian political tradition and its preference for moral political concepts of justice for nation- states, over not only metaphysical concepts, but also ones that are cosmopolitan in nature. At the same time, Flikschuh appears to want to defend metaphysics from Rawls’ rejection of it. Her metaphysical interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy implicitly shows that metaphysics is compatible with the “modern” need for political reconciliation of difference. Guyer wants to show the political importance of an original moral decision to permit property rights that forms a nation-state in which to secure them, whilst demonstrating at the same time that Rawls’ two principles of justice are the necessary reconstruction of Kant’s own conception of Right. I will only touch on the latter argument in Guyer in this chapter. 74 But is this a fair representation of Locke by Flikschuh and Kant? Is his theory of private property rights that simplistic, whereby the addition of labour entitles ownership? This has certainly been criticised by C.B. Macpherson and Robert Nozick. Macpherson argues that the labour criterion for property was not Locke’s actual opinion because he acknowledged that labour too could be property. See Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962, pp214–220. Nozick demonstrates the absurdity of the labour condition for ownership with his example of mixing tomato juice in the ocean: ownership of the former fails to create uncomplicated title to the latter. See Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, New York: Basic 65

The problem with a Lockean approach is the, “tacit prevalent deception of personifying things and of thinking of a right to things as being a right directly against them, as if someone could, by the work he expends upon them, put things under an obligation to serve him and no one else.” (RL, 6:269) For Kant, a labour theory of property right is unacceptable on two counts: first, because the possibility of property rights cannot be empirically grounded; their possibility must be a priori and cannot simply be established when there is an investment of labour in an object. And, second, a right to property cannot be created unilaterally. Kant’s objection is that we need an account of the possibility of property rights and not just an empirical explanation for their origin. The concept of Right, as an idea of pure practical reason, is concerned with the external relations between rational beings. Inanimate objects are not “susceptible to reason”, as Flikschuh writes; thus Right cannot hold between objects and human beings.75 For Kant, rightful relations are between subjects. Here he is specifically concerned with what is capable of being lawfully delineated as “thine and mine.” Hence property rights, Flikschuh demonstrates, must be three-way, non- empirical relations between subjects with regard to objects. This is bearing in mind that property in persons is, for Kant, not conceptually possible: persons are beings with reason – ends in themselves - and not things capable of being owned.76

The universal principle of Right is: “Any action is right if it can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxim the choice of each can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law.” (RL, 6:230) Right is, therefore, concerned with the relations of choice of one to that of another. So a relation between a subject and an external object lies outside the bounds of Right. For Kant, then, the exclusive right to an object that Locke justifies cannot be so simply claimed because of the potential impairment to another’s right to freedom. And yet, according to the universal principle of Right, it regulates the external actions

Books, 1974, pp174–178. And James Tully believes that it is not labour but the act of creation, in analogy with God’s divine act, which creates title to private property. See Tully, A Discourse on Property, John Locke and his adversaries, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980, pp116–124. 75 Flikschuh, 2000, p118. 76 There is an argument that a three-way property relation can obtain amongst autonomously consenting adults, in the style Nozick interprets Kantian morality, see Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p33. 66 of subjects so that there is equality of freedom. Thus the principle of Right is intimately connected to, indeed derived from, the innate right to freedom.

This means that, on the one hand the principle of Right prohibits unilateral appropriation of a thing, because Right can only regulate inter-subject relationships, and not those between a subject and an object. But, on the other hand, there is a contradiction between Right and external freedom itself. This contradiction arises in the situation where the potential to make good the external freedom by claiming an object of choice as one’s own was prohibited by Right, which only exists by virtue of the idea of freedom.

Therefore, a relationship between the universal principle of Right and the possibility of possession seems to be necessary. Further, “since pure practical reason lays down only formal laws as the basis for choice”, (RL, 6:250) acquiring the right to property must be possible, as an extension of freedom; even if such a right fails to meet the principle of Right, because substantive equality of freedom is thwarted. Guyer also demonstrates that intelligible possession for Kant must consist in a relation among persons because their wills must be in accordance with each other. He starts with the fundamental principle of morality, autonomy, and says that because it is natural and necessary for us to act on our freedom, part of which is claiming the objects of our will for personal use, property rights must be able to be acquired. So, he too, explains how there must be a “right to establish” property rights as part of the innate right to freedom.77 Guyer calls this relation that gives rise to intelligible possession an ontological one due to its interpersonal nature; there is an ontology of property rights because they occur between the minds and wills of persons. In this way, too, it is also a normative relationship, because it must be established freely and, therefore, rationally if it is to be continued by those in the relationship. Thus, he also asserts that Kant’s theory of property should not be understood as Lockean because of the interpersonal agreement at its heart.78

Thus, the question for Kant remains, “how is a right to a thing possible?” (RL, 6:269) and leads to the antinomy of Right. This is a conflict of reason with itself

77 Guyer, 2000, p243–46. 78 Ibid., footnote 4, p268. 67 which arises because both the thesis, that intelligible possession is possible, and the antithesis, that there can only be empirical possession, can be proved true simply if we call them by their different names: possessio noumenon and possessio phaenomenon. The mirroring of the antinomy of freedom here is obvious. Kant neglects to clarify the antinomy of Right and merely posits it before moving on; so we will now, with the aid of Flikschuh, demonstrate how rightful intelligible possession creates a contradiction for reason. Interestingly, while Guyer notes the contradiction of willing represented by a denial of intelligible ownership, he does not mention “the antinomy of Right” as such. He refers to the outcome of the antinomy, the “postulate of practical reason with regard to Right”, but draws on the Groundwork to suggest that the fundamental resolution to the problem of intelligible property comes from the contradiction in willing, that is, the contradiction that arises if we could not also will the means to our ends.79 This is compatible with, and similar to, Flikschuh’s analysis, except that she makes more of the antinomy of Right and how, like Kant’s antinomies of pure reason, the thesis and antithesis theoretically work to create Right operates as a practical, effective idea. Thus, for Flikschuh, the antinomy contains more of an argument for the political dimensions of freedom, rather than a reliance on the moral origins to resolve it.

So, according to the antinomy of Right, both the thesis and antithesis of the antinomy are true: there is intelligible possession, and there is physical possession. The argument in favour of intelligible possession is deduced from the idea of external freedom and its presupposition that we have an ability to claim objects of choice. This positive capacity of freedom comes from the Groundwork, which both Flikschuh and Guyer employ in their respective discussions of the possibility of property claims. If we denied intelligible possession, we would also be denying an essential method for knowing freedom: it is through the idea of our capacity to act upon our will that we give practical reality to freedom. That is, “freedom would be depriving itself of the use of its choice with regard to an object of choice, by putting usable objects beyond any possibility of being used.” (RL, 6:246) On the other hand, the argument against intelligible possession emphasises that right is an inter-subject relation. A unilateral claim to an external object results in the obstruction of others and their right to

79 See ibid., pp246–47 & footnote 18. Also Kant, Groundwork, 4:417. 68 freedom. Therefore, exclusive possession of an external object of one’s choice is incompatible with the freedom of choice of everyone else, which thwarts moral autonomy, but also fails to meet the universal principle of Right that grants equality of freedom to all.

Kant solves this problem by making intelligible possession the “postulate of practical reason with regard to Right”. As he says: “It is therefore an a priori supposition of practical reason to regard and treat any object of my choice as something which could be objectively mine or yours.”(RL, 6: 246). Both Flikschuh and Guyer note that this does not make intelligible possession rightful, but rather merely possible. This is clearly similar to the way ideas of reason do not become objects of cognition, but rather remain ideas to be used for practical regulation of behaviour. Flikschuh and Guyer subtly part company, however, in their views on how the postulate achieves its a priori status: Flikschuh employs an analogy with the idea of freedom; while Guyer bases the possibility of rightful property claims on the moral choice of being in accordance with a universal law of freedom. That is, the free and rational consent of the parties to the claims.

2.2.2 The practical deduction of the idea of Right In order to explain why Right becomes a practical idea for Kant and how that affects his politics, Flikschuh concentrates on the characterisation of the problem of Right as an antinomy and the postulate’s subsequent status as a lex permissiva.80 In another twist to Kant’s tale of private property, he characterises the postulate of Right as a lex permissiva, or a permissive principle of practical reason. This means, Kant says, that it, gives us an authorization that could not be got from mere concepts of Right as such, namely, to put all others under an obligation, which they would not otherwise have, to refrain from using certain objects of our choice because we have been the first to take them into our possession. Reason wills that this holds as a principle, and it does this as practical reason, which extends itself a priori by this postulate of reason. (RL, 6:247)81

80 Guyer fails to notice this feature of Kant’s argument for private property. 81 Locke too has a principle of first possession, and indeed adds an important restriction to this permission with the detail that it is legitimate as long as it leaves “enough and as good” for others. See Locke Two Treatises of Government, ed. P. Laslett, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, 2.27. 69

Flikschuh argues that it is the practical use of reason in the form of the postulate of Right that bestows legitimacy on intelligible possession. As an idea, intelligible possession permits a departure from the principle of Right (that is, the equality of external freedom) in favour of the practice of the idea of Right. This means that we cannot prove the case for a right to private property, but we can use the idea to extend our politics in the direction of pure Right. We can see that Kant emphasises this transition from impure to pure by calling the postulate a permissive or provisional law.82

We might compare this argument with the way in which Kant argues in the Dialectic that we cannot know transcendental freedom, but that we can create a practice of it that expands not our claims to know it as fact, but rather our practical capacity for rational behaviour (see1.6). As Flikschuh points out, Kant explicitly compares the lack of a deduction of the postulate of Right with the unknowable concept of freedom: No one need be surprised that theoretical principles about external objects that are mine or yours get lost in the intelligible and represent no extension of cognition, since no theoretical deduction can be given for the possibility of the concept of freedom on which they are based. It can only be inferred from the practical law of freedom (the categorical imperative) as a fact of reason. (RL, 6:252)

Kant argues that because “it is necessary to act in accordance with that principle of Right, its intelligible condition (a merely rightful possession) must then also be possible.” (RL, 6:252) This reflects Kant’s argument, discussed in Chapter One, for assuming freedom based on the fact that we do make ought judgements, which effectively posits the condition of freedom, and which then explains our ability to act morally and, therefore, creates further moral decisions.

Flikschuh argues that Kant permits the violation of Right, found in the postulate, in order to effect the transition to relations of justice between persons, thereby enabling ‘non-violent state formation’. Kant’s concern is with the creation of a rightful condition; therefore, she argues, the postulate prepares for the

82 The provisional right to property is an important example of how ideas of reason work for political change. The issue of provisionality in Kant’s political thought will be expressly examined in section 2.3.2, in relation to Ellis’ interpretation of Kant. 70 institutionalisation of pure Right. We can see how Right as an idea of reason thus transforms the rightful civil condition. Flikschuh supports her argument with reference to the Vorarbeiten zur Rechtslehre (preliminary notes to the RL), where Kant calls permissive laws “dark preliminary judgements”. Flikschuh considers the postulate of Right as provisionally justified because it identifies the path towards more determinate political judgements. Thus, it is significant that Kant follows his pronouncement of the postulate, as the resolution to the problem of possession, with the statement that possession is also rightful in the state of nature, but only “provisionally”. (RL, 6:256) It is the provisional that permits, indeed causes this transformation to the civil condition, where private Right can be recognised in the principle of Right. Kant writes: “Possession in anticipation of and preparation for the civil condition … is provisionally rightful possession …” (RL, 6:257) Flikschuh is not talking about free consent as the genesis of the civil condition, but instead as the operation of the practical idea of Right and its regulative effect on human community.83 She demonstrates how the civil condition is established for Kant in a non-contractual sense, by giving weight to these three factors: the antinomy of Right, its analogy with the antinomy of freedom and the resulting practical idea of Right. Hence, our obligations to civil society are the result of the practical work of the metaphysics of freedom. This is indeed an interpretation of the idea of freedom that shows its direct practical relation to politics.

It is the antithesis of the antinomy of Right that Flikschuh emphasises in her identification of the source for Kant’s account of political obligation. This is despite the fact that it is the thesis that is promulgated in the postulate of Right as the necessary condition for the principle of Right. She highlights the difficulty surrounding proof of the possibility of intelligible possession. This reflects Kant’s repeated insistence that we cannot ever know or arrive at the ideas of reason, especially the political ones like peace and a perfect civil condition. The postulate of Right, Flikschuh stresses, justifies intelligible possession; it does not make it rightful. It acknowledges a violation of Right, a violation of the antithesis’ position that the

83 She may be guilty of what Guyer criticises others for doing in their attempt to explain Kant’s justification of property rights. Guyer argues that many commentators stay “within the ontology of property rights” in order to derive the motivation for respecting other’s property rights. He argues that the decision to respect other’s possible incursions onto my freedom requires both the ontological and moral conditions of property claims. See Guyer, 2000, pp279–284. 71 mere condition of holding an object is the sum of property rights. The founding principle of Right, the assurance of the freedom of all, is not to be so lightly contravened. Flikschuh, therefore, argues that it is the antithesis that makes the case for Kant’s conception of political obligation as one where the exercise of my freedom already pronounces my political obligation to others, with which she returns, as we will shortly discover, to her emphasis on the metaphysics of freedom.

Flikschuh explains how our obligations of justice come about as follows. When I act according to the postulate and claim an external object, I do so under a permissive law. This means I act according to the thesis of the antinomy, by affirming the natural extension of my innate right to freedom; however, in doing this I must consider the fact that I am acting against your freedom as postulated by the antithesis. She writes: The reflective judgement made possible by the lex permissiva is not that it confirms me in my claim of your obligation towards me, but that it alerts me to the fact of my prior obligation towards you. In this way my obligations of justice towards you follow as a direct corollary of my exercise of my freedom of choice and action.84

This proposition is in stark contrast to Guyer’s conclusions from the postulate of Right about Kant’s approach to the civil condition. In summary, for Guyer the contradiction regarding intelligible property means that there must be a moral decision to grant property claims.85 He identifies at least two conditions for rightful

84 Flikschuh, 2000, p142. 85 It is important to note here that while Flikschuh gives an account of political obligation, she also presents an explorative and novel argument about how this obligation is discharged. That is, about political motivation per se. Flikschuh endorses Kant’s metaphysics and effectively creates a separate kind of motivation to explain the political incentive. Drawing on Kant’s mention of desire in the RL she construes a specifically political conception of what she calls “economic willing”. The reasoning is that we uphold our political obligations not because we are being prudential or moral, but because we have a political desire; in her words “reasoned desiring” to partake in a politics that assists us in making real our representations of life. Thus, in her attempt to wrest Kant from the claims of liberal contractualism, she presents an alternative source of political motivation that is non-moral and non- pragmatic. This allows her to present an independent explanation of external freedom that is, “desire- based but autonomous choice and action which reduces neither to internal freedom nor to ‘alien’ legislation and enforcement of the requirements of morality.” See ibid., chapter 3, “The morality of external freedom” pp 80–112. In Chapter Three of this thesis, I try to show that politics is driven by the principles of publicity and not the moral law, which results in an account of political motivation. This is fully discussed in Chapter Five in comparison with Rawls, as being neither exclusively pragmatic nor a priori, but importantly slides along the spectrum these extremes represent in the forms of public reason possible. 72 claims to property: first, that the property right has to do with the relation amongst wills and not with objects themselves (like Flikschuh) and, second, the morally requisite consistency with the rational willing of the other rational beings affected by such claims, in whose deference the right to property ontologically consists, in accordance with a universal law of freedom or, in other words, in their free and rational consent to such claims.86

Guyer concludes (interestingly without reference to the antinomy of Right or its status as a permissive law) that the existence of property rights beyond that of physical freedom depends on the “ontological point” of the deference of others necessary under such conditions. He asserts the two ways to obtain such deference are either force or free consent. It is clear that for Kant the laws of freedom are what must rule all cases of human conduct; therefore, Guyer argues (and criticises all the other commentators who touch on Kant’s theory of property for missing), that the ontology of property in Kant leaves open the “moral choice” to ground the right to property under the laws of freedom. 87 This moral choice is about unifying the wills of all by force or freely. Guyer recognises that Kant is very tenuous in linking a right to property and the general will, but believes that it can only be made by a conscious moral choice. So, if property is to be rightful, there must be free consent to another’s control of an object; this, however, does not come about from the owner’s unilateral act to claim the property, but rather from the “consent of all”. That is, a moral decision to agree to a common or united will: this is the basis of what Guyer calls the ontology of property rights. He, thus, places morality at the source for the possibility of property rights for Kant.

For her part, Flikschuh identifies this as a typical trend in modern liberal interpretations of Kant. By contrast, she draws upon the metaphysics of freedom at this point in order to begin her explanation of political obligation. For Guyer, however, this moral premise of free consent to a united will for proving rightful property is important because it invokes questions about the conditions under which individual property claims are politically legitimate. This leads him to assert the liberal implications for political organisation of Kant’s theory of property. The

86 Guyer, 2000, p248. 87 See Guyer’s survey of the literature from Kersting, Ludwig, Gregor and Mulholland at footnote 24, pp249-50. 73 asserted implications are that such a system of property rights can be freely agreed to by rational beings only if it is equitable. Guyer reads the contractual condition of free and rational consent into Kant’s abstract argument for the possibility of property rights, and thereby a degree of reciprocity or fairness.88

Flikschuh’s account of freedom in a political context as directly obligation- entailing is different from contractarian accounts like Guyer’s. Under social contract theory, I recognise your right to freedom when you reciprocate and agree to respect mine. Only then is there a mutual right to freedom, which is why Guyer is keen to posit fairness and reciprocity of advantage as conditions of Kant’s approach to rightful acquisition. On Flikschuh’s interpretation, however, the obligation of justice is already present in the fact that my actions, given our limited empirical conditions, inevitably affect your possible agency. Thus, in the exercise of my freedom I find my duties of justice to you and everyone else. And this is what allows for the construction of the idea of Right. In this constructive account of Right, then, we understand the way we depend on each other to determine rightful possession and, according to Flikschuh, this is what confirms the global condition of Right. As we will see, this idea of provisionality will be important in the later discussion of Ellis and the dynamic effect of ideas of reason.

But even with an understanding of the nature of the obligation, the problem of Right is still not solved. We still do not know how this obligation is to be exercised, or how Right is to constructed. Guyer, as we know, believes this to be a moral choice about making the conditions sufficiently rational for the free consent of all; the moral superiority of a common will.89 Flikschuh also finds the solution to the problem of how we agree to defer to property rights in the idea of the common will. She quotes one clue given by Kant: “A unilateral will cannot serve as a coercive law for everyone with regard to possession that is external. Only a collective general (common) and powerful will can provide everyone with this assurance.” (RL, 6:256) The postulate of Right provides for the possibility of unilateral acquisition and possession as a subject/subject relation. Thus Flikschuh and Guyer are in agreement about the

88 See ibid., p250-51. 89 See ibid., footnote 24, p249. 74 postulate implying the idea of what Flikschuh calls “an omnilateral will.”90 In her terms, however, while the lex permissiva shows that intelligible possession must indeed be possible, it is the idea of the general will that paradoxically shows how intelligible possession is to be possible. The idea of the general will is the means of progression to absolute Right. So, it seems, we enact our obligations of justice with our freedom, but through an institutionalised form of the idea of the general will. And this brings another of Kant’s political ideas of reason into the fray in the creation of the civil condition.

2.2.3 The idea of the general will Flikschuh divides interpreters of the idea of the general will in Kant’s practical philosophy into two categories: contractarians and natural law theorists. While she admits there is adequate textual evidence for both interpretations, she disagrees with both because of the function of ideas of reason. The general will is given the status of an a priori idea of reason, which Flikschuh believes disqualifies both traditions of political thought as the apposite interpretation. From her perspective we can see that Guyer’s analysis suffers for this reason: he too quickly makes the general will a moral premise and neglects to notice its status as an idea of reason.91 So, contractarian theory, Flikschuh argues, fails to accommodate the general will as an a priori unconditional principle of political legitimation because contractarians validate political obligation only conditionally; that is, in terms of the social contract. Hence Guyer reads into Kant’s theory of property conditions like reciprocity and minimal fairness, to ensure that agreement will be procured.

Flikschuh’s other category for the interpretation of Kant’s idea of the general will, the natural law theorists, believe it is an antecedently given authority discovered, and not produced, by human reason, also clashes with Kant’s concept of the general will as an idea of reason. She believes the most useful means of understanding the idea of the general will in Kant’s text, is as a justificatory ground of the conception of

90 Flikschuh, 2000, p145. 91 This perhaps conflicts with Guyer’s later analyses of Kant’s political essays in his book that understand Kant’s teleology therein to be about the power of human freedom to be inspired by and work towards our goals. Guyer’s political account of Kant’s teleology is interesting to compare here as he says that Kant gives us the teleology of history in the political texts in order to inspire us to create our rational ends, which sits quite comfortably with my account of the regulative function of ideas of reason. See Guyer, 2000, Chapters 11 & 12. 75 intelligible possession upon which the lex permissiva depends.92 So, provisional Right, that is here the permission of a crime against the full condition of Right where everyone’s freedom is equally secured, depends on the idea of the general will. In this sense the idea of the general will is regulating the social movement towards the condition of Right. This is a clear demonstration of the practical and continuing usefulness of ideas of reason in the political field.

Flikschuh also refers to the textual problems around the issue of the general will. Kant is unclear at times because he writes about both the social contract and the general will in the context of state legitimation and political obligation. Thus, she admits that, social contract readings that simply absorb references to the general will under the idea of the contract are not really faulty. She observes, however, that the textually separate location of these ideas is significant: the social contract is mentioned at the transition from Private Right to Public Right, whereas the reference to the general will is concentrated and more systematic in the property argument of the section Private Right. It is in the latter section that Kant makes an intriguing argument that begins with the fact of individual acquisition (the postulate of Right) and then moves on to the idea of original possession in common. (see RL, 6:264-271) This argument inverts what natural law theorists take to be accepted philosophy of history. Thus, Flikschuh proposes this inversion as the deciding factor against natural law interpretations. She then describes a forward-looking Kant, who is not attempting to divide individuals and nations, but rather unite them. This certainly fits with Kant’s philosophy of history as espoused in the essay, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose”. So the idea of the general will is about assisting the transition to the condition of Right and not about securing a contractual agreement between citizens based on private property, as Guyer interprets it. Instead, like all ideas of reason, the general will has an importantly ongoing guiding function.

In relation to the property argument, Flikschuh notes that there is another important idea of reason at play in establishing the civil condition for Kant: the idea of original possession in common. This is an idea of reason that in her account demonstrates how Kant’s conception of justice is established, but also how dynamic

92 Flikschuh, 2000, p145. 76 his conception of justice is, which is the main interest of this chapter. In the next section, which covers both Flikschuh’s and Guyer’s approach to the idea of original possession in common, we will see that their accounts diverge even more; with Flikschuh’s account leading our investigation towards Ellis’ conviction that all Kant’s political philosophy is provisional and, therefore, dynamic. Flikschuh situates the dynamic of Kant’s political philosophy in the movement towards the idea of reason, where the primary movement is the unification of the world under communal possession, not as a final state like a world government, but by virtue of our ongoing cosmopolitan political duties. And where this kind of unification is a product of our use of the idea of freedom to progress towards the idea of Right, which is permitted by the idea of the general will and regulated by the idea of the social contract. Thus, Flikschuh justifies Kant’s account of politics by employing his ideas of reason as presented in the RL. Her account, therefore, also implies the essential continuing political effect contained in ideas of reason. Ellis becomes useful at this point in articulating how we can actually activate that effect of ideas of reason. That we do, according to Ellis, through public judgement.

2.2.4 The idea of original possession in common: contractual vs progressive Flikschuh’s interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy makes much of the idea of the original possession in common as the dynamic motivator towards cosmopolitan justice. Guyer too observes that there is a distinctive role for original possession in common in Kant’s property argument, but evidently fails to see what Flikschuh does. She argues that the idea of original possession in common is about what occurs after individual acquisition of property. Her argument stems from Kant’s insistence on a conceptual approach to state formation. Kant repeatedly emphasises that the social contract is a fiction but works as an idea of reason. Therefore, original possession in common is also an idea of reason whose conceptual function arises after the civil condition has been established. Kant denies an historical chronology for political ideas and Flikschuh applies this to the idea of “original” possession in common: it is original in a conceptual, and not factual sense. Guyer, on the other hand, follows what Flikschuh criticises as the natural law interpretation of the general will, whereby a property right must be conceived of as a transfer to an individual from an original possession in common. He reaches this conclusion conscious of the status of original 77 possession in common as an idea, as a normative construct and not historical fact, but with the intention to develop a liberal contractual account of Kant’s social contract. Important to Guyer in the argument for the idea as normative and not historical is proof of Kant’s liberalism; that is, that there are conditions of fairness entailed in Kant’s theory of property. Guyer thinks such conditions are a necessary implication from Kant’s account of justice, as it is only under such conditions that we can reasonably accept people agreeing to step together into the civil condition.

Flikschuh’s account of the idea of original possession in common is also linked to the social contract, but in a way that gives primacy to its status as an idea of reason. Both these ideas, we can extrapolate from Flikschuh, function to regulate the ongoing obligations of justice. They are about how society can progress towards Right, in particular cosmopolitan Right, and not about a retrospective justification of current political norms - a purpose that is discernible in Guyer’s account of the idea of original possession in common. For Guyer, the normativity of the idea works to retrospectively justify terms of fairness in the social contract. Whereas for Flikschuh, the ahistorical nature of the idea of original possession in common is progressively functional, which is why she includes the idea in her argument for Kant’s cosmopolitan sense of politics. This gives us a vivid picture of the political nature of ideas of reason: original possession in common works to guide the fairness and justification of the cosmopolitan civil condition. In other words, and for the purposes of this thesis, the conceptual status of ideas of reason aims to ensure that political norms are dynamic.

We will begin with a brief overview of Guyer’s exegesis of the idea of original possession in common and its implications for the social contract. He presents, as based on a factual premise, the argument for the normative status of original possession in common, which is, namely, the limited nature of the earth’s surface (which is also at the heart of Flikschuh’s opposing argument), in addition to presenting two moral premises. Guyer argues that given the fact that mere geography cannot give rise to a right to occupy land (the empirical condition for Kant having original possession in common as a norm), we must extrapolate from the moral premises that will then constrain property rights to ensure a minimum of fairness. 78

The first moral premise is necessary for establishing that everyone has a right to exist in some place, which Guyer argues from the Vorarbeiten zur Rechtslehre (preliminary notes to the RL), although this notion can also be found in the published version of the RL.93 This moral premise, Guyer suggests, begins with our innate right to freedom because it is clear that any forced removal from a place would violate it. This, in addition to the empirical fact of the undivided surface of the earth, means that there does exist an interest for all in common possession of the earth and, therefore, there can be no exclusive right to any particular spot as everyone can, and needs to, access all the earth.94 This is the unity that Guyer posits as the precursor to the civil condition in Kant and that, we will shortly see, Flikschuh considers the guiding goal of the civil condition. Guyer’s second moral premise vividly shows his difference to Flikschuh. He quotes from the Vorarbeiten zur Rechtslehre to show the assumption of an original possession in common: “The schematism of external property rests on the agreement of all to universal a priori principles for the distribution of things in space within which property takes place: consequently it presupposes an original possession in common.”95 According to Guyer, the agreement of all bestows a private property right, because it can be seen as a fair transfer from a common ownership of all land.

Guyer goes on to state that “although Kant does not say so”, these premises give us moral conditions of a fair system of property.96 He says the “schematism” of individual property rights must include the opportunity to maintain individual life at a comparable level to that which existed under the original possession in common for otherwise, he remarks, “it would irrational for anyone freely to consent to the transfer of rights” and it would be inconsistent with the duty to strive to maintain one’s own existence.97 Thus, Guyer believes that Kant’s theory of property implies a principle of equality for distributive justice. He argues that a right to an opportunity to property that is sufficient to maintain existence is a “minimum standard for the rational acceptability of any system of property rights, where the rational acceptability of such

93 See, for example, the quote in the text below from RL 6:262. 94 See Guyer, 2000, p252–53. 95 See ibid., p253 quote Kant 23:241, 281. 96 Ibid., p253. 97 Ibid., p254. Note that Guyer thinks the link between the RL and the DL needs to be given more importance in readings of the RL. 79 a system is in turn a necessary condition of its morality.”98 His argument emphasises distributive justice and the independence of citizens, which shows the influence Kant’s moral philosophy has exerted over Guyer’s interpretation of the political thought.

Both Guyer and Flikschuh argue for unification as the underlying purpose of the idea of original possession in common. Guyer, however, sees it as legitimising the division of original stock and transferring it to individuals under the auspices of the general will. Flikschuh’s argument counters this, because she shows that original possession in common functions as an idea of reason to be aspired to subsequent to individual possession. For Flikschuh, private property is one step towards common ownership of all land, as political activity is a progression towards the perfection of Right. Common possession of all land is part of the perfectly rightful condition, because here no one’s freedom would be threatened by private Right (and there would, then, be no antinomy of Right). Flikschuh’s argument, therefore, takes us further. She understands the role of the idea of original possession in common as moving the polity towards total unity under Right. The permissive law that grants private property is only provisional; that is, it helps us towards a closer approximation of the idea of Right. Let us turn, then, to her argument about the idea of original possession in common and how it addresses in part both questions of this chapter. That is, how it works to establish the civil condition as well as guiding the political activity within it.

Flikschuh’s argument takes Guyer’s empirical premise as the main source of proof for the cosmopolitan dynamic that ideas of reason, original possession in common in particular, give to Kant’s account of justice. She points out Kant’s departure from the natural law view of the historical development of property rights from communal and to individual (which is also Guyer’s view). Flikschuh argues that in Kant’s theory of political progression we begin with unilateral individual possession and proceed towards, not away from, communal possession. It is worth quoting in full the relevant passage which she relies on: All men are originally (i.e., prior to any choice that establishes a right) in possession of land that is in conformity with Right, that is, they have a right to

98 Ibid., p254. 80

be wherever nature or chance (apart from their will) has placed them. This kind of possession (possessio) – which is to be distinguished from residence (sedes), a chosen and therefore an acquired lasting possession – is possession in common because the spherical surface of the earth unites all the places on its surface; for if its surface were an unbounded plane, men could be so dispersed on it that they would not come into any community with one another, and community would not then be a necessary result of their existence on the earth. The possession by all men on the earth that precedes any act of theirs which would establish rights (that is constituted by nature itself) is an original possession in common (communio possessionis originaria), the concept of which is not empirical and dependent upon temporal conditions, like that of a supposed primitive possession in common (communio primavera), which can never be proved. Original possession in common is, rather, a practical rational concept which contains a priori the principle in accordance with which alone men can use a place on the earth in accordance with principles of Right. (RL, 6: 262)

Flikschuh thus conceives of original possession in common as comprising two elements: disjunction and unification. For the purposes of this thesis, these elements represent the creation of the civil condition and the nature of its political dynamic. Flikschuh explains it thus: first, there is a disjunction present as to the actual commonality because we formally represent the earth and its surface as made up of individual spaces, with each space constituting equally valid claims to external freedom. Second, unification occurs exactly because we enter the world without our wills; meaning that individual occupancy is a physical fact, and agents do, therefore, reflectively acknowledge their relations of interdependence. Whilst the postulate of Right alludes to obligations of justice as a bilateral relation between those who unilaterally claim property and those whose freedom is restricted as a result of that claim, Flikschuhs writes that “the idea of original possession in common shows these relations to be omnilateral (allseitig): given the unity of all places in the earth any act of injustice committed by one ‘is felt even in the remotest corner of the earth.’”99 The idea of original possession in common thus bridges the postulate of Right and the idea of the general will because it demonstrates that social obligations are originally acquired. Hence we are under obligations to each other because we physically enter and reside in the world and can acknowledge, presumably with our use of freedom, our ability to act on the obligations that are thus created.

99 Flikschuh, 2000, also quoting Kant from TPP, p 168. 81

So Flikschuh, contrary to the natural law interpretation of Kant’s general will, shows how the idea of original possession in common is subsequent to individual acquisition and, therefore, creates the necessity of continually constructing peremptory right - it is the regulatory force behind the civil condition. The following quote seems to summarise her conclusion: “A unilateral will cannot serve as a coercive law for everyone with regard to possession that is external. Only a collective general (common) and powerful will can provide everyone this assurance.” (RL, 6: 256) It is not, therefore, individual property that gives birth to the civil condition, but instead the need for the idea of the general will to regulate the threat that private property poses to the fundamental idea of freedom. This Guyer would probably agree with insofar as the regulation occurs only at the stage of contractual union and it is written into the constitution.

Flikschuh, however, explains it thus: The idea of the general will constitutes an acknowledgement both of the necessity of a system of public lawgiving in accordance with which the legitimate claims of each to a place on earth can be recognised, and of the possibility of its realisation through entrance into the civil condition. The idea of original possession in common is not a depiction of how things initially were (prior to distribution and individuation), but of how they ought to become: disjunctive possession in common does not represent the gradual division of an original common stock. To the contrary, it is a coming together of unilateral wills under the legislative authority of an omnilateral will in consequence of the acknowledgement of the necessity of a system of public lawgiving that can do justice to the claims of Right of each.100

Flikschuh, therefore, presents us with Kant’s civil condition using the ideas of reason but, in addition, she adds an implied provision for their properly ongoing role in regulating - progressing towards - that condition.

2.2.5 The dynamic of cosmopolitan political obligations As is already obvious, Guyer is concerned with the free agreement of individuals to the existence of private property. He believes the conditions of fairness outlined above ensure that rational beings would consent. Indeed he thinks that these are the only grounds on which rational beings would consent to the existence of private property over communal possession of all the earth. Flikschuh also agrees with this

100 Flikschuh, 2000, p168. 82 argument, whereby we move from a state of unilateral wills, that is a state of no system, to one of disjunctive possession in common because it makes more social sense. Guyer qualifies his interpretation of Kant’s argument, however, by saying that it should not be understood prudentially, in the sense that people will agree based on exchange. Nor should it be interpreted as an application of the moral law of universalisation to a pre-existent natural right to property such that we extend to others what we desire for our own happiness, for example, a piece of land for ourselves. It is simply because property is never a natural relationship; rather it requires the “deference of other wills to one’s own regarding the use of a particular object, what morality requires is that such deference be obtained freely rather than forcibly”.101 Guyer suggests that this moral decision only occurs at the beginning: we appeal to our fundamental duty to respect the innate right of freedom only to set up the relations among wills in which property exists freely.102 Therefore, the organisation must include conditions of reciprocity and fairness in order to obtain the free agreement. Flikschuh argues that we move from a systemless state of unilateral willing to disjunctive possession in common because our wills are allseitig, or omnilateral. This is a conclusion about justice: it affects us all and we are continually grappling with it. This, therefore, shows that ideas of reason are necessary to responsive and participatory political organization.

Flikschuh argues against contractarian approaches to the general will because she believes its proper role is regulative within political life, and not as a founding idea for political society itself. Guyer is clearly contractarian in his approach: as he bases Kant’s theory of property on the rational consent of all to the legitimate coercion of a general will that is formed under conditions of fairness and reciprocity. In other words the possibility of the rational consent of all to the distribution of property is a necessary condition of the legitimate existence of property in all of Kant’s philosophy. Guyer’s reference point is what it is moral to demand of others; property rights exists as an exercise of our freedom but only because we are willing to concede an analogous right of property to others.103 Thus, he ascribes to Kant a presupposition that property rights can only be established within a state because only

101 Guyer, 2000, p256. 102 Ibid., p256. 103 See Guyer’s (ibid.) discussion of Kant’s property right argument compared with Rawls’ principle of justice in particular, pp281–82. 83 under this condition can we compel other members who might interfere with our use of our freedom. Guyer acknowledges the provisionality of property rights, but this is principally to underscore that only the laws of a state make them absolute. The moral ground, for forcing others to give proper regard to property rights, is the attack on individual freedom an other presents if they do not join up to the system of deference. It is argued that there is no moral wrong in coercively establishing the civil condition because it extends the offer of omnilateral freedom for the acquisition and use of property.104

In this way, Guyer falls under the second objection Flikschuh has to contractarian approaches to Kant’s political philosophy when they are dealing with the idea of original possession. When Guyer identifies the legitimation of coercion by the general will for private property as based on contractual membership of a state, he misses the cosmopolitan nature of political obligation, both with regard to its conception and recognition. The heart of Flikschuh’s argument is that obligations of Right exist and work by virtue of subjects’ capacity to acknowledge and act upon these obligations under the unavoidable constraints of the earth’s spherical surface. In this way, Flikschuh bases Kant’s cosmopolitan notion of political duty on this theme of empirical restraint.105

Flikschuh shows how both political traditions, that is natural law and contractarianism, miss what is distinctive about Kant’s cosmopolitanism when they neglect the function of original possession in common as an idea of reason. In framing the idea of original possession in common as a presupposition justifying individual possession they overlook the work of the postulate of Right. It is the idea of Right that permissively justifies private Right. As I have already demonstrated, for Flikschuh the antinomy of Right is about the legitimation of private Right, and the resulting postulate of Right, as a permissive law, is about transference of rightfulness in the aid of a greater future rightfulness. The idea of communal possession, too, is about promoting progress towards Right. This is the political function of ideas of reason: the civil condition is established and regulated, we can surmise - provisionally - because

104 Ibid., pp284–85. 105 I refer forward to the next chapter and the possibility of an analogy with Flikschuh’s argument here. In Chapter Three I submit that the a priori status of the idea and principles of publicity is limited by its goal of an empirically happy polity. 84 we are working towards the idea of Right itself. And absolute Right, Kant tells us, only exists when Right is present at all levels of politics: Since the earth’s surface is not unlimited but closed, the concepts of the Right of a state and of a Right of nations lead inevitably to the Idea of a Right for all nations (ius gentium) or cosmopolitan Right (ius cosmopoliticum). So if the principle of outer freedom limited by law is lacking in any of these three possible forms of rightful condition, the framework of all others is unavoidably undermined and must finally collapse. (RL, 6:311)

As also mentioned in footnote one above, Flikschuh observes that there is no system for ordering the many ideas of reason Kant gives us in the RL and elsewhere. However in her interpretation, there is an implicit priority given to the idea of cosmopolitan Right. This gives her reading of Kant a cosmopolitan scope and helps us understand Kant’s insistence on the interdependence of the three levels of Right. This insistence is important for the practical consequences of his political philosophy. Kant states that the interdependence of Right is the source of the requirement to work towards a cosmopolitan order. Interestingly, and in contrast to Guyer’s moral approach, this appears to be a very pragmatic reason for following the ideas of Right. Flikschuh details the practical process: as we construct Right through our reflective awareness of our obligations of justice, our political work expands to encompass all. Thereby presented is a conception of political justice where the freedom of none is wholly achieved until the freedom of each has been secured at a global level. This illustrates the dynamic effect of cosmopolitan Right as an idea of reason.

Flikschuh believes that “contractarian interpretations undermine Kant’s cosmopolitanism.”106 There is a conceptual closing that the contractarian approach permits whereby membership is not unconditional: one has to be able to offer something that others might want. And, even when the contract is interpreted as a forum for reasonable agreement, it still cannot neatly fit into Kant’s idea of the general will because, under such an interpretation, a contract of mutual assurance would not be necessary. Flikschuh thinks that the social contract in the RL is more properly interpreted when we recognise its status as an idea of reason; as that which guides civil society from within. Flikschuh believes Kant disregards the world state in the RL because of the unworkability of the social contract when it is conceived of as a

106 Flikschuh, 2000, p170. 85 tool to ground the obligation to enter civil society. The social contract as an idea of reason is, therefore, more like a reference point for international political order exactly because our obligations cannot be fixed or localised. The idea of the social contract guides our ongoing political impetus and our cosmopolitan obligations.

Flikschuh alternatively emphasises the conception of relations of Right as a process of dynamic and provisional development as well as reform, rather than as a single act of establishment.107 She criticises the contractarian’s focus on intersubjective consensus as the essential condition for political agreement. When the only concern of a political arrangement is the agreement itself there is a danger that real empirical restraints on the type of arrangement will be ignored. In contrast, Kant continually reminds us of, and engages with, the natural and factual limits when he presents the idea of Right. Flikschuh argues that Kant, using the recurring image of the earth’s spherical surface as the limiting condition of consensus, makes the power of empirical factors in political life a major consideration. Interestingly, it is here in a relatively casual way that she refers to the unrealisability of Kant’s political ideals; and she presents their impossibility as an unproblematic and even desirable condition of politics. And it is also here that a practice of metaphysics is required: in order to negotiate the relation between human finitude and practical freedom.

Guyer starts from a premise opposed to that assumed by Flikschuh, namely that Kant’s connection between nature and freedom results in a “genuinely liberal conception of the state”.108 This is because government, as the expression of the united will of the people, has a well-founded right to regulate the acquisition of property, but no right to control public expression of its citizenry. He bases this on Kant’s distinction between the institution of private property, and the freedom of thought and action. And he recognises, with Flikschuh, that private property rights require public management because they are always a collective exercise of external freedom; therefore, they cannot be merely permitted, but must be actively regulated. Guyer juxtaposes the freedom of thought and expression and observes that, because this freedom is not necessarily a collective use of freedom, it can be left alone by government. Guyer asserts the moral grounds for political regulation of the institution

107 Ibid., p177. 108 Guyer, 2000, p12. 86 of property. In this regard he gives the principle of Right a moral context: in order to prevent a hindrance to freedom, a government is justified in the use of coercive power. He states that despite the emphasis on external freedom in the principle of Right, the fundamental principle remains that of morality because freedom of choice also involves the actions of those choices. Guyer, then, elaborates that the realm of coercive law can only be that of external freedom; virtue cannot be enforced, but the performance and extent of human actions, whether morally motivated or not, is both logically and practically possible.

Guyer’s touchstone is morality: property rights must be morally acceptable because they are about coercion against the basic moral object of freedom.109 He writes that, “while political intrusion into matters of innate right such as freedom of belief is prima facie unwarranted and indeed immoral, the political regulation of property rights for the benefit of all is not an intrusion upon an innate right at all but the only condition under which an acquired right can be acquired in a morally acceptable way.110

Guyer lends the solution to the antinomy of Right a moral context. Because he ignores the way Kant makes the postulate of Right, the right to intelligible property, a permissive law, he misses the opportunity for a more political resolution regarding the problem of acting against the innate right to freedom of citizens. Under such a resolution we observe that the right to claim intelligible property is permissive because it provisionally grants a denial of Right (it thwarts the principle of Right: that is, the freedom of all) for the sake of the overall advancement towards Right, which is the only condition under which we can hope for proper external/political freedom. Flikschuh makes much of this, and her argument is more compelling for it. Such an argument fits more broadly within Kant’s practical metaphysics, in that we can give the conditions (i.e., a right to property) that will condition us towards the unconditioned (i.e., peremptory Right). Granting property rights is what assists a community to move towards the rightful condition of absolute Right. The ideas of peace and justice exert a powerful influence on political reality and we do not have to resort to individual morality or brute pragmatism to achieve them.

109 In Rawlsian terms, it is Guyer’s comprehensive liberalism that is the problem, in contrast with Flikschuh’s affinity (and mine, argued for in the following chapter) with a political liberalism that is not grounded in morality. 110 Guyer, 2000, p239 87

Flikschuh traces and places importance on the spatial metaphors in the RL. For example, Kant expresses the concept of Right in terms of “universal reciprocal coercion”. (RL, 6:232) This invokes an image of the free space of each delimited by that of everyone else. This spatial image that Flikschuh draws on is one we find repeatedly employed in Kant’s critical, political, historical and religious texts - that of the bounded earth. The RL presents it so: The spherical surface of the earth unites all the places on its surface; for if its surface were an unbounded place, men could be so dispersed on it that they would not come into any community with one another, and community would not then be a necessary result of their existence on the earth. (RL, 6: 262)

This demonstrates that it is the constant reference to the spatial limits of human existence which highlights the creative activity of the ideas of reason. Right is to be constructed and the postulate, with its reminder of the violation of pure right, promotes the creation of the realisation of justice within the unavoidable limits of an always imperfect empirical reality.

For Flikschuh, that the earth’s limitations unite everyone declares a metaphysical insight into humanity, which endows human participation in politics with an element of necessity and, therefore, requires conditions and ideas that will guide this participation and political activity. She shows that the substance of external freedom is the commitment we make to our actions and their consequences which, in turn, inspires our responsibility to the shared global future. It is together that we aim for, and construct, the global relations of peace given by the idea of Right. This concludes the examination of Flikschuh’s theory of Kant’s cosmopolitan politics.

Her exposition of Kant’s account of cosmopolitan political obligation supports this thesis regarding the work ideas of reason perform towards the continual construction of Kant’s approach to politics. Her interpretation also assists this inquiry into how ideas of reason enter politics in particular, and the image of justice in general. This thesis will now try and build upon Flikschuh’s interpretation by turning to the second question posed by this chapter, which is, how ideas of reason function to make politics dynamic. Flikschuh’s account of the idea of original possession in common as a regulatory goal for politics, along with her defence of the idea of 88 cosmopolitan Right, have already demonstrated the dynamic elements of Kant’s metaphysical politics.

I now want to explore two further examples of the animating effect ideas of reason have on politics. The first is about the logic of political change that I find in Kant’s political thought and that I call ‘pure revolution’. This is a possible way of understanding the political in terms of the human condition; that is, another metaphysical dynamic to be found in Kant’s political thought. The second example of ideas of reason in action is Ellis’ very practical approach to Kant. For Ellis, all of Kant’s political philosophy is about endorsing the provisional status of political conditions, and ideas form an essential part of the mechanism that must constantly check political conditions: public judgement. She provides a clear picture of what daily political life looks like under a Kantian theory in the form of public judgement, which is also relevant to the Chapter Three, which is devoted entirely to publicity and public reason in Kant. We will begin here with a conceptual vision of how ideas of reason create a dynamic for politics, the example of pure revolution, before using Ellis’ Kant interpretation as an example of a pragmatic vision of the dynamism in

Kant’s practical metaphysical politics.

2.3 Kant’s provisions for dynamic politics 2.3.1 The paradoxical logic of political transition in Kant Kant clearly believes in the necessity of political reform. But he is notorious for rejecting revolution. What he does offer politics instead are a priori ideas of reason, specifically a pure republican constitution and a perpetual peace. According to Kant’s practical philosophy set out in Chapter One, these are active ideas - they are for our use. In the RL Kant calls “a perfectly rightful constitution among human beings” the thing in itself” (TL, 6:371) and stipulates that the idea of a pure constitution, “if it is attempted and carried out by gradual reform in accordance with firm principles, […] can lead to continual approximation to the highest political good, perpetual peace.” (RL, 6:354) Herein lies the apparent paradox of Kant’s logic of political transformation: the progress towards the better seems to take place without achievement. Flikschuh has presented a theory about how ideas of reason are used to 89 establish and maintain non-contractual political duties for a cosmopolitan civil condition. But how are we to actually apply the ideas of reason, of noumenal status as they are, if we cannot ever attain them? What are the conditions of political change? What plausible foundations are there for this asymptotic progress? Understanding Kant’s account of political change is problematic, because it seems as if there should be a passage from the specific imperfect condition to the perfect unconditioned condition, but he explicitly denies the possibility of certain kinds of transitions.

2.3.1.1 The Passage of Pure Revolution The Metaphysic of Morals presents us with two teachings, on Right and on virtue. And it is this correspondence between the two parts of practical philosophy, politics and morality, that I will draw on to develop an understanding of the logic of political change in Kant. While the RL attempts a rare systematic approach to politics for Kant, we will initially turn to the teaching of the doctrine of virtue, the Tugendlehre [TL], and how moral improvement is structured.

Practical philosophy is, of course, grounded in the idea of freedom. Kant explains that Right, because its focus is the togetherness of humans, deals with external freedom, while virtue is concerned with the inner freedom of the individual and their dutiful actions. The realm of inner freedom is where personal maxims are determined by the idea of duty. Thus, in the doctrine of virtue, Kant provides the duty to the self as the duty of one’s own perfection in a practical sense, which means a duty to work on one’s own moral perfection (TL, 6:387). These moral imperatives command one to “be holy” and “be perfect” (TL, 6:446). Humans are, however, “frail” and so the duty is qualified to be one of enterprise: to “strive for this perfection, but not to reach it”. Hence, the determination of compliance with this duty can only consist in practical work, of striving for it which, in turn can lead to a continual moral progress (TL, 6:446). In all of Kant’s works there is continual emphasised reference to the human as a “vernunftige Naturwesen”, a rational natural being (see, e.g., TL, 6:379). This phrase serves to remind us that it is only being in its perfect conceptual ontology that can be totally rational, perfectly moral - a state that cannot exist in the human. The representation, therefore, of the morally perfect in the duty to “be holy” actually works in the same regulative way as ideas of reason. It is, 90 asymptotically, in the seeking that progress towards the condition is achieved. There is an analogy here between the way moral principles operate and the mechanism of ideas of reason.

To help us further understand this method of attaining virtue by following the commands to be divine, and its analogy with ideas of reason, we will turn to a passage in Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason [Religion]. Kant distinguishes two concepts for the rational natural being. On the one hand, there is virtue in its “empirical character”, phenomenal virtue, which is “acquired bit by bit, … through the gradual reform of conduct… But not the slightest change of heart is necessary for this; only a change of ethics.” (Religion, 6:47) And we must assume ethics here to represent the behavioural guidelines that are born of acting according to maxims made in conformity with the moral law. On the other hand, the “intelligible character” of virtue, that is noumenal virtue, where one is “in need of no other incentive to recognize a duty except the representation of duty itself”, (Religion, 6:47) is acquired differently. This kind of virtue “cannot be effected through gradual reform but must rather be effected through a revolution in the disposition of the human being.” Kant names such a transformation a “kind of rebirth,” a “new creation” and a “change of heart”, which is achieved through a single unalterable decision to become moral. (Religion, 6:47) However, according to Kant, the noumenally virtuous person does not arrive at a final perfection but rather incessantly labours and becomes in an endless progress that is also a unity; a condition that he equates with being a good person. (Religion, 6:48)

This presents an unproblematic relation between the phenomenal and the noumenal characters of virtue; they are distinguishable from one another in terms of their different styles of effecting transformation. One the one hand, phenomenal virtue is achieved and mediated by behavioural ethics, while on the other hand progress to noumenal virtue is immediately effective. What it is important to observe, however, is that the transition to noumenal virtue is not an end-point; the noumenally virtuous person has not reached a final state of perfection, he is still at work. The condition for having the noumenal character of virtue is being in the continual process, itself a condition, of its acquisition. If we compare this to one of the prime political ideas of 91 reason, that is, a republican constitution where the idea of general will of the people is king, we would have to argue that to achieve noumenal political virtue a similar revolution must occur - a change of heart that sets the polity on the endless path of peaceful politics. Such a revolution can be called pure, because it occurs at the noumenal level; it is the decision that constitutes the change. The purpose is not to provide a moral justification for violent empirical political revolution.111 Rather, we are concerned to show that Kant believes in the cause of a moral metaphysical revolution, “a revolution in the disposition of the human being” (Religion, 6:47); and that this is one of his political dynamics that effect transformation. Ideas of reason act like the model of perfection in that they can never be achieved, but nevertheless inspire the change necessary to forge a path in their direction. Hence we have Kant’s influential political work called Towards Perpetual Peace. A peaceful world is an idea of reason that Kant often remarks is impossible. What is possible is the decision, a revolution of the mind, to follow its idea.

I am being interpretive here by promoting a conception of revolution in the context of Kant’s political philosophy, given that he does absolutely prohibit a right to revolution in his political essays. To further this interpretation we can recall the fact that Kant praised the French Revolution at a time when all European governments were extremely concerned about the spread of subversive activities.112 What Kant approved was not the “momentous deed nor crimes committed by human beings”, (The conflict of the faculties [Conflict], 7:85) nor the bloody and ugly events of the revolution; but rather its ability to express the moral spirit in humanity in general and a people in particular. This, Kant called, the “mode of thinking of the spectators” and, given its universality, identified it as a real basis for hope in change.113 It is also of historical significance to point out that Kant was censured by Friedrich Wilhelm II for contravening the anti-enlightenment religious edict with his Religion text. Further,

111 For such an argument see Christine Korsgaard, “Taking the Law into Our Own Hands: Kant on the Right to Revolution” in Reclaiming the history of ethics: essays for John Rawls edited by Andrews Reath, Barbara Herman, Christine M. Korsgaard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp296–328. 112 It is interesting that the French Revolution is a prime point of reference for many interpretations of Kant’s political philosophy. It is a testament to Bernard Williams’ assertion that political philosophy arises in a context of political urgency. See “Political Philosophy and the Analytical Tradition” in Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline ed. A.W. Moore, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006, p155. 113 The French Revolution will be taken up again later to further demonstrate that, for Kant, this example is about the offer of conceptual guidance, and not the path of a literal and bloody revolt. 92 while it will be later argued that Kant’s edict against a right to revolution is necessary to the potent dynamic of practical reason, the sections of Kant’s moral philosophy presented here permit, by analogy, the perspective that the figure of revolution is not heretical to Kantian politics. Perhaps there is something like a revolution of the mind, a revolution for or towards the noumenal. Furthermore, the only plausible structure for this activity is that given by Kant’s practical metaphysics as defined in Chapter One. So we can advocate, with Kant, a journey to the noumenal level for politics that we cannot achieve through reform alone. This presents a new context for revolution: it is a decision to follow the path of the ideas of reason, with progress measured by the diligence of the work towards them, and not by their arrival. And it is in this way that we see how active ideas of reason are: they cannot simply be mechanically applied to politics, but rather they are involved in the practical creation of politics. This is their conceptual dynamic.

2.3.1.2 Ideas as dynamic conditions for politics In the RL we witness Kant’s interest in creating practical political theory. He states in the Preface to the Metaphysics of Morals that this is an unfinished metaphysical system simply because, as such, it also necessarily includes its application. Right is a pure concept and yet it is also based in, and looks towards, practice: a metaphysics of Right is an infinite system.114 Hence Kant advisedly renames the RL “Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Right” because they can only provide an “approximation” of the rest of the system. (RL, 6:205) Evidently, Kant is concerned with the fundamental relationship between formal purity and a specific conditioning of moral or political purity. What we are precisely interested in is how Kant’s account of politics works towards cultivating the condition of the ideal polity. That is, the dynamic ingredient in his politics that establishes the practice of bridging fact and idea. This is because politics signifies a state and a coming to be, it is a condition in both grammatical categories of the word condition, a noun and a verb. Kant’s practical metaphysics, and the RL and TPP in particular, are not simply about the application of the a priori ideas of reason to our imperfect world. Continual approximation of the highest political good, perpetual peace, is part of the

114 Mary Gregor discusses the difference between a metaphysic of morals as the “pure” part of moral philosophy and as a priori knowledge in her article “Kant’s conception of a ‘metaphysic of morals’” in The Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 40, 1960, pp238–251. 93 metaphysical system itself. Thus, the idea of a republican polity is at once both an ultimate state for politics and a condition necessary for achieving good politics. This is the action of Kant’s political ideas of reason. We will now examine the political provisions to see how ideas of reason engage the political and promote progress.

A constitution based on the principle of external freedom gives us “the state in idea” defined by Kant as “a union of a multitude of human beings under laws of Recht.” (RL, 6: 313) This is the idea that justifies state formation and the civil condition. A state should be republican in the sense that there is a strict division between the legislative, executive and judicial powers. The highest power of the state is the legislative authority, which must embody the general united will of the people. But the united will of the people is also not an empirical concept; it too is an idea of reason. (see, e.g., RL, 6: 263) Further, Kant asserts in Conflict, that the equivalent of the ruler and the ruled is the “eternal norm” for politics. (Conflict, 7:90f)

The sovereign is obliged to issue just laws. As the sovereign is the outlet for the general will, we would assume that all laws are fair given that the people are not likely to issue laws in contradiction with what they desire. But if there is misfeasance, the people may not challenge the sovereign because this contradicts the conditions of Right, a condition that cannot be suspended without fatal injury. The laws based on the supreme idea of Right must be obeyed. The citizens can offer negative resistance through their ministers or through formal complaints. (RL, 6:322) But there is no right to reject and rebel against an official abuse of authority. This would be to contradict the rational separation of powers and strict regard for the rule of law that requires an independent judiciary. (RL, 6:320) And it would be conceptually “absurd” to grant legal exceptions to the supreme authority of Right: if there is an absolute posited political and legal power it is a contradiction to permit a provision for repudiation.

Kant states that any change must be “top down”, (Conflict, 7:93) by which he means rightfully through the sovereign, who always acts for the united will of the people. Kant prefers metamorphosis to palingenesis (RL, 6:340) as the style of gradual reform needed for empirical politics. And yet, if there is a new beginning, forced by an insurrection, the new constitution and sovereign must be immediately instated, as if there were no break in the condition of Right. (RL, 6:323) But, for Kant, it is essential that positive law be amenable to the step-by-step reform necessary for 94 peaceful social relations. He writes, “it must still be possible, if the existing constitution cannot well be reconciled with the idea of the original contract, for the sovereign to change it, so as to allow it to continue in existence that form which is essentially required for a people to constitute a state.” (RL, 6:340) It is the ruler who must act for, and comply with, the idea of the social contract.

However, Kant specifically incorporates, for the polity, the “spirit of the original contract (anima pacti originarii).” (RL, 6:340) This means that the change that the sovereign is under a duty to create must also be consistent with this spirit.115 The spirit of the original contract provides the glittering, if seemingly illusory, path to the idea itself. However, there is a problem for the sovereign in the empirical political arena to follow the commands of the spirit to the highest political good because, for Kant, the ideal republican state is without a physical manifestation of sovereignty. Sovereignty, in Kant’s theory, is the a priori idea of the unified will of the people. This is an example of the leitmotiv of this thesis: the dynamism of Kant’s political ideas; the apparent disjunction between the empirical limits of the political situation and the status of ideas of reason. Or, in other words, the problem raised when we observe the different contexts of the empirical and noumenal aspects of Kant’s political theory.

Let us explain this problem in its textual context. Kant alerts us to the complex relationship between the metaphysical and empirical viewpoints when he distinguishes the idea of the head of a state, as a “thought-entity” (Gedankending), from a “physical person to represent the supreme authority in the state and to make this idea effective on the people’s will” (RL, 6:338).116 The personification of the idea of sovereignty is what we take to be the form of the state in terms of how the highest authority is configured; that is as autocratic, aristocratic or democratic. (RL, 6:339) But while the sovereign is under a duty to institute change according to the spirit of republicanism, Kant explicitly denies the sovereign the power to reform itself; that is

115 It is this duty of the sovereign that I would see as analogous to the duty in the doctrine of virtue to perfect oneself in a moral capacity, that is, to undertake what I have called pure revolution. 116 Otfried Höffe makes it clear that it is this distinction that causes confusion as to the right to revolution because in the case of the physical person who misuses their power, their metaphysical legitimacy as the idea of a sovereign is lost and so in the empirical realm we cannot rule out completely that a tyrant is morally protected from public censure in the same way the noumenal sovereign would be. See “Königliche Völker”. Zu Kants kosmopolitischer Rechts- und Friedenstheorie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001, p24. 95 to change, for example, from being aristocratic to democratic, because “it could still do the people a wrong, since the people itself could abhor such a constitution and find one of the other forms more to its advantage.” (RL, 6:340) This, then, creates a significant exception to the “top down” rule for political change because the sovereign must consult the people when undergoing self-reform. And yet, such a change seems necessary if the sovereign is to meet its primary duty to follow the spirit of the original contract for the sake of achieving a perfect republican constitution. The confusion here, around how a polity is to follow the spirit of the original contract whilst following actual political provisions for good governance, neatly illustrates the disjunction between the empirical and noumenal prescriptions in Kant’s political theory. How are we to apply or follow ideas of reason in practice?

If we return again to the detail of the text we can gain a better understanding of how to reconcile this problem. Kant qualifies the form of sovereignty as a mode of statehood that is only a superficial aspect of the state. The different forms of sovereignty are merely the “letter (littera) of the original legislation”, they are only part of the empirical convention of constitutions, somewhat anachronistic, that will gradually be replaced with the rational form of government, the republican government, and the only form of state that makes “freedom the principle and indeed the condition for any exercise of coercion.” (RL, 6:340) What Kant deems to be “literally a state” is where the only sovereign is Right itself; where the will of the people needs no manifested representation, as such, because it is itself the sovereign. (RL, 6:341) A pure republic, therefore, has no need for a form of sovereignty or, to put it more precisely, the sovereign has no physical form. So, as soon as the sovereign “also lets itself be represented, then the united people does not merely represent the sovereign: it is the sovereign itself.”(RL, 6:341) Once the republic is established it “no longer has to let the reins of government out of its hands”, (RL, 6:341) as the sovereign may remain in its perfect form as the idea of the united will of the people. Thus, a right to revolution is superfluous, because in the perfect polity the general united will of the people itself reigns supreme.

But it is, it seems, precisely in the transformative act of the sovereign “letting itself be represented” that the problem lies. Does the personified sovereign, with the permission of the people, but not their violent coercion, simply dissolve itself? Kant 96 appears to believe that such an event is possible if perfect politics is at stake. In place of a critique of power, what Kant presents us with in the RL is an image of the strength of ideas of reason, in particular the idea of Right, which shows the reach of metaphysics into the empirical world.

To draw the analogy with the phenomenal and noumenal characters of virtue, we can see that a formalised sovereign in the empirical world is necessary to cleanly channel the will of the people and progressively reform - ‘bit by bit’ - the polity towards the idea of a republican state. But the idea of reason, of noumenal status, of a republican state needs no such medium of representation for the sovereign will of the people, so empirical revolution is redundant and no gradual reform is adequate to the task of instating an idea as ruler. The transition, then, to this ultimate condition could only be achieved by a revolution in the disposition of the polity, a non-empirical revolution, constituted by an irrevocable decision by the people to follow the spirit of the original contract, by continually creating the conditions of a the idea of a pure republic.117

When Kant first heard of the declaration of the republic in France he is said to have himself declared: “Now let your servant go in peace to his grave, for I have seen the glory of the world.”118 And in Conflict, one of Kant’s final works released after the death of Friedrich Wilhelm II, Kant refers to the French Revolution as an “experience in the human race, which as an event points to the disposition and capacity of the human race to be the cause of its own advance toward the better.” (Conflict, 7:84) While Kant does not praise the bloody cost of the “game” of revolution nor hopes for its success, it is in the “hearts of the spectators (who are not engaged in this game themselves)” that we find the pure cause that is capable of motivating humans toward the good. (Conflict, 7:85) And it is this general spirit of the “human race viewed in its entirety, that is, … not as [a sum of] individuals … but rather as divided into nations and states (as it is encountered on earth)” that Kant is referring to as the agent of change. (Conflict, 7:84) The French Revolution as an event is not simply about

117 Interestingly, and in an analogy with the “proof” of the idea of practical freedom, if the people do this, they are acting as if they were a united political will, and in this way they do assume sovereignty. 118 An acquaintance of Kant, Malter, wrote this to rectify Fichte’s assertions that the French Revolution was of no interest to intellectuals in Königsberg. See Manfred Kuehn Kant: A Biography Cambridge: UP, 2001, p342. 97 sustaining hope in progress, rather for Kant it also shows that the acknowledgement of the character of the spirit of change “is already itself progress insofar as its capacity is sufficient for the present.” (Conflict, 7:84) Here we find the foundations for political transformation that appear quite straightforward in their ability to enable the people to think about and decide for “the better” when they are guided by ideas of reason.

Kant’s ban on a right to revolution is a dynamic force itself: it conditions the polity, educates it in how the idea of Right should operate, which is by and for the people, into a condition where there is no need for public rebellion. Ideas of reason in politics, like noumenal virtue, are not abstract, impractical perfect end conditions. Rather, they act to excite us towards the highest political good, which is then achieved in the very act of cultivation.119 This is the conceptual dynamic of Kant’s political philosophy as provided for by the ideas of reason. It is indeed correct to say that granting a constitutional right to revolution is a contradiction, however, this may not rule out revolution that is not justified by or even executed in the physical world. The pure revolution allows us to be led by the political ideas and to work towards these ideas within our current reality. Such a change of heart reconciles the limit and the idea, so that the real work of change can begin. The pure revolution is a decision to be guided by the ideas of reason, which renders them plausible as agents of real political transformation. This is one example of the dynamic foundations of Kant’s political philosophy; but one that reveals how the conceptual structure of political ideas of reason encourage and permit necessary change.

2.3.2 Ellis’ account of public judgement in Kant 2.3.2.1 How Ellis’ theory of Kant’s political philosophy accords with my analysis of the political function of ideas of reason Ellis’ Kant’s Politics: provisional theory for an uncertain world starts from the belief that Kant was primarily concerned with progress. Like Flikschuh, she is keen to avoid a traditional political approach that concentrates on the doctrine of the ideal state. Thus Ellis argues instead that all Kant’s political achievements, like human rights, the rule of law, global peace and the protection of human freedom are based on his theory

119 Compare Ian Hunters argument about Kant’s moral philosophy. He argues that the moral philosophy aims to cultivate or condition individuals in the art of perfect moral goodness. See “The morals of metaphysics: Kant’s Groundwork as intellectual Paideia” in Critical Inquiry , Summer 2002, vol. 28, Iss 4; p908–930. 98 of the gradual approximation of the ideal state in practice. The enlightenment aim of escaping any form of tutelage brought Kant to consider what unites all his political interests: “regime change” as Ellis calls it. She proclaims, “Kant, among political theorists, is uniquely comfortable with the provisional and uncertain politics of transition.”120 Flikschuh’s position is that peremptory Right is the civil condition, which in contrast with Ellis is succinctly demonstrated when I rephrase it as, for Ellis, provisional Right is the civil condition. This shows that the ideas of reason are always regulating and never achieved; there is a constant need for their conditioning effect on the polity. Ellis states, “[t]he theory of the ideal state tells us what the goals of human progress must be, but nothing about how we might reach them.”121 Her theory is, then, an elaboration of the political how, the actual processes and mechanisms, which is why her interpretation is a useful addition to Flikschuh’s. Together they help my thesis argue the case for the political practice of ideas of reason.

Ellis’ interpretation of Kant’s political thought is implicitly metaphysical in the way Chapter One establishes the practice of ideas of reason. In contrast to Flikshuh’s sole use of the RL, Ellis believes that this work must be supplemented for a complete understanding of Kant’s political philosophy.122 She devotes a chapter of her book to each of the main political works, in chronological order from “What is Enlightenment” [WIE], to the Critique of Judgment [CJ], to TPP, the RL and Conflict to prove how each work demonstrates a concern, first, with the political problem of transition and, second, with the solution to that problem as being a provisional bridge between the ideal and reality, which is built and maintained by public reason. So, Ellis too is implicitly concerned with what Flikschuh calls the task of the immanent perspective in metaphysics: the reconciliation between freedom and nature. Ellis makes a convincing case, and concludes with a Kantian theory of democratic citizenship proper, complete with principles and objectives that she hopes will supplement deliberative democratic theory.

In summary, Ellis draws attention to the fundamental dynamism between our world and our ideals to make her thesis that Kant advances provisional right to allow

120 Ellis, 2005, p1. 121 Ibid., p15. 122 Ibid., p6. 99 for this dynamic. This dynamic is, in turn, made productive by a public judgement that mediates (the) ideas and their concrete effects in the world. What interests us here is the task public judgement performs: the mediation between the power of ideas and their effects. This is the second example I want to use to show how ideas of reason function to create a dynamic politics.

Within this structure for her investigation of Kant’s political philosophy, however, Ellis believes that the issue of metaphysics does need not to be mentioned nor presumedly involved. She does not separate Kant from Rawls, Habermas and liberal theory in the way that Flikschuh believes is interpretatively appropriate. Rather, Ellis asserts the similarities of the mentioned theorists in that they all “locate the motor of progress in the tension between commonly held ideals and pragmatic political reality.”123 The source of these ideals is not at issue for her because it is their dynamic that is of political relevance. This dynamic is what Flikschuh calls the task of metaphysics, which I would agree with, but would add that this dynamic is that of Kant’s practical metaphysics as provided by the practical function of ideas of reason. Ellis does, however, agree with Flikschuh in confirming that Kant’s political philosophy does not rule out pluralism. According to Ellis, it is the public sphere that creates political change and there are no requirements as to how the public sphere should operate in different contexts, as long as there is public judgement. This is her interpolation of a necessary condition for provisional politics and is what makes her theory so useful: what is essential to the practical (metaphysical) dynamic of politics is public judgment.

Where Ellis is keen to distance herself from Rawls and so-called neo-Kantian political theory is with the fact that her theory engages with Kant’s actual political thought directly, and is not simply an extrapolation from his moral philosophy. I agree, such an approach is long overdue, and share these intentions in my analysis of Kant’s politics. Ellis blames the neglect of Kant’s expressly political works on the contradiction propagated by Kant himself; that is between two methods of political transition, that of natural teleology and freely willed human action. Ellis rejects the teleological argument by saying that while the purpose of nature may be peace or

123 Ibid., p39. 100 enlightenment, the mechanism for it is political and not natural.124 She makes a detailed analysis of The Critique of Judgment and Hannah Arendt’s use of it for identifying Kant’s political treatise. In the end, however, Ellis disputes the teleological argument in Kant and bases her theory on the great significance that Kant places on human freedom, which does indeed conflict with vesting all belief in the guiding hand of nature for all our progress. I would extrapolate from this that peace, as an idea of reason, is not a blessing from God or nature; but rather something humans have to actively seek using their freedom.

We can observe that freedom does form Ellis’ central response to the teleological tradition of interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy. This speaks of a need for an understanding of the import of metaphysics in the structuring of politics. Ellis tacitly calls upon this in her justification of how Kant endows subjects with real political responsibility, because she argues that citizens can use their freedom to bring about the ideals. Kant does not consider human beings to be moral agents only in the abstract; if the ideals Kant presents in his political essays were simply that, and could not be used by agents to affect the world, then Kant would be positing a kind of radical political irresponsibility. While subjects cannot know exactly where they sit between freedom and nature, Kant does propose necessary assumptions that moral agents ought to make in order to maintain their responsibility to the world. Ellis cannot develop this idea of legitimate political involvement without, what is argued for in Chapter One, a metaphysical practice of ideas of reason. This is the assumption that although we can act as if we are free, we cannot ever know that we are so. Furthermore, in her defence of human-initiated progress, as opposed to that of nature, she unproblematically grants the relationship between the “ideals,” as she calls them, and the ability of humans to respond to them - the political responsibility of which she speaks. This relationship she assumes between political ideals and political action is the mechanism of the practical use of ideas of reason that I have also outlined in the previous chapter, whereby ideas of reason demand their creation in practice.

124 Compare Guyer’s political account of Kant’s teleology here, see footnote 90 above. 101

Ellis’ theory of politics is underscored by the special power that ideals have in Kant’s philosophy; “ideals justify themselves”, she writes.125 It is a mistake, she argues, to apply the limits on possible human knowledge to limits on actual existence; this confuses Kant’s epistemological arguments with ontological ones. Ideals matter in expanding our ability to act in the world, and these actions are guided by absolute right, adjudicated by provisional right and motivated by public judgement. Ellis consistently prefers the term “ideal” despite a few times acknowledging the importance of the concept of “idea” for Kant.126 She takes the term ideal from his mention of Platonic ideals in the Conflict essay. (see, e.g., 7:91) I think it is more appropriate to maintain the term idea, as introduced in the Transcendental Dialectic of Pure Reason, as Plato’s genius: it was he who, for Kant, imbued the word “idea” with an inherent practice. Furthermore, as we noted at the beginning of this chapter, Kant does refer to his political “ideals”, like a republican constitution and perpetual peace, as ideas of reason, “Vernunftideen” in both TPP and the RL.

Although she does not acknowledge it in these terms, I read Ellis as according Kant’s moral metaphysics an explicit role in her political theory. Moral motivation is simply presented as existing in politics for Kant. When individuals are judging if and how well current political proposals accord with ideals they call on, Ellis posits ‘the moral law within me’ as the test.127 So Ellis’ argument places no necessity on developing, as Flikschuh does, a particular mode of political willing for Kantian subjects to distinguish it from moral willing.128 I think this can be attributed to Ellis taking for granted the Rawlsian starting point for political theory, where we are already operating within and for an exclusively political context; therefore, there is no need to design another type of willing, it is the same but simply applied to politics for political purposes.129 Ellis’ logic is that because we are limited rational beings (made of, as Kant calls it, bent wood), we need both the practical principles of politics and

125 Ellis, 2005, p152. 126 See ibid., for e.g., p178. 127 Ibid., p65. I will discuss the inclusion of moral motivation in Ellis’ account of Kant’s politics in more detail in the following. 128 Refer to footnote 83 above. 129 Rawls suggests his political liberalism involves the moral willing of a political object. See Political Liberalism, “Introduction to the paperback edition”, expanded edition, NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2005, p xxxviii, where he writes: "I emphasise that the ideas of the domain of the political and a political conception of justice are normative and moral ideas in their own right,” that is, their “content is given by certain ideals, principles, and standards, and these norms articulate certain values, in this case political values." 102 the moral motivation to follow them. This is part of her argument about how public judgement compels political change. We know that in Kant’s ethics the contentious source of motivation is respect for the moral law and, in his politics, Ellis asserts, public judgement forms the motivation to achieve our moral ends. “Without the goad of public judgement,” she writes, “states may achieve order, but they will not approach juridical perfection.”130 Ellis is in effect saying that public judgement is what activates the ideas of reason. It is public judgement that creates the political impetus to enact the ideas of reason.

For Ellis, then, Kant’s political thought is all about gradual change from imperfect towards more perfect political conditions; therefore, she reasons, Right is, in practice, always provisional. I have mentioned above that public judgment is the motor behind the change in Ellis’ theory of politics, but the standard of justice applicable during transition is essential also to this change. And this is where provisional right and the ideas of reason, including the moral law, come into play.

Ellis identifies multiple references to provisional Right in several of Kant’s texts; however, the best example of it is found in the Right of nations section of the RL. This is where, in the absence of conclusive Right between states in the form of a world government or otherwise, there is provision for states to go to war. We must first note that in the RL, unlike in the earlier TPP, world peace is presented as an impossible, yet obligatory goal. While Flikschuh stresses the limits on this side of the gap between empirical reality and the ideas of reason, Ellis additionally emphasises how the ideas themselves are limited by their a priori nature. They are not to be simply instituted, for they cannot be; so we must rather argue for, and pursue, these ideals. This supports the argument about the logic of political change in Kant’s political theory made in the previous section. Kant writes in the RL: So, perpetual peace, the ultimate goal of the whole Right of nations, is indeed an unachievable idea. Still, the political principle directed toward perpetual peace, of entering into such alliances of states, which serve for continual approximation to it, are not unachievable. Instead, since continual approximation to it is a task based on duty and therefore on the right of human beings and states, this can certainly be achieved. (RL, 6:350)

130 Ellis, 2005, p98. 103

Such an achievable political principle is, we can surmise, following Ellis, provisional right. Given the absence of a legitimate adjudicator in the international sphere, that is, the absence of absolute Right, war is the means used to settle the dispute. There are, however, provisional rules in this state of nature among nations, in the same way that there is a provisional Right to property in the state of nature among individuals. The earlier discussion, regarding Flikschuh’s interpretation of Kant’s argument for property rights, noted that property too could be provisionally justified. Regarding moving towards a rightful world order, Kant concedes it is difficult to talk of Right in war but, nevertheless, prescribes that Right during a war is “waging a war in accordance with principles that always leave open the possibility of leaving the state of nature among states (in external relation to one another) and entering a rightful condition.” (RL, 6:347) And this is the modus operandi of provisional right in general: to leave the possibility of working towards full right open. Flikschuh, too, argues for a provisional principle in Kant’s political thought. She makes the case that the postulate of Right, as a permissive law, permits a violation of the universal principle of Right, because it is necessary to open the way to peremptory right. Ellis clearly agrees with this as the defining purpose for provisional justice.

Ellis points out that since Kant rejects a world government, international right is the best example of an application of provisional right. So, for example, a state will decide to forgo assassination as a foreign policy because it would undermine the chances of the state entering any future condition of international Right. On one hand, there are the pragmatic (nonmoral) considerations that prevent a state from ordering an assassination, for example, because if they did then they may not be trusted by other states, or because they may endanger the lives of their international representatives. On the other and more productive hand, these empirical disincentives to act contrary to the possibility of ideal Right constitute, what Ellis calls, the driving force of the public sphere itself; that is, “individual-level moral considerations”. Ellis illustrates this further, by saying that the world congress of nations then appears like a public forum in which claims of Right are judged according to “commonly held standards”, which Kant, she believes, “would argue are more or less explicitly related to the ‘moral law within us’.”131 Even in the absence of such a forum, Ellis argues that

131 Ibid., p140. 104 provisional judgements of Right are subject to the prevalence of public acceptance or rejection, which is the next best thing to an absolute judge of Right. Thus, we can see how Ellis’ endorsement of Kant’s idea of the moral law features in her account of his politics as provisional: it works as an inbuilt standard to guarantee that the provisional is on the good path.

So, for Ellis, the practical metaphysical power of ideas of reason enable us to take up our political responsibility and engage in public judgement that tests how well we are, in our political communities, approximating the political ideals. To do this we refer to ‘the moral law within me’. So it would seem that Ellis has all the essentials operating for a practical metaphysical approach to politics based on the regulative function of ideas of reason in our lived reality, which, for her, includes the moral law. This is an approach that requires an account of human freedom and the notion of our finite ability to achieve the ideas we set ourselves as necessary political conditions. This accords with Flikschuh’s three central metaphysical categories that she believes shapes Kant’s solution to the problem of Right in the RL.132

2.3.2.2 Ellis’ account of public judgement As argued in the previous section, Ellis’ theory of Kant’s political philosophy is implicitly based on practical metaphysics, in that it needs the structuring power of the ideas of reason in order to ensure that provisional Right is still on the path of Right and because public judgment is portrayed as an essential tenet of provisional political theory. She maintains that, due to the inevitable impurity of everyday politics, all political conditions are provisional and in need of constant assessment and calibration. The necessary method for this continual evaluation, therefore, is the free public sphere. Ellis calls public political expression the method for change, the “motor” of political transition.

Ellis traces the development of the idea of public judgement in Kant from its beginnings as public reason in WIE to the formal principles of publicity given in TPP, to its final flourishing as the judging public in Conflict. This is an interesting developmental view that Ellis brings to bear on Kant’s political philosophy, because it

132 See Flikschuh, 2000, p49. 105 can help explain why there is no definitive political treatise in Kant’s canon. It perhaps even suggests that Kant would resist such a work because the political must be open to revision, decisions and, in fact, public discussion. This section argues for public judgement as an example of the dynamism of ideas of reason in political use. To this end, we will compare the presentation of public judgement in WIE and Conflict by way of illustrating Ellis’ conclusions about the motor behind political progress. I will canvass her discussion of the principles of publicity, as found in TPP, in the next chapter, which undertakes an examination of the idea and institution of publicity to present it as a means for Kant to give politics its own measure. This section provides an example of the function of Kant’s political ideas. The account of public judgement in Ellis effectively details the practice of politics guided by such ideas and how it works.

Ellis refuses to participate in a narrow reading of Kant’s political philosophy and believes an interpretation of his ethics as strict, in the style of Prussian Protestantism, fails to appreciate Kant’s intense concern with the institutions necessary for human progress, in addition to the fact that such progress is not inward looking. The political ideas are not for further abstract elaboration of a pure political state but, rather, for use in public judgment. They test the consistency of current political conditions with the possibility of movement towards the idea. The import of public judgment is not about direct comparison with a set of norms that signify a failure. Instead, the ideas form a touchstone for public discussion regarding political activity. Ellis believes that provisionality gives politics the capacity to remain responsive to historical and geographic particulars; however, provisional politics also requires a mechanism to perform this capacity. The public sphere is, therefore, necessary for the political community as the institution for political participation in the form of judgment. Ellis nominates individual agents as the unit that engages in the comparison of the rational ideals with empirical reality.133 In this way, Ellis answers one of the questions of this chapter, that is, what constitutes the practical political activity the ideas of reason are meant to regulate? Her answer is that public discussion, regarding progress towards the ideal, is the practical result of following a

133 Ellis, 2005, p13. 106 political ideal. This is why her account of public judgement in politics is such a useful demonstration of how ideas of reason are practiced in politics.

Ellis remarks that WIE introduces us to the idea of public reason in the context of the traditional problem for juridical accounts of human community: how do we foster change without jeopardising public order, the basic structure for individual Right? This was one of the most pressing political topics of Kant’s time, as he and his community of scholars in Europe discussed the reform of absolutism. The original impetus for the essay was the worry that public enlightenment posed a threat to morality and social stability. Kant was aware of the need to defend public enlightenment, on the one hand, as an important engine for dealing with political problems, but one that would not, on the other hand, lead to insurrection and social chaos. Thus, Kant provides that political structures should not be paternalistic at the same time as expressing the importance of secure political order. Public enlightenment occurs, Kant assures us, as a result of the ruler granting his subjects the political freedom to make use of their own reason. Kant’s answer to the question about the definition of enlightenment represents his argument against revolution and for gradual reform. Consequently Ellis’ observes that it is only when there is a guaranteed public sphere of sorts that the mode of politics itself becomes one of steady change.

Ellis outlines the unfolding features of the public sphere as Kant’s solution to Rousseau’s challenge regarding the co-existence of obedience and freedom. For Kant’s ideas of politics to work, there does need to be enlightenment, involving the free use of reason, which creates a secure structure for imperfect human political realities. Ellis comments, without acknowledging the background of metaphysics, that freedom is the demonstrably active bridge between the empirical and theoretical; a movement that is supported by Kant’s methodology in the essay itself. He uses both his own historical context and a priori argument to affirm the need for reason to relate the actual and ideal in politics. I will return to this foundational status of freedom for public judgment shortly when I show how Ellis concludes her argument with Flikschuh’s starting point: the metaphysics of freedom.

107

The story of public judgment in Kant begins, for Ellis, with WIE and Kant’s conclusion that the definitional problem of enlightenment, individuals are immature and dependent, should be addressed at the level of a public (ein Publikum), rather than expecting individuals to break free themselves.134 She quotes Kant from the essay, “[b]ut that a public should enlighten itself is more possible; indeed this is almost inevitable, if only it is left its freedom.” (WIE, 8:36) Ellis writes that instead of “the ahistorical man of his initial definition of enlightenment, Kant becomes concerned with actual men organised as ‘a public’”.135 Kant, then, begins to delineate a private and public realm for the free use of reason. The private realm places limits on a one’s ability to use and express his reason, while the public use of reason must be free. Kant’s “public” realm, however, is not employed in the sense we understand the word today; it does not include most areas of life, like government, business, religion, social organisations, and even our civic rights and duties. It is only where an individual is free of any other commitments, except those of reason, writing “as a scholar before the entire public of the world of readers.” (WIE, 8:37) One of Kant’s examples is a clergyman: when he is preaching he is bound to the doctrine of his church and is thus is making only private (not free) use of his reason. He may, wishing to respond as a world citizen, speak freely in a public context, for example by voicing objections to church doctrine, but this would have to take the form of a scholar and be in writing. When he is acting according to the requirements of his role, for example, when giving a sermon in church, he is restricted to a private use of reason and must apply the arguments of his order. Ellis takes this example to show how Kant’s distinction between the uses of reason is not as clear-cut as it first appears. Kant is unambiguous that the clergyman must preach even what he may not agree with because there may be an allusive higher meaning. However, he goes on to say that official doctrines may not conflict with “der inner Religion” (the inner religion) and, if it did, then the preacher should resign. (WIE, 8:38) That the clergyman can negotiate both sides of the public/private use of reason is necessary, first, because it would be an “absurdity” to have a spiritual leader as a “minor” in the use of reason but, second, so that church dogma is able to be improved and amended. (WIE, 8:38)

These reasons are an important illustration of the conception of the political public realm: while a clergyman is the head of a spiritual community and, therefore,

134 Ibid., p16. 135 Ibid., p16. 108 holds moral responsibility for their well-being, there can be no conception of an authoritative and fixed doctrine without the possibility of improvement. Kant writes:

One age cannot bind itself and conspire to put the following one into such a condition that it would be impossible for it to enlarge its cognitions … and to purify them of errors, and generally make further progress in enlightenment. This would be a crime against human nature, whose original vocation lies precisely in such progress… (WIE, 8:39)

Kant highlights the necessity and purpose of a public realm (which he reiterates in many of his political essays), when he writes: “The touchstone of whatever can be decided upon as a law for a people lies in the question: whether a people could impose such a law upon itself.” (WIE, 8:39) In this lies Kant’s version of the test for legitimacy: people are subject to laws but ones that they themselves promulgate. The public sphere is a medium through which the people themselves can act as the arbiters of justice.

Legitimate adjudication of justice on earth is a compelling problem for social contract theorists. Ellis argues that Kant rejects both Hobbes’ belief in the pure justice of a sovereign and Locke’s faith in the ability of civil order to be respected, when it includes a right to revolution. Her investigation of Kant’s response to the question of who is to judge political justice leads her to his epistemological distinction between noumena and phenomena. Ellis explains that Kant’s ideal of respublica noumenon sets the model for respublica phenomenon. However, for this model to work it “necessitates a mechanism whereby this ideal model (respublica noumenon) would be applied to practical politics.”136 This mechanism, argues Ellis, is a new political institution: publicity. So while Kant’s introductory assignation of the public use of reason seems to be restricted to the scholarly republic of letters of Prussia, there is an obvious expansion of the idea through to his final political work, Conflict.

Ellis acknowledges that Kant’s political theory is ideal; it is justified with a priori sources and one would include ideas of reason here, but she believes it to be binding due to a lineage of moral conclusions. She points out that the political principles of Right as given by the RL are founded upon the moral law, which is, in turn, putatively based on common moral reason. This means that the idea of a

136 Ibid., p34. 109 republican constitution and cosmopolitan peace, for example, are binding despite not being available for experience precisely because they express “necessary conclusions from ‘the moral law within us’”.137 And, it is precisely this ‘moral law within us’ that we call upon when judging whether the respublica phenomenon is heading towards the respublica noumenon. In Ellis’ repudiation of the teleological source for progress in favour of that willed by human agents, she comes to the conclusion that “the overwhelming fact determining the course of human politics is the practical reality of the moral law.”138 This emphasises the need for something like the public sphere to ensure the application of the moral law for political progress. Indeed, while we are always in a state of imperfection, we must actively try to amend it. And this is the proper regulative employment of the ideas of reason. Ellis prefers to speak of a priori justifications, to which we can also add the same prescription: they must also be made in this manner - regulatively.139

Ellis takes the example of transnational advocacy networks to demonstrate the power and effect of a mechanism like the public sphere in politics. Such networks are instructive, she thinks, because of their commitment to set principles and ideas, which they draw on to negotiate change with the big international actors. Ellis likens this to a “judging public: cosmopolitan actors moved by a moral principle”.140 Ellis argues that Kant’s conviction about a free public sphere for general discussion, although beginning in the 1784 WIE essay, actually comes to fruition in the 1798 Conflict essay. The debate around the French Revolution causes Kant to change his example of the public sphere from the world of letters to three other versions that he presents in Conflict: the philosophical faculty of the university; the members of an idealised version of the British Parliament; and, the one that Ellis considers the most coherent and plausible model, the judging public.

Ellis thinks that the French Revolution influenced Kant’s conception of the public sphere by furnishing him with an example of the power abstract ideas have for

137 Ibid., quoting Kant, p35. 138 Ibid., p65. 139 See the distinction between Guyer and Flikschuh in section 2.4 above on the social contract and its normative operation. For Guyer it retrospectively justifies the conditions of fairness and, for Flikschuh, its normativity is forward looking. 140 Ellis, 2005, p156. 110 ordinary individuals. The cause of this event was political ideas; it was the conviction (or the application) of the ideas that created such a huge shift in the political organization of a state. This is the “sign” that answers the main question of the Conflict essay: whether we can say that there is human progress. The attitude of the onlooker to the event affirms transition towards the better is taking place; that the causality of freedom is at work in the world. This is where Ellis finds her main resource for promoting Kant’s idea of a judging public as the mechanism for political advancement. She quotes Kant from Conflict: We are here concerned with the attitude of onlookers as it reveals itself in public while the drama of great political changes is taking place: for they openly express universal yet disinterested sympathy for one set of protagonists against their adversaries at the risk their partiality could be of great disadvantage to themselves. Their reaction (because of its universality) proves that mankind as a whole shares a certain character in common, and it also proves (because of its disinterestedness) that man has a moral character, or at least the making of one. And this does not merely allow us to hope for human improvement; it is already a form of improvement itself. (Conflict, 7:85)141

Improvement comes by virtue of the power of ideas, which take form through their effect on the public sphere. This is a power so potent that Ellis interprets this praise of the involvement of the spectators as a model for Kant’s answer to the social contract traditions’ problem of creating an authoritative judge on earth, that is, the political equivalent of God. It is worth quoting her here in full: Real-world partisans of the French Revolution, safe from the corrupting influence of the possibility of actual power thanks to the absolute monarch under whom they live, mediate between the ideal and actual worlds by pronouncing judgment on current events. By exercising their public reason in a realm not only free of but also probably counter to their own private interests, these sympathisers of the republican cause gain extraordinary moral authority. Kant’s members of the judging public make themselves virtual ambassadors of the noumenal world to the phenomena; realm, to put it a little grandly. Their circumstances – free of all but the interests of reason – allow them to approximate the impossible point of view of perfect judges in political right.142

For the purposes of my thesis, this is an extraordinary statement: that citizens working, and thinking, together “make themselves virtual ambassadors of the noumenal world to the phenomenal.” Ellis is squarely adopting terminology from

141 Ibid., p168, note the difference to Gregor’s translation of 7:85 at p302. 142 Ibid., p168. 111

Kant’s metaphysical philosophy to make her argument about the importance of the political institution of public judgement; it is through the public sphere that ideas of reason can gain authority as practical models. Public judgement is a definitive example of how political ideas of reason can take effect in communities and create change. Ellis provides a better answer than Kant to Bouterwerk about the authority of ideas: they encourage humans living together to appraise and discuss their circumstances. This is cooperative political work that can include the paradox of being led by an idea!

Ellis returns to Kant’s original question in Conflict, about the progress of the human race, and again demonstrates Kant’s focus as being less with the actual ideal state than the transition to it, which, I would add, is another a reason why we should prefer the term idea to ideal. “It is certainly agreeable to think up political constitutions which meet the requirements of reason (particularly in matters of Right). But it is foolhardy to put them forward seriously, and punishable to incite the people to do away with the existing constitution.” (Conflict, 7:92) Kant’s intention, it is argued, is to plead the case for public judgment as having real effects on political life. Even as Kant resorts to teleology to guarantee humankind’s progress, Ellis maintains that the central issue remains the causality of freedom: human willing as a “force in the world”.143 She admits to supporting her advocacy of the public sphere in Kant’s political theory by drawing from notes to the main body (the Vorarbeiten) of the text, but believes this is justified due to Kant’s political caution. As evidence, she provides representative quotes: the expressed enthusiasm for the rights of man being able to shatter unjust rule “like brittle ice”; corrupt systems needing “no publicity if it is to succeed”; and, no ruler being able to “openly declare that he recognises no right of the people.” (Conflict, 7:87) Interestingly for this thesis, and like Flikschuh, Ellis finally grounds Kant’s divergence from social contract theory in the word “idea”. The social contract is an idea, she concedes, and it is the power of ideas that excites long-term reform. In addition, Ellis avows, ideas are wielded, unlike visions of perfect republican politics, by the common people (das Volk) themselves. Thus, because Right is an idea of reason, it is the fallible human judges that decide upon Right and their own evolution towards it. Here we find a very convincing account of what it

143 Ibid., p177. 112 means to be led by an idea of reason and a pragmatic demonstration of how we use ideas of reason to effect political change.

2.4 Conclusion This chapter has argued that the ideas of reason Kant presents in his political writings have an important function for establishing the political condition and allowing for its dynamic. This shows the connection between practical metaphysics - the use of ideas of reason - and political practice. Flikschuh illustrated how ideas of reason can be accounted for in Kant’s theory of politics: they establish a non-contractarian civil condition and condition the political obligation from a cosmopolitan view. A greater understanding of metaphysics is not necessary to make this point: ideas of reason are regulative and have political value.

That ideas of reason establish and maintain the political domain for Kant was, however, not the only concern of this chapter. It was also argued that ideas of reason actually give Kant’s political philosophy a unique dynamic which takes his theory out of the class of “strict Protestantism” and gives it a responsiveness that is appropriate to modern plural societies. Thus, an examination of the logic of Kant’s approach to political change showed how ideas of reason influence the decision to reform current political conditions. Deciding to follow an idea of reason is an act of pure or non- physical revolution, because it is an asymptotic progress: we work towards the idea and do not simply institute or achieve it. This means that being led by an idea of reason involves a decision to follow it and a constant negotiation of how best to approximate it.

Ellis’ account of the role of public judgement in provisional politics provides an account of how this decision and negotiation takes place. Collecting Kant’s political essays together and his remarks on publicity, Ellis maintains that public judgement is the motor behind Kant’s political thought. It is through our political discussion and shared testing of proposals and circumstances that we come to politics, and bring about practical changes. The political ideas of reason are necessary to public judgement. Ellis illustrates for my thesis how practical the ideas of reason are for politics: they are the standards against which politics is tested. In this way ideas of 113 reason are enlivened for a polity. This confirms that Kant provides his politics with ideas of reason as a mechanism to inspire and enact political change. They are dynamic and not supposed to be imposed universally or without interaction with actual political realities.

What is important to emphasise is that the political ideas of reason must be actively and practically sought. Flikschuh’s interpretation shows how ideas of reason found the civil condition, but also, that Kant’s conception of the relations of Right in the civil condition is a process of dynamic and provisional development and reform, rather than a single act of establishment. Flikschuh’s interpretation is based on the idea of freedom as a shared task of reason. However, in her focus on Kant’s pre- eminent concern to reconcile fact and idea or nature and freedom, there is no reference to Kant’s key political tool for this reconciliation: publicity. This is where Ellis is useful. It is through public judgement that we can observe how the shared task of humanity, that is, the idea of freedom, external freedom in particular, can be executed for real progress on this task. This progress represents political transformation for the benefit of all. Ellis’ shows us exactly how this political progress takes place: through public judgement. Ellis’ insight into the provisional nature of Kant’s political theory underlines the necessity of an inbuilt dynamic for change. I understand this to be found in the ideas of reason themselves as impossible end conditions and as responsive to the political decisions made to follow them.

Thus, the next chapter will continue to investigate Kant’s provision for publicity in politics and the fact that his publicity principles are transcendental. This is an argument about the practical metaphysical importance of public reason, one that will also be continued in the form of an analysis of Rawls in the Chapter Four. What we now conclude is the active role for the political of ideas of reason; their function is not simply to be mechanically applied but instead they are involved in the practical creation of politics. In the next chapter we will see exactly how practical the function of ideas of reason in politics can be in the primary idea of publicity. The idea of publicity is another way we can approach the political function of ideas.

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Chapter Three

Publicity as the Primary Idea for Politics

The previous chapter linked the practice of ideas of reason to an understanding of the productive character of Kant’s political philosophy. In particular, this means that the ideas of reason Kant presents in his political writings have an important function for establishing the political condition and sustaining its dynamic. Metaphysics offers politics a practice: the ideas regulate political activity. As demonstrated in Chapter One, the meaning of ideas of reason exists only insofar as they are instantiated and they rely on humans to perform this work. In Chapter Two we saw how Ellis acknowledges the power of ideas by way of emphasising the primary condition of public judgement in Kant. In this present chapter, I want to continue the investigation into Kant’s political philosophy by proposing that it is the idea and institution of publicity that grounds the human political work inspired by the ideas of reason themselves. This chapter will show that the practice of Kant’s political philosophy, as given by regulative ideas of reason, is grounded in publicity. Thus, we will see that the answer is “publicity” when it is asked, what is the ground of Kant’s political philosophy? Publicity is the transcendental idea and principle that creates a proper politics for Kant; it is the supreme political idea of reason.

Kant makes explicit mention of publicity as a transcendental principle of public right in both a negative and positive form in the second appendix of “Towards Perpetual Peace” [TPP]. However, other direct and indirect references pepper his entire critical philosophy. He states in the Transcendental Doctrine of Method in The Critique of Pure Reason: Reason must subject itself to critique in all its undertakings, and cannot restrict the freedom of critique through any prohibition without damaging itself and drawing upon itself a disadvantageous suspicion… The very existence of 115

reason depends upon this freedom, which has no dictatorial authority, but whose claim is never anything more than the agreement of free citizens, each of whom must be able to express his reservations, indeed even his veto, without holding back. (A739/B767)

This suggests an analytic relation between publicity and reason for Kant. Throughout his philosophy he underscores the relation between public freedom and reason; the power of reason lies in its capacity for critique, and this capacity is importantly external. Again in the Method, Kant refers to an idea of publicity in the section, “On having opinions, knowing, and believing”: “The touchstone of whether taking something to be true is conviction or mere persuasion is therefore, externally, the possibility of communicating it and finding it to be valid for the reason of every human being to take it to be true…” (A820/B848) This externality, or public status, of human reason seems to be simultaneously identifiable with Kant’s position on the apriority of pure reason. We know from Kant that transcendental or pure reason is public, but what does this apriority of publicity imply in practical political contexts where transcendental truth is not the grounds for critique? This is the question to be answered in this chapter. What is missing in the above quotes is the connection between reason and politics. If the practice of politics does not aim for the validation of absolute truth or popular rule (Kant is in this sense anti-democratic), what role does publicity play in Kant’s approach to politics? This chapter maps Kant’s idea of publicity at a conceptual level.

The first section of this chapter will therefore examine the idea of publicity as Kant presents it in his political writings. He ties the idea of publicity to the condition of enlightenment and develops the notion of an enlightened public reason. An enlightened public is presented as the concern of politics, thereby firmly directing the idea of publicity towards the political field. The second section of this chapter argues that the institution of publicity, in the form of the two transcendental principles of public Right that Kant presents in the second appendix to TPP, creates publicity as a special measure for politics, which in fact gives politics its own proper task that cannot simply be subsumed under morals.

The universality of reason is the essential condition of the moral law in Kant’s moral philosophy. And indeed Rawls believes that publicity is inherent in the moral 116 law.144 Therefore, in attempting a conceptual mapping of publicity it is also essential to discuss the relationship between politics and morals for Kant. The third section of this chapter will address this through an examination of the lengthy first appendix to the essay TPP, called “On the disagreement between morals and politics with a view to perpetual peace”. It is here that Kant calls Right the limiting condition of politics, which means that harmony between morality and politics must exist. But he also provides for the relationship between Right and politics in a way that gives a unique definition to politics. In addition, Kant juxtaposes two figures, the moral politician and the political moralist, which will also be used to explore the relationship between morals and politics in his political theory.

This chapter argues that publicity has a special role as an idea of reason in Kant’s political philosophy, one that is not only regulative of political maxims but additionally forms the practical ground for following the other political ideas of reason. The subsidiary theme flowing from this is the relationship between Right and morality given the primary political role of publicity. Thus, I show that the idea of publicity and its institutional expression in the two principles create a political test for good politics. This means that while there is continuity with Kant’s moral philosophy, the political theory bestows politics with its own realm. One strategy for proving publicity delineates a separate political philosophy for Kant is to dispute the claim that publicity consists in moral acceptability. This chapter proposes that the primary goal of publicity, particularly obvious in its institutional expression, is to test politics in terms of a political understanding of progress. The test is certainly about justice and moral coherence but also gives politics an independent standard of right and wrong. Kant’s idea and institution of publicity set up a test of political rightness, which does not exclude moral right, but pushes action in different directions. This is why Kant introduces the idea of publicity as a necessarily separate but corresponding idea to universality. Politics, for Kant, must establish the idea of public Right, the highest

144 “The publicity condition is clearly implicit in Kant’s doctrine… insofar as it requires us to act in accordance with principles that one would be willing as a rational being to enact as law for a kingdom of ends. He thought of this kingdom as an ethical commonwealth, as it were, which has such moral principles for its ‘public charter’.” See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. Cambridge Massachusetts: Belknap of Harvard University Press, 1991, p115. Rawls refers to a number of Kant’s texts to support his interpretation that publicity is implied by the moral law, however, all his references are from Kant’s political writings. This is an important point to keep in mind when we are examining, in section 3, how the principles of publicity work to pull politics in a different direction from the moral law. 117 condition of which is the idea of world peace, and indispensable to working towards this political goal is the political measure of publicity. Actions towards peace are grounded in their public reason.

The outcome of the argument of this chapter is as follows: publicity is clearly a political idea of reason; it gives us a measure for politics, which shows a difference between Kant’s political and moral principles. Publicity, as the ground for Kant’s political philosophy, reveals itself as the pre-eminent political idea. This assists us somewhat in ordering what Flikschuh observes as unstructured plethora of ideas of reason Kant presents in his political writings.145 If publicity is shown to define or ground the political, it must, therefore, be the primary political idea of reason.

This chapter aims at a Rawls-inspired delineation of Kant’s political thought, in so far as it involves a search for a type of freestandingness or lack of comprehensiveness to use Rawls’ terminology,146 an undertaking that Thomas Pogge also finds compelling. Pogge’s argument is that Kant’s political philosophy, as given in the Rechtslehre [RL], can be autonomous of Kant’s comprehensive philosophy. His separability thesis is that the RL does not necessarily presuppose the moral philosophy.147 This is a stronger claim than the one made in this chapter. I argue that publicity is the prime idea for politics that is designed for and comes of politics itself. It is an originally political concern that is different from that of the moral law. Publicity, however, aims not to deny the importance of morals for politics for it must in fact guide their union. Publicity simply gives politics a distinct measure for political progress, one that can occur independently of individual moral growth. Publicity as a practical use of reason remains tied to reason, as even the nation of

145 See Chapter Two, footnote 68, p60. 146 Rawls changes his theory of justice to a political liberalism because he claims that the first theory unrealistically requires citizens to endorse his public conception of justice on the basis of a Kantian ideal of the person that functions as a “general moral comprehensive doctrine.” A moral doctrine is general if it applies to all subjects universally and it is comprehensive when it includes conceptions of what is of value in human life that are to limit political and non-political conduct alike, that is to life as a whole. See Political Liberalism, [PL] expanded edition, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, p13, p175 & p374. A Theory of Justice presents itself as a comprehensive doctrine insofar as a well-ordered society is stable when the Kantian ideal of personhood limits the political and non- political conduct of its citizens, thus playing “a regulative role for all of life”. See PL, p99. 147 Thomas Pogge, “Is Kant’s Rechtslehre a ‘Comprehensive Liberalism’?” in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretive Essays, ed. Mark Timmons, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp133–158. 118 devils still need reason,148 and for Kant any use of practical reason cannot be entirely removed from morals. Kant’s practical metaphysics as based on the use of ideas of reason remains fundamental to Kant’s understanding of politics. Rather than engage directly with the nature of the dependence of the political theory on the moral philosophy I argue instead for the primacy of politics as its own practice. Publicity, as the primary practical political idea of reason, heralds for politics its own domain. This chapter argues that publicity is not about moral authority but peculiarly political progress: dependence on the moral law is not a sufficient condition for politics in Kant’s political philosophy.149

3.1 The idea of publicity: public enlightenment leads to proper politics TPP, in particular, the second appendix, is the main source of explicit information about the idea of publicity in Kant. The first appendix to TPP is the longest section of the whole peace essay and is titled, “On the disagreement between morals and politics with a view to perpetual peace.” The second appendix is called, “On the agreement of politics with morals in accord with the transcendental concept of public Right”, which is the idea of publicity. So if we take a broad look at the appendices we observe that Kant begins with a repudiation of the possibility of disagreement between politics and morals given the goal of perpetual peace before he gives us the means, i.e., publicity, for their guaranteed harmony in public Right. This structuring of the discussion about the relationship between morals and politics is edifying in and of itself. There can be no disagreement between politics and morals, it seems, as long as the moral goal, the idea of reason, peace, is kept in view. But if we are to ensure their mutual work on this path towards peace, then the path to be taken is that of public Right, which is in turn guaranteed by publicity. Publicity provides the means by which morals and politics can meet in a way that extends Kant’s philosophy to politics and is not merely the application of Kant’s moral philosophy to politics. Morals continues to apply, of course, but the activity itself is political. This discussion is the concern of section 3 of

148 I refer to the famous quote from TPP: “The problem of setting up a state … is solvable even for a people of devils (if only they have the understanding)…” (8:366) 149 The next chapter will analyse Rawls’ conception of public reason and its role in his theory of justice to test if it can function to found his version of liberal politics in the way he believes it to. That is, if it can function without a Kantian practical (metaphysical) system of ideas of reason. So the next chapter is in a sense an inversion of my enterprise in this chapter in that is a Kant-inspired research into Rawls’ theory. Both chapters, however, are devoted to the idea of public reason and the work it does in the respective political theories. 119 this chapter. What interests us now is the guarantee of public Right: the form of publicity.

3.1.1 Public Right, politics and their transcendental foundation After the detail of the preliminary and definitive articles, and the first and second supplements with their emphasis on the guidance of nature and philosophy, it is not until the last section of TPP that the “transcendental concept” of public Right, that is of all that underpins the ability and hope for peace, is posited by Kant. The second appendix is an examination of what can assist politics progress towards perpetual peace, in its slow movement towards cosmopolitan Right; what it is that can keep politics and morals in step together. The answer is publicity. Publicity is the transcendental foundation to public Right. But what is public Right?

Kant defines public Right in the beginning of Part II of the RL as: a system of laws for a people, that is, a multitude of human beings, or for a multitude of peoples, which, because, they affect one another, need a rightful condition under a will uniting them, a constitution (constitutio), so that they may enjoy what is laid down as Right. (RL, 6:311)

This condition is not just limited to what we call the civil condition, but also the state and international order. Public Right is, therefore, the cumulation of all three levels of Right; the right of a state, the right of nations and cosmopolitan Right. None of which, as we discussed in chapter two, exist independently of the others (RL, 6:311). Public Right is the system needed to support the principle of external freedom for all people in the world; this is a conception of the global structure for politics.

We can understand even in TPP, written two years before the RL, that Public Right is not limited to the institution of the state. In TPP publicity, as the transcendental concept of public Right, has an explicit cosmopolitan context. Certainly the state is presumed in public Right, we are familiar with the identity of Right in the republican constitution of a state, but the state is not necessary for the existence of right. As we saw in the previous chapter, in Flikschuh’s explanation of Right in terms of practical freedom and succinctly in Ellis’ emphasis on provisionality, private Right provides that Right, as the authority to enforce property ownership, can exist or at least be thought of without the state as the ultimate power. 120

There is only need for the state when rightful claims are controversial or under threat, that is when the claims need adjudicating and/or enforcing. However, there is more to the state for Kant than mere might. One definition he gives of the state is found in the explanation accompanying the second preliminary article to TPP. He outlaws the passing of ownership of states through “inheritance, exchange, purchase or donation” because “a state is … a society of human beings that no one other than itself can command or dispose of.” (TPP, 8:344) This is an idea found throughout Kant’s political essays, as discussed in the previous chapter where it was also noted that Kant’s idea of sovereignty is when the people hold the reigns. The universal principle of Right is “any action is Right if it can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxim the freedom of choice of each can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law.” (RL, 6:230) Therefore, when a society of people accepts this principle, the universal law of freedom, they legitimate political coercion, as a hindrance to a hindrance to freedom, and the state is thereby born. This principle demonstrates that Kant’s approach to Right exceeds the notion of the state, and following this, his conception of politics.150

In the first appendix to TPP Kant defines politics as the “doctrine of Right put into practice,” and morals as, the “theoretical doctrine of Right…”(TPP, 8:370) He is emphasising here that practical reason consists in both morals and politics: morals is the theory and politics is the practice. Moreover politics is not the practice of Right, but the practice of the doctrine of Right, the practice of the Rechtslehre, or the practice of what Right teaches.151 This means that politics can never be an application of Right itself, but rather is conditioned by the theoretical principles that bring Right about. Politics is not, therefore, subsumed by Right; it follows the nature of Right in order to negotiate a principled political practice. The RL, the doctrine of Right, provides that the basis of the rightful condition as expressed by public Right is found

150 Jeremy Waldron argues that Kant’s idea of the state is important from a moral point of view, such that it is an “institution that makes a systematic difference to what it is morally permissible for ordinary moral agents to do.” And yet its importance is also sociological and legal. My argument is that Kant’s conception of politics exceeds concern with the state such that it is in public Right that morals, sociology and legality come together. It is politics that gives efficacy to these disciplines. See Waldron, “Kant’s Theory of the State” in Kant, Towards Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace and History, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006, 179–200. 151 Pogge notes the ambiguity in the German word “Rechtslehre”, whereby the “lehre” can mean either an intellectual discipline or a particular theory. He prefers the latter and takes it to mean that the Rechtslehre presents a certain approach to Recht and if or how it can and should be manifested and managed. See Pogge, 2002, p140. 121 in the collective goal, that is, the willing of peace altogether. And this can be none other than a political activity. Public Right, therefore, as the system of maintaining all levels of Right in cooperation towards the goal of perpetual peace represents politics as a practice of the particular theory of Right. Politics is not simply a practice of Right, as this would be a mere application. Kant makes politics a practice of the doctrine of Right so as to ensure the empirical conditions that politics is working with are taken seriously. As is the case with morals in practical reason we cannot know the ends of our actions or even ourselves fully, all of which provides a greater imperative to make constant reference to our empirical limitations.

In the first appendix to TPP Kant also defines politics as the art of making use of the mechanism of nature for governing human beings. If there were no freedom or moral law derived there from, then politics would be “the whole of practical wisdom, and the concept of Right would be an empty thought.”(TPP, 8:372) Thus we see the tight bond between Right and politics. The concept of Right, from which politics derives its existence, is not empty because of the practical unity of freedom and politics; there is a necessary conjunction of Right and politics to the extent that Right is raised to the “limiting condition of politics.” (TPP, 8:372)

Another mention Kant makes of politics is in a passage that also emphasises the active human element in progress. This supports Ellis’ position, outlined in the previous chapter, which rejects Kant’s teleology as the basis for his politics because she believes that human willing is what causes historical goals to be achieved. For morals has in it the peculiarity – and indeed with respect to its principles of public Right (hence with reference to a politics cognisable a priori) – that the less it makes its conduct dependent upon the proposed end, the intended advantage whether natural or moral, so much the more does it harmonise with it on the whole; and this happens because it is just the general will given a priori (within a nation or in the relation of various nations to one another) that alone determines what is laid down as right among human beings; but this union of the will of all, if only it is acted upon consistently in practice, can also, in accordance with the mechanism of nature, be the cause bringing about the effect aimed at and providing the concept of Right with efficacy. (TPP, 8:378)

Politics is here presented as that which provides the concept of Right with efficacy. This reveals how a politics in theory only, that is a morals, could never reach 122 its goals. Again we see a base-level approach to politics. Kant says that a “distributive unity of the will of all” is not enough to further politics. (TPP, 8:371) This means that politics requires more than that each individual is prepared to follow the law. What politics demands is “the collective unity of the united will”, that the people “all together” will the condition of a lawful constitution founded upon the principles of freedom. (TPP, 8:371) Kant admits that it is a difficult task to unite the “particular volition of all” but it is only in this way that “a whole of civil society comes to be”, and, therefore, politics relies on “power”. (TPP, 8:371) Political power, gained through the idea of the general will and not necessarily the ordination of the state, is what enacts Right for Kant. The highest condition of Right is where all three levels of public Right operate for the peace and external freedom of all. Therefore, it is the willing of peace altogether that politics must practice; this is politics as the practical expression of the doctrine of Right.

Gerhardt, in his interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy as a self- determination thesis, maintains that TPP forms Kant’s definitive political treatise.152 Gerhardt argues that in this influential political work, Kant’s conception of politics receives its transcendental foundation, in the same way that knowledge, morals and Right receive their transcendental grounds in the other respective texts.153 The transcendental concept of public Right or the transcendental foundation for Kant’s political philosophy is the idea of publicity. This status for the idea of publicity, therefore, is consistent with the argument in the preceding chapters about the necessary operation of ideas of reason for politics. The difference is that, as we have already seen, Right itself is an idea of reason. Publicity as the transcendental concept of public Right, therefore, has a more foundational role in Kant’s political thought. Publicity has a more prominent role than the other political ideas of reason because it is the idea that grounds Kant’s understanding of the political.

3.1.2 The form of publicity, public reason and public enlightenment After the title of the appendix publicity is first mentioned as a “form”. Kant writes,

152 See Volker Gerhardt Immanuel Kants Entwurf ‘Zum ewigen Frieden’: eine Theorie der Politik Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995. 153 Gerhardt 1995, p198. 123

If I abstract from all the matter [Materie] of public Right as teachers of Right usually think of it (from the various empirically given relations of individuals within a state or also of states to one another), I am still left with the form of publicity [Form der Publicität], the possibility of which is involved in every claim to Right, since without it there would be no justice (which can be thought only as publicly knowable154) [die nur öffentlich kundbar gedacht werden kann] and so too no right, which is conferred only by justice. (TPP, 8:381)

Kant highlights three terms: matter, form of publicity and publicly knowable. Gerhardt observes that by abstracting from all the legal content of public Right, Kant is not interested in the tortured question of what is law. Rather, his real interest is the necessary existence of a conceptual form for public Right. His goal in abstracting from the empirical and even theoretical content of public Right is to locate the conceptual moment, a feature of Right and morals, that points us – systematically – towards politics.155 It is the form of publicity that Kant thinks performs this function. Publicity is for Kant what defines and characterises the relationship between Right and justice, between public Right and morals. Publicity permits the possibility of a path for politics that is true to both Right and morals.

Importantly, this goal of giving politics a path reveals the demands of the form under examination: its possibility depends on the interdependence of public Right and morals. The demand is for Right to be factually valid and morally justifiable. The answer, of course, lies in publicity. And, Kant advises, every claim to Right must be able to meet this demand, “this capacity of publicity.” (TPP, 8:381) Further it is easily recognised whether it is present or not such that publicity, “can yield a criterion to be found a priori in reason that is very easy to use” and that we can immediately identify the “falsity (illegitimacy) of the claim in question.” (TPP, 8:381) Kant then decrees the first transcendental formula of publicity, merely negative, but a priori: “All

154 Here I amend Mary Gregor’s translation of TPP from “publicly known” to a more accurate translation that maintains Kant’s emphasis here on the conceptual possibility of Right, justice and politics. See Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, ed. Mary J. Gregor, trans. Mary J. Gregor and Allen Wood, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p347. Kant emphasises öffentlich kundbar, which could be translated as publicly declarable, and this goes to the heart of the idea behind the form of publicity. The Nisbet translation in the Reiss edition of Kant’s Political Works agrees with me here. See Immanuel Kant, Kant's Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss, trans. H. B. Nisbet Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1970, p125. 155 This goal of systematicity is highlighted by Gerhardt, 1995, p187–188. 124 actions relating to the Right of others are wrong if their maxim is incompatible with publicity.” (TPP, 8:381)156

The form of publicity, therefore, reveals the first test of publicity, which Kant believes to be an obvious axiom and subsequently fails to explain it as an idea or its formulas in any sufficient detail. Kant’s earlier thoughts on the idea of the public also did not do exegetically much more than mention its opposite - the private. His 1784 essay, “An answer to the question: What is Enlightenment?” [WIE], describes those who speak to a “domestic gathering”, no matter how large, as making only a private use of reason. A priest, for example, is only speaking to his congregation, both as an “appointed teacher” and as a priest. The private use of reason is for obedience and not argument; it is about adhering to religious, civil and social institutions; for furthering their aims and beliefs; and not speaking as a free member of the “whole community or of a society of world citizens” and addressing the public in the proper sense. (WIE, 8:37). Thus it would be ruinous if an officer, receiving an order from his superiors, wanted while on duty to engage openly in subtle reasoning about its appropriateness or utility; he must obey. But he cannot fairly be prevented, as a scholar, from making remarks about errors in the military service and from putting these before his public for appraisal. (WIE, 8:38)

The public use of reason is where one “enjoys an unrestricted freedom to make use of his own reason and to speak in his own person.” (WIE, 8:38) The method of scholars for communicating, therefore, “speaks to the public in the real sense, that is, the world.” (WIE, 8:38)

This allocation of the public and private uses of reason is unfamiliar to us today; what we would call the reasoning of the public, as in governmental arena, like military officers, church officials and public servants, Kant demarcates as private. It is only when one speaks or acts independently of any official affiliation, what we may consider private actions, that this speech qualifies as public and this is where the only authority is pure reason. And, as far as pure reason is concerned, freedom must be unrestricted, whereas for social and civil practices or institutions it is more acceptable to limit freedom. But this distinction is problematic even in Kant’s ostensibly

156 Here I have amended Gregor’s translation again from her pluralisation of Recht (“rights”) to simply the singular Right. Referring to the Right of other people is more general and complex than their specific rights. 125 straightforward explanation. As noted in the previous chapter, Ellis discusses how Kant himself brings the clear-cut realms of public and private reason into question when he uses the example of the clergyman and his sermons as requiring only a private use of reason.157 The clergyman must adhere to the official church teachings, and may do so in good conscience even if he disagrees because their truth may elude him, subject to the proviso that “there is at least nothing contradictory to inner religion present in them.” (WIE, 8:38) So we can understand that when the clergyman preaches, his reason is private because it remains tied to the authority of the church and his conscience is clear even when he personally disagrees, but in such cases he can take his reason to the public and help correct any errors that the church doctrine contains. Outside his role as spiritual advisor and church official his reason is free. But the problem with this test of “inner religion” is that Kant is maintaining the authority of free reason, even within the use of private reason. He suggests that for the clergyman to live without blame, he must not espouse anything he believes to be wrong.

Rather, Kant is not talking about individual motivation when he divides the public from the private uses of freedom, he is referring to different realms. The form of publicity, therefore, is key to investigating whether Kant does delineate the political clearly from the moral. The public sphere is about the promotion of a sphere of life that is free from government and other institutional control, that will in turn influence and assist the progress of these necessary social constructs.

“Have courage to make use of your own understanding!” (WIE, 8:35) is the defining motto of the essay on enlightenment. Obviously this is tailored for individual use, but Kant quickly moves from naming causes of “self-incurred immaturity” (i.e., laziness and cowardice) to blaming certain societal “guardians” for inculcating dependence. The fourth paragraph begins: “But that a public should enlighten itself is more possible…” (WIE, 8:36) Further, if we turn to the historic context for the essay we discover that the question “what is enlightenment?” came as a sub-question to the theme of, “what is to be done towards the enlightenment of the citizenry?”158 Kant’s

157 Ellis, 2005, p19. 158 This was the title of J.K.W.Möhsen’s paper to the Mittwochgesellschaft on 17 Decemeber 1783, which incited the discussion regarding enlightenment, see “What is to be Done Towards the 126 overriding concern then in WIE is not the “ahistorical man” of the opening definition, but rather actual men organised as a public.159 Laursen argues that his “two hats” approach to public and private uses of reason was a subversive strategy to avoid official condemnation; but also to advocate to a sovereign the advantages of a free realm for public communication. His idea of the public does operate outside of the law, but hopes to improve legal provisions for society.160 And such an approach to politics was in fact provocative to the prevailing absolutism.

Laursen also explains that when Kant talks of the scholars, the “Gelehrten,” as those that make public use of reason, he was being very inclusive. He argues that if the three examples of soldier, clergyman and tax-paying citizen are all capable of acting as Gelehrten, then this covers most members of society by eighteenth-century standards.161 We must note, however, Kant’s distinction between active and passive citizens, as defined in the RL, based on the independence or not of the will of another. So women, children, any workers or servants not in the hire of the state, because they depend upon someone else to be fed, protected and employed, do not possess the civil independence necessary for citizenship proper. (RL, 6:314f) Habermas states that to be a part of the reasoning public one needs to privately own property; that civil independence originates in economic exchange.162 However, even when, as Ellis observes, the exact border between public and private is problematic, we readily understand the reference to “world” in the context of the idea of “the public”. Communicating to the world at large is an essential formal feature of public Right. Justice, Kant states in the primary quote above from the beginning of the second appendix, must be publicly knowable. So if there is to be a successful union of morals and politics along the path to Right, all of their positions must be open to the public’s understanding.

Kant’s keen interest in civil participation, an organised public and social enlightenment, illustrates that the real motive in searching for a form of publicity is to

Enlightenment of the Citizenry?” in What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions, ed. James Schmidt, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, p49. 159 For such a discussion and the historical context of the essay see Ellis 2005, pp11–40. 160 See John Christian Laursen, “The Subversive Kant: The Vocabulary of ‘Public’ and ‘Publicity’” in Political Theory Vol.14, No. 4, Nov., 1986, pp584–603. 161 Ibid., p589. 162 Jürgen Habermas, “Püblizität als Prinzip der Vermittlung von Politik und Moral” in Materialien zu Kants Rechtsphilosophie ed. Zwi Batscha, Frankfurt a.M Suhrkamp, 1976, p181–182. 127 make enlightenment, the “courage to think for oneself”, into a “public” way of thinking. Enlightenment is a public problem.163 Remember Kant’s basic premise for all politics is that the “touchstone of whatever can be decided upon as law for a people lies in the question: whether a people could impose such a law upon itself.” (WIE, 8:39)164 The logical direction behind the idea of “publicity”, the obvious axiom that Kant so inadequately explains in TPP, is how to motivate the political relation. Political publicity is more than a simple way of thinking and its authority originates with politics. Certainly, the idea of publicity intends to ensure a successful union between politics and morals but, as a structuring principle for Right and its institutions, it also ensures that the processes in society are political and not simply moral.165

Most discussion of publicity in Kant occurs when he is referring to the need for enlightened rulers; a means for testing the political pronouncements of politicians; and a way for the public to point out the ills of government or to flag injustices. The phrase, “think what you will but obey”, is often quoted as a summarising slogan from Kant, and implies that citizens’ use of public reason will be ineffective. Another reason to question the public’s ability to participate in publicity is Kant’s explicit mention in the second supplement to TPP of the desirability for good politics that philosophers be able to publicise their maxims. (TPP, 8:368-370) This reinforces a belief in the impractically universal and abstract transcendental nature of the reason Kant calls public. This understanding, however, is not necessarily fair. Ellis, for example, uses historical and textual evidence to portray Kant as strategically avoiding a connotation of a truly public reason because it would upset the rulers of the day.166 We can note that publicity is quite a brazen idea in Kant’s era. In addition, as argued in the previous chapter Kant explicitly provides for the people (das Volk) to be the holders of the reigns of government. Indeed, as shown above in the definition of politics, there is, contained within the theory of Right, the idea that it is the people’s political collective will that founds civil order. Remembering that civil order is the

163 Both Gerhardt and Ellis assert this conclusion, see Gerhardt, 1995, p193 and Ellis, 2005, p16. 164 Another example of this is found in “On the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice.” “What a people cannot decree for itself, a legislator also cannot decree for a people.” (8:304) 165 See Gerhardt, 1995, p194. 166 Ellis, 2005, pp24–32. 128 condition for there being any Right at all. The holders of public reason cannot, therefore, be restricted to government or academia; the form of publicity must imply a turn to a generally accessible political way of knowing and reasoning. The problem for political thinking that publicity addresses is the creation of an enlightened collective will.

3.1.3 Publicity and public knowability The question arises, what more is there to the idea of publicity as revealed in the third highlighted term, publicly knowable? It is useful here to turn to Onora O’Neill’s work on Kant’s conception of public reason (which includes various papers and her monograph Constructions of Reason).167 O’Neill discusses publicity without reference to the two formulas in the second appendix to TPP, concentrating instead on a plausible representation of public reason. Her work assists the exploration in this section of Kant’s “idea” of publicity, before we move to the next section, which directly discusses the contribution of the two political principles of publicity. The neglect of Kant’s a priori principles of Right, is not unusual in Kant literature - something I will return to when discussing them.

O’Neill’s starting point for public reason is reason’s vindication: how reason can assert itself as an authority in Kant’s practical philosophy. Thus, she introduces the idea of toleration to explain how reason is grounded for Kant. Communication is an action for O’Neill and not merely an expression of internal intellectual freedom: it belongs essentially to practice. She quotes from Kant’s essay What is Orientation in Thinking? [WOT]. “But how much, and how correctly, would we think if we did not think as it were in common with others, with whom we mutually communicate!” (WOT, 8:144) The primacy of practical reason means that it proves itself in practice, in the act of “mutual” communication. Communication, therefore, becomes the proper object of toleration. So the freedom to communicate that Kant advocates in WIE means that public reception is an inbuilt criteria.

167 Constructions of Reason, chapter 2 “The public use of reason”, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp28–51; see also “Political Liberalism and Public Reason: A Critical Notice of John Rawls, Political Liberalism” in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 106, No. 3, July 1997, pp411–428; and O’Neill’s address to the 9th International Kant Congress in Berlin 2000, “Kant’s Conception of Public Reason” see Akten des 9ten Internationalen Kant Kongress ed. Volker Gerhardt, Rolf-Peter Horstmann und Ralph Schumacher, Berlin/New York: Der Kant-Gesellschaft, 2001, Band 1, p35. 129

Whatever means of communication are available, communications may fail to be public if they do not meet standards for being interpretable by others. No amount of publicity can make a message that is interpretable either by no others or only by some others into a fully public use of reason. Effective publicity is politically important; but it presupposes that what is to be communicated is publicisable.168

This idea, of an act of reason being able to meet the comprehension of the public, is particularly vital to “enlightenment of the masses”. O’Neill writes, “publicisability is more fundamental than publicity.”169 The presumption is that only reason itself can authorise a public communication able to be mutually understood.

O’Neill is not interested in publicisability as a mere hypothetical test for public reason. The argument is rather that if we are interested in political progress, then a publicisable communication must also be made public: “A measure of publicizability is needed for publicity; and publicity in turn is needed for further development of standards of publicizability. Practices of toleration help constitute reason’s authority.”170 In the concluding section of her address to the 9th Kant Congress entitled, “Some surprises of reason”, she writes that Kant’s vindication for reason is “worldly”, by which she means not metaphysical, and denies that his view of public reason is in step with current “dialogical” accounts of it. She writes that “his most basic thought might be put quite crudely as the thought that we do not give others reasons unless we present them with a pattern of thought which (we think) they can follow, and that we do not give them unconditional reasons unless we present them with a pattern of thought which (we think) they can follow without adopting some arbitrary starting point.”171 This makes Kant’s idea of public reason sound less premised upon a universalisability, that is an hypothetical test of a unilateral expression of public reason, and more grounded in a principle of reciprocity of reasoning, like Rawls’ idea of public reason, which is taken up for analysis in the next

168 O’Neill, 1989, p33. 169 Ibid., p34. 170 Ibid., p39. Interestingly, this conception of the public use of reason has a very Rawlsian flavour: toleration of acts of communication that maintains the internal standard of reason is comparable to Rawls’ insistence on reciprocity as the condition for a shared forum for and mechanism of his public reason, this will be explained in the next chapter. Certainly and despite an intervening unfavourable comparison of Rawls with Kant in an article in 1997 (see “Political Liberalism and Public Reason: A Critical Notice of John Rawls” where O’Neill criticises the domestic limits of Rawls and praises the cosmopolitan scope of Kant’s public reason) by 2000 O’Neill’s description of Kant’s public reason becomes implicitly more Rawlsian. 171 See, O’Neill, 2000, p47. 130 chapter. O’Neill also portrays Kant’s critical idea of reason in terms of reciprocity. She draws on the First Critique and its intention of avoiding both unproductive and dogmatic ways of thinking by advocating genuine contention. She quotes Kant as suggesting that such a way of thinking is achieved when each party develops “the dialectic that lies concealed within his own breast no less that that of his antagonist.” (CPR, A754/B782)

Thus Kant’s idea of public reason is more than general communicability for O’Neill because she believes that it has a political purpose: progress. This is a purpose in common with all the political ideas of reason presented in the preceding chapter. That public reason aims for progress means that a natural limit is formed as to how policies are publicly presented; they need to be discussed in a way that honours mutual understanding. This means that the standard of the idea of publicity is narrower than a criterion for general information. O’Neill refers to paragraph 40 of The Critique of Judgment [CJ] to elaborate on what Kant means by “thinking for oneself”. Hannah Arendt was first to use this paragraph to interpret Kant’s political theory.172 O’Neill uses it to show the reflexive way that reason vindicates itself, that is, according to the general standpoint of humanity.173

Indeed, paragraph 40 of CJ can assist in articulating the substantive conditions for the public use of reason. In it Kant defends the “general communicability” of particular judgments of taste, and so he employs the “Gemeinsinn” (common sense) of the “sensus communis”. Actually he restricts this to the “idea” of a “gemeinschaftlichen Sinnes” (communal sense), which is “a critical faculty which in its reflective act takes account (a priori) of the mode of representation of everyone else, in order, as it were, to [simultaneously] weigh its judgement with the collective reason of humanity.” (CJ, 5:293) Note, the last phrase, rendered in German as “um gleichsam an die gesammte Menschenvernunft.” (KdU, V:293) So, taking account of everyone else’s way of representing occurs at the same time as holding it up to “human reason as a whole”. What this means is that “subjective private conditions” cannot, on the one hand, be mistaken for objective or, on the other hand, be simply dismissed as limited to the private sphere. These subjective private conditions must

172 Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, “Seventh Session”, Sussex: The Harvester Press Ltd., 1982, pp40–46. 173 O’Neill, 1989, p25–27. 131 actually be understood from the general perspective. Gerhardt also uses this passage in his exegesis of publicity, commenting that Kant is not here concerned with the empirical plausibility of such shared judgements, but rather with the possibility that humans can orient themselves towards the idea of a “gemeinschaftlichen Sinnes”.174 The idea of a communal sense aims at a type of reasoning, whereby the possible judgements of others are taken into account at the same time as the subject is privately judging. Again we observe the orientation function of ideas of reason for Kant.

In CJ Kant gives three maxims of common human understanding, which are: “1. To think for oneself; 2. To think from the standpoint of everyone else; 3. Always to think consistently with oneself.” (CJ, 5:293) These three maxims have obvious political connotations, especially in the context of an analysis of Kant’s idea of publicity. The first maxim Kant explains as advocating mature thought, as characterised by enlightened thinking; the second maxim promotes expanded thought, where one “reflects on his own judgement from a universal standpoint (which he can only determine by placing himself in the standpoint of others)”; and the third maxim of common human reason is “the hardest to attain” and is contingent on the manifestation of the first two maxims. (CJ, 5:294)

Kant therefore presents both enlightenment and common human reason as public problems. If we take the maxims of common human reason seriously then we are directed towards the possibility of a truly public way of thinking; one that is oriented towards the world at large. Ideas of reason in general contain this mechanism of orientation. The idea of publicity in particular orients human communication towards political progress, and as we have seen in the previous chapter, progress is the ratio essendi of Kant’s political philosophy. The idea of publicity, therefore, must be in some way fundamental to the practice of Kant’s political philosophy. We move now from the above analysis of Kant’s idea of publicity to his institutional expression of it, namely the two formulas of public right.

174 Gerhardt, 1995, p191. 132

3.2 The Institution of Publicity Thus far in this chapter I have argued for publicity as a unique idea of reason in politics. Kant goes further in his explanation of the role of the idea of publicity by presenting two transcendental formulas of public Right. This confirmation of a constitutive function for the idea of publicity suggests that Kant establishes politics as a public, Right-based sphere.175 And this is my contention: it is in the practice of publicity that politics finds its ground. At the heart of publicity lies political practice, which is why Kant furnishes his politics with two principles of publicity. These principles can only achieve their political effect insofar as they address the rightful condition of human social order. They are indeed the transcendental principles of publicity but this compatibility between metaphysics and human practice lies at the core of my whole thesis. Kant’s political philosophy operates according to his practical metaphysics in the political use of ideas of reason. Let us now turn from the idea of publicity to its institutional expression in the form of negative and positive principles.176

We find both transcendental formulas of public Right in the second short appendix to TPP. Kant quickly presents the negative formula of publicity, even more swiftly explains it, and then moves on to three examples of its application. It decrees, “All actions relating to the right of others are wrong if their maxim is incompatible with publicity.” (TPP, 8:381) This explains that publicity is the necessary condition of Right (which is why I have amended the Gregor translation from the English plural “rights of others”). Kant’s examples of this principle in action, where there is a disagreement between politics and morals, are the legitimacy of rebellion, the ill- formed promise of secession and pre-emptive attack, all of which fail the negative test of publicity.

175 Habermas comments that Kant conceived of “the public sphere” at once as the principle of the legal order and as the method of enlightenment. See The structural transformation of the public sphere. An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society, trans. Thomas Burger, Cambridge: Polity Press 1989, p104. 176 I borrow the division of publicity into idea and institution from Gerhardt, 1995, who divides his exegesis of the logic of publicity in Kant into publicity as an idea and as an institution, see chapter 9, 1995, pp186–211. 133

Kant’s negative formula is not sufficient to furnish his politics with a means to test whether a maxim is actually just.177. As he writes, even after the negative test of publicity is passed, “it cannot be concluded, conversely, that maxims compatible with publicity are on that account also just, since one who has decisively superior power has no need to conceal its maxims.”(TPP, 8:385). Thus, a second formula is necessary to advise what maxims are in fact just. The “transcendental and affirmative principle of public right” therefore decrees: “All maxims which need publicity (in order not to fail in their end) harmonise with Right and politics combined.” (TPP, 8:386) This is difficult to understand but even more so given Kant’s own scant explanation of this principle. He writes, if maxims “can attain their end only through publicity, they must conform with the universal end of the public (happiness), and to be in accord with this (to make the public satisfied with its condition) is the proper task of politics.” (TPP, 8:386) The direct reference to happiness as protagonist in the drama of politics heralds a bold assertion of difference between Kant’s moral and political philosophy.

How do these principles of publicity together ground political activity for Kant? To this end I will survey the very little discussion of these formulas in Kantian scholarship. In the limited reference in the literature to the publicity principles, however, there seems to be two broad camps. The first camp is critical of Kant’s formula of publicity for its lack of commitment to liberal material political justice, meaning that the principle merely tests hypothetically and is measured by the ideal rational standards of morality. The other camp is constituted by those who would interpret the institutional formulas of publicity as having an effect on material justice. This means that the test is taken to broadly determine public and, as I will argue, political acceptability. This acceptability is actual rather than ideal insofar as the political or legal determination must in principle be directed towards everyone and their conditions. This is not to say those in this second camp see a discontinuity between Kant’s moral and political philosophy, but some of their arguments assist my project of showing that the institutional expression of publicity pushes thought and action in another, supplementary, direction to morality.

177 Claudia Langer’s study of Kant’s political theory is remarkable because of its focus on principled political reform. Although she too glosses over Kant’s formulas of publicity rather briefly, she observes that the positive formula is not a simple inversion of the negative and nor can it be. See Claudia Langer Reform nach Principien. Untersuchungen zur politischen Theorie Immanuel Kants Stuttgart: Klett- Cotta, 1986, p45. 134

3.2.1 The negative principle of publicity: a moral versus political criterion We begin with a discussion of the first camp of commentators. They have in common a refusal to give Kant’s political philosophy a practical-material grounding in publicity. This is because they think publicity is a hypothetical test conducted by reference to the a priori standard of morality. It is important to note that none of these commentators examines the second positive formula of publicity. In this camp I place Kevin Davis178, David Luban179 and Axel Gosseries.180 These commentators make dedicated analysis of Kant’s institution of publicity resulting in a broadly critical response. They represent a general argument that because the negative formula of publicity provides a merely hypothetical test, it at best hopes to encourage actual publication of political determinations (Luban),181 and at worst authorises esoteric political decision-making (Davis).182 Davis remarks that while Kant is influenced by Rousseau in incorporating popular acceptance into the legitimacy of law, when he makes the principle of publicity transcendental he, “has the curious result of making actual public approval irrelevant to the justice of any law or political action”, thereby providing for “extreme degrees of secrecy and suppression in politics.” Davis believes, therefore, that Kant is not a proponent of the liberal values of freedom of expression, openness in government and popular rule.183

Davis distances Kant from classical liberal theory by interpreting the principle of publicity as a “version of the categorical imperative”, which, because it is a priori, means actual approval by the polity is not required.184 He is also of the opinion that publicity answers the moral question for politics, that is, it keeps politics aligned to the moral law. Luban, writing from an institutional theory context, makes a more practical and complex analysis of the publicity principle. While he concludes that the [negative] test does not require policies actually be publicised and that it is a moral

178 See Kevin R. Davis, “Kantian ‘Publicity’ and Political Justice” in History of Philosophy Quarterly vol. 8, no. 4, October 1991, pp 409–421. 179 See David Luban “The Principle of Publicity” in Robert E. Goodin (ed.) The Theory of Institutional Design, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 180 Axel Gosseries “Publicity”, 2005, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Winter 2005 edition. URL = . Gosseries, however, is singular in that he does note in a footnote a distinction between what he calls the hypothetical publicity test and “the one” he does not discuss. See fn 2. 181 Luban, 1996, p157. 182 Davis, 1991, p409f. 183 Ibid., p409. 184 Ibid., p409. 135 proposition, including for individual morality, he acknowledges that, if the principle is true, “the best way to make sure that officials formulate policies that could withstand publicity is by increasing the likelihood that policies will withstand publicity.”185 Luban criticises the formula for its practical limitations but attempts a reconstruction of it as a “principle of rational scepticism” on the part of political officials.186 Gosseries criticises the [negative] principle for applying only to an ideal rational public, thereby failing to prevent secrecy in public policy. First, because the maxim to test against the principle cannot be normatively fixed by virtue of the ideal public being addressed; and second, because he finds the link between a self- frustrating maxim and justice is tenuous. (Kant’s examples, as we will discover below, of maxims that fail the negative test are ruled to be self-frustrating and therefore unjust).

Davis argues that political maxims need to be morally acceptable in order to pass the test of publicity because it derives its authority and application from the categorical imperative. Davis shows that both the publicity principle and the categorical imperative embody the idea of the wrongness of a self-defeating maxim. So, moral evil is self-destructive because when immoral actions are viewed as a universal practice they would then be seen to cancel out the conditions that allow them to succeed for individuals.187 Thus we have Kant’s famous example of lying: permitting a lie thwarts the institution of truth-telling, which thereby defeats the intention to create an exception to the institution. Therefore, a moral maxim must be considered as a universal law in order to be deemed consistent with the moral law, the categorical imperative. According to Davis the publicity principle proceeds in the same way, even if it has a more concrete practical focus. So, Kant proves the effectiveness of publicity by its ability to rule out any self-frustrating maxims. His most famous example is rebellion: a public declaration of an intention to revolt will inevitably cause the government to prevent such action, therefore the rebel’s cause is lost. For Davis, both the CI and the negative principle of publicity decree that a maxim is self-defeating when it contradicts the universal principle of relevance. Therefore he equates publicity with universality and posits the moral law as the

185 Luban, 1996, p157. Compare O’Neill’s argument in section 3.1.3 above about publicity needing publicisability. 186 Luban, 1996, p195. 187 Davis, 1991, p411. 136 determining criterion of publicity. The publicity condition as Davis understands it is dependent on a hypothetical, rational situation like that of the CI. This situation is an ideal public of rational agents that judges the moral acceptability of maxims.

This interpretation is unconvincing. While it is true that the publicity principle demonstrates that politics too has a transcendental foundation, what it sets up is not a call for a moral universalism. Publicity is rather the necessary condition for politics, as the first formula clearly states. It is the apriority of the test of publicity that convinces Davis of the need for political maxims to comply with the moral law. Certainly Kant comments that the test is applied “as if by an experiment of pure reason”(TPP, 8:381) and that the opposition to a wrong maxim can be foreseen a priori. (TPP, 8:381) And as a necessary condition it is agreed that publicity is like the categorical imperative insofar as it is a formal criterion of reasonableness. Davis is mistaken, however, when he makes consistency, that is the lack of logical contradiction, as the decisive factor in the proof of the principle. Davis makes or uses a misleading translation of the principle as decreeing that maxims must be “consistent with publicity”, which is also Lewis White Beck’s 1957 translation188. The German phrase is “sich nicht verträgt” and implies only incompatibility and not contradiction.189 Davis makes the disharmony between the maxim and publicity a case of logical contradiction rather than a matter of practical incompatibility. The latter is more appropriate to the field of politics because politics must refer to its own conditions.

Thus, if we take the context of the publicity principle into consideration – the transition from morals to Right and politics – then perhaps we can gain more insight into its content. Kant’s text is instructive for us here: This principle is not to be regarded as ethical only (belonging to the doctrine of virtue) but also as juridical (bearing upon the right of human beings). For a maxim that I cannot divulge without thereby defeating my own purpose, one that absolutely must be kept secret if it is to succeed and that I cannot publicly acknowledge without unavoidably arousing everyone’s opposition to my project, can derive this necessary and universal, hence a priori foreseeable, resistance of everyone to me only from the injustice with which it threatens everyone. (TPP, 8:381)

188 Ibid., p410. See also Kant, “Towards Perpetual Peace”, in Kant: On History, Lewis White Beck, ed., Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1957, p129. 189 Cf Luban, 1996, who also observes this distinction, p 155. 137

In contrast to Davis’ emphasis on the logical incompatibility of a self- defeating political maxim, Kant is here explicitly referring to a practical impossibility: the political maxim cannot be carried out because of public opposition, and not because of logical contradiction. The first transcendental formula of public Right does not aim to test the theoretical consequences of a given maxim for a lack of contradiction. When the test is applied in its proper context of public Right publicity aims to test practicability and not logic. Gerhardt argues that in Kant’s words, “opposition of everyone to my project”, we may of course suppose the inclusion of a concept of contradiction but we cannot limit our interpretation to a vocal opposition. He argues that politics is inherently about action, therefore, the opposition my project arouses implies that I am causing actual resistance. The opposition Kant refers to is practical and effective activity against those who would follow secret goals.190 O’Neill could be included in this interpretation of active opposition rather than logical inconsistency in so far as she states that “communication is action”. For O’Neill it is the practical use of principles that determines their status in reason and it is only by encouraging the public use of reason that we can find out which principles are not self-defeating. 191 Thus O’Neill and Gerhardt represent public reason in a light that tends towards viewing publicity not as an hypothetical moral test, but rather a practical political one.

The practical standard of the publicity test is further demonstrated in the examples that Kant gives for the “simple” operation of the first transcendental formula. Gosseries, although he agrees with Davis that it is a hypothetical test put to an ideal public, notes that all the examples involve non-ideal publics.192 In the first set of examples, taken from the field of the Right of a state, Kant asks: “Is rebellion a legitimate means for a people to throw off the oppressive power of a so-called tyrant?” (TPP, 8:383) The transcendental principle of publicity easily answers this with a simple, no! This is not, Kant explains, because of the moral evil of revolution, indeed morality may be on the rebels side, but rather because “no state at all would be possible, though the people’s aim was to establish one.” (TPP, 8:383) A people

190 See Gerhardt, 1995, p201. 191 See O’Neill, 1989, p43, where she writes, “reason’s authority consists in the fact that the principles we come to think of as principles of reason are ones that are neither self-stultifying nor self-defeating in use.” 192 Gosseries, 2005, 1.3.2. 138 cannot attempt to create a head of state while allowing for permissible breaches of that highest power. Kant calls rebellion “wrongful” but he means this in a clearly political sense. If rebels “publicly acknowledge” a maxim of revolution they would be eliminating their own goals as the government would be forewarned and would legitimately act to punish those involved. Obviously an insurrection against the government needs to be clandestine; such a project, therefore, receives a practical obviation through its public declaration. In other words, an intention to revolt is not compatible with publicity, the condition of and for Right.

On the other hand, in the second example with regard to the Right of a state, the maxim to punish those involved in the rebellion by the sovereign is entirely compatible with publicity. Whilst a plan to rebel, in order to succeed, must be kept silent, a head of state has no need for secrecy: He can freely declare that he will punish any rebellion with the death of the ringleaders, even if they believe he was the first to transgress the fundamental law; for if the head of state is aware of possessing irresistible supreme power (and this must be assumed to be the case in any civil constitution, since he who does not have enough power to protect each one among the people against the others does not have the Right to command the people either), he need not be concerned that he will thwart his own purpose by acknowledging his maxim... (TPP, 8:382)

Gosseries concludes that this is simply a test of power relations such that “the stronger a despotic power, the larger the spectrum of maxims that may pass the publicity test…”193 But the point Kant is here underscoring is that the immediacy or simplicity of the application of the publicity criterion becomes apparent in an already rightful context. The rebels are harming the legal order with their plans, and their punishment is thereby already given by Right, quite unrelated to the power of the despot. In any case, if it were an expedient whim that the sovereign was attempting to act upon, it too, if publicised, would receive its practical comeuppance because it would contradict the unity of morals and politics, without which Right is not possible.

It may not be consistent with our private moral maxims to grant obedience to a tyrant, but a rebellious cause cannot claim political legitimacy. To be in accordance with justice, a cause must be capable of general accessibility and public

193 Ibid., 1.3.2. 139 acknowledgement. Right is completed through (empirical) general promulgation. This is why Kant, in the last sentence of the example, prescribes that even in the case of a violent revolution, the new ruler must be obeyed as a legitimate authority, and the dethroned ruler becomes a subject, who may not attempt to rebel and restore his previous status, “but also need not fear being called to account for his previous administration of the state.” (TPP, 8:383) There is no moral consistency in Kant’s examples. The picture created is rather that publicity is about the practical reconcilability of an action, and this is the determining factor for the protection of a rightful social order. We can conclude from this dual first example that the negative principle of publicity operates in the field of public Right for the sake of rightful politics. It safeguards the public arena for free and peaceful human interaction.

Luban offers a qualified reading of the first publicity principle that attempts to defend the hypothetical test of publicity as a test of the morality of public action. Interestingly, he disputes the proposition that testing the moral wrongness of public law by means of the categorical imperative is Kant’s intention or is at all productive. He assesses Rawls’ statement in A Theory of Justice, quoted at the outset of this chapter, about publicity being implied by the moral law. Luban argues that Kant simply combined the universalisability and publicity components of the moral law and termed it “universal law”.194 However, although Luban regards the interpretive question of whether Kant intended to relate the publicity principle to the moral law as “textually too ambiguous for a clear cut answer”,195 he argues that there is a deep problem with attempting to base the publicity principle on Kantian morality. The problem is that publicity is built into the categorical imperative because morality was conceived as law-like, and for Kant law is what can be made public. So, to say that law incapable of publicity is immoral, does not tell us much if morality itself has been defined as a kind of law. In other words, while a violation of publicity also violates universalisability, that is, the categorical imperative, this fails to add any further requirement to the test.196

We can assess this argument of Luban’s by giving examples where publicity does not require consistency with the moral law to make the case for publicity as

194 Luban, 1996, p180. 195 Ibid., p181. 196 Ibid., p182. 140 establishing an institutional mechanism for a political realm. One strategy could be to find a maxim that meets the moral criteria but not the political. While Kant states that publicity is also a condition for moral correctness, we can think of examples where a maxim would pass the categorical imperative but not the publicity imperative. For example, I promise to keep your secret would certainly meet Kant’s moral test; we know that he stands firm on the inviolability of promises, but this moral act cannot be publicised and so cannot enter politics. We could also argue that it is morally unacceptable to obey a tyrant, as Christine Korsgaard has done to justify a case for revolution within Kant’s philosophy.197 But the maxim of obedience satisfies the political test of publicity. Korsgaard in her argument for morally legitimate revolution misjudges Kant’s political philosophy because he makes obedience politically required; there is no question of the moral acceptability of obedience to a sovereign. In this case the condition of public Right constitutes the political value that overrides the perhaps morally righteous rebellion. Another example may be taken from refugee law where an illegal arrival may claim no rights in the territory. This may not accord with a moral standard of equality but may be justified with political and legal considerations. A similar case can be made for the deprivation of rights for prisoners. There is no moral consistency with these examples; however, legal arguments could be made coherently and legitimately.

While such examples may be useful to the argument that the publicity principle aims at political and not moral acceptability, they are not necessary. They fail to demonstrate the incompatibility of politics and morals and nor is this necessary. Indeed it is exactly their harmony that Kant is trying to affirm in the first place. The point is that the categorical imperative and the test of publicity aim at different types of actions, pull in different directions and have different contexts: the publicity principle must extend the universalisabilty test as Luban suggests. According to the first publicity principle, a maxim may be morally acceptable, however, for tout court correctness it needs to be politically acceptable. So, when the principle requires that, “all actions relating to the Right of others are wrong if their maxim is incompatible with publicity”, Kant is speaking of a political wrong. This may indeed include a

197 See Christine Korsgaard “Taking the Law into Our Own Hands: Kant on the Right to Revolution” in Reclaiming the history of ethics: essays for John Rawls edited by Andrews Reath, Barbara Herman, Christine M. Korsgaard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp296–328. 141 moral and legal wrong, but adds a further requirement to these conditions. Howard Williams, who I will discuss below as a member of the second affirmative camp of commentators on publicity in Kant, acknowledges a general split between Right and virtue in Kant: “Juridical laws, although necessary and moral, therefore, are not wholly free from contingency which has its justification in man’s imperfectly moral nature.”198 He says the freedom of Right is not constructive as moral freedom is; therefore, it is entirely possible that we can act in “accordance with the principle of right yet act unvirtuously.”199

Publicity is the transcendental foundation for public Right. Right is the domain of application for the publicity test. The aim is for the creation of the sphere of political acceptability that requires an empirical, not ideal, public. The postulate of public Right, as stated in the RL, provides that “when you cannot avoid living side by side with all others you ought to leave the state of nature and proceed with them into a rightful condition.” (RL, 6:307) Real people constitute the rightful condition, and it is of no concern to Kant that this postulate arises, “analytically from the concept of Right in external relations”, what matters is that it is free from “violence”. (RL. 6:307) Chapter Two mentioned Ellis’ proposal that it is public judgement that ensures that, for Kant, state formation is peaceful. The idea of Right, of establishing and maintaining a rightful political condition, is necessarily linked to the principle of publicity being the test of an actual public. Jürgen Habermas argues that the publicity principle requires actual publication of political policies.200 This position takes us down the path of Ellis’ provisional politics where the test would be of an actual – peopled - public and, further, apply to policies that can only be useful under certain circumstances.

The rightful condition is achieved as public Right when there is, according to the definition of the concept given in the opening sentence to the section in the Rechtslehre on public Right, “allegemeine Bekanntmachung” or general acknowledgement of the laws. This is Kant’s only mention of publicity in the RL and the Gregor translation runs: “The sum of the laws which need to be promulgated

198 Howard Williams, Kant’s Political Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1983, p68. 199 Williams, 1983, p68. 200 Habermas, 1989, p108. 142 generally in order to bring about a rightful condition is public Right.” (RL, 6:311)201 This means valid laws are those that need to be openly and generally declared. Certainly therein lies an abstract demand of declarability, as the standard of the first formula implies, but also, at the same time, the need for an acknowledgement, a reception of the law, in order to build the condition of public Right, which is suggested by the second formula we will shortly discuss. This requirement is missed when publicity is deemed to apply only to a rational, ideal public. Kant is speaking about a transcendental principle for public Right that can only be instituted when there is general acknowledgement of the laws. This is what the first formula requires, and therewith provides the mechanism for promulgation of just law and not merely abstract testing. The publicity principle underlines the transcendental foundation of politics and also creates the practice of good politics: the allgemeine Bekanntmachung of Right. Right is only rightful when all people enter willingly, that is freely and without violence, into this condition. Therefore, publicity avoids the coercion that the idea of external freedom opposes and that is not appropriate to a politics where the sovereign power is the public itself. Publicity replaces coercive politics because it ensures that the general will is behind political determinations; it permits the grand idea of justice to have an effect on the world, without violence.202

As we have seen above, Kant’s own examples argue for the political content of the negative publicity test. There is one example he explicitly omits: the world state. In the examples of the application of the publicity test Kant proceeds through the three levels of Right. The example of rebellion was with regard to the Right of the state. With regard to the Right of nations Kant demonstrates the failure of the negative publicity test in three cases, all of which show an antinomy between politics and morals. These are (1) when a sovereign exempts himself from a pact with another nation by claiming a dual legal personality whereby as sovereign he is only bound to those of his state and yet as the highest authority of the state unaccountable to anyone within it (TPP, 8:383-384); (2) pre-emptive attack between states is an example of a public declaration proving the injustice of a maxim of political prudence (TPP,

201 Interestingly Rawls uses the Reiss translation that reads “Public Right is the sum total of those laws which require to be made universally public in order to produce a state of right.” See Rawls A Theory of Justice, p133. 202 For a more comprehensive argument along these lines see Ellis, 2005, Chapter 5 “The Judging Public” pp155–180. 143

8:384); and (3) might does not equal Right: if a smaller territory divides a larger one there is no justification for forcibly annexing the smaller state. (TPP, 8:384) Curiously when Kant comes to an example of cosmopolitan Right he says, “I pass over it in silence here; for, because of its analogy with the Right of nations, its maxims are easy to state and evaluate.” (TPP, 8:384)

In the preceding pages of TPP Kant has claimed that reason demands a world state but we must be content with the “negative surrogate” of a league of nations. (TPP, 8:357) When we take political acceptability to be the standard of publicity, we can read this as less than a scandal it may first appear and can understand how examples from cosmopolitan Right are obvious.203 The failure of a world state as the preferred option for a cosmopolitan order is not a realist rejection of impossibility,204 nor is it the moral failure of states declining to join up to an authoritative world order. The federative union of states is rather a practical outcome that ensures the union of Right and morals according to what is politically acceptable. Kant writes in the second appendix after his examples, that

a federative condition of states having as its only purpose the avoidance of war is the sole rightful condition compatible with the freedom of states. Thus the harmony of politics with morals is possible only within a federative union (which is therefore given a priori and is necessary by principles of Right)… (TPP, 8:385)

The world state is not an immoral entity for thwarting the freedom of states; it remains the ultimate condition. Nor is the federation of states a merely pragmatic concession to reality. What is politically manageable, that is, able to ensure the co- determinacy of Right and morals, becomes Right. “The condition under which a Right of nations as such is possible is that a rightful condition already exists.” (TPP, 8:385) The negative publicity test can establish whether or not a condition is rightful not by referencing morality but rather by establishing what is politically acceptable. A federation of states does not forgo the (moral) idea of reason of a world state nor does it plunge relations between states into a state of nature. The maxim that war is wrong

203 Pauline Kleingeld makes a sensible interpretation of Kant’s advocacy of the ostensibly less pure option of a league of nations when she observes that the league of nation is the best possible path for promoting the ideal of a state of states. See “Kant’s Theory of Peace”, Kant and Modern Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp477–504, in particular pp483–486. This approach is certainly in keeping with the provisionality thesis of Ellis and Flikschuh’s understanding of ideas of reason, in addition my argument about the practical nature of political ideas of reason; the world state is called a “positive idea” that “is right in thesi”(8:357). 204 See Kleingeld, 2006, p485. 144 passes the publicity test because it creates a condition that balances moral imperatives and the possibility of progress towards Right. This is the job of politics.

These are strong arguments against publicity being a hypothetical test of an ideal public. Even if we are not yet convinced that the negative test requires political policies to be publicly pronounced as opposed to policies being in principle publicisable, we have moved closer to the position of O’Neill and the suggestion by Luban. This is the conclusion that a test of publicisability is the best, if not necessary, condition for publicity. The first publicity test is like a categorical test for politics, however, we need to consider how, in its proper political context, it adds to the universal law test. But for a more correct assessment regarding Kant’s institution of publicity, we need to now turn to the second transcendental formula of public Right.

3.2.2 The positive principle of publicity and the true task of politics It is interesting that the second camp of commentators on Kant’s institutional provisions for publicity are all those which at least acknowledge the second positive principle, which is: All actions which need publicity (in order not to fail in their end) harmonise with Right and politics combined. (TPP, 8:386)

Gerhardt, who makes a rare sustained analysis of the second formula, observes that this formula signifies that we are no longer dealing with protecting and maintaining the rightful condition, as in the first formula, or concerned with removing the barriers to freedom, the central task of Right. He believes that this version of the publicity principle deliberately and explicitly refers to politics itself, and not simply public Right: it gives politics its own sphere of action.205 For the purposes of this thesis, therefore, the second formula of publicity cannot be ignored, as it is foundational to Kant’s understanding of politics. The first formula is negative only: it reveals only what is “not right toward others” (TPP, 8:382). The positive publicity principle, on the other hand, guides us as to what maxims are “also just” (TPP, 8:384): it introduces to politics a specific measure for its own purposes. The second “affirmative” principle of public Right instructs what is right for others. (TPP, 8:386)

205 Gerhardt, 1995, p207. 145

Politics, therefore, has its own scale and requires its own positive objectives. Kant reveals the “proper task of politics”; and explains the positive transcendental principle of public Right thus: For if they [the maxims] can attain their end only through publicity, they must conform with the universal end of the public (happiness), and to be in accord with this (to make the public satisfied with its condition) is the proper task of politics. (TPP, 8:386)

The second formula of publicity is primarily concerned with “happiness”: the proper task of politics consists in making people satisfied with the conditions of public Right. This end of politics certainly proves many who dispute the place of happiness in Kant’s practical philosophy wrong. Guyer, in an example from a discussion of Kant’s political philosophy, states that the task of government according to Kant is not to advance welfare and happiness.206 Certainly Kant was anti-paternalistic in his ideas about government. However, as is obvious from the explanation of the second positive formula of publicity, the unique function of politics is public contentment, even if we read this end minimally as implying a willing compliance by citizens to social provisions.

Howard Williams proposes that together the publicity principles require political policies to be accepted and actively desired by the people. This is a requirement on the ruler to prove that not only the people are acquiescent to the policies but also that they are the policies for which they call.207 Langer agrees that publicity requires actual active acceptance, agreement and support of proposed government policies. She believes that these formal principles of public Right imply a material justice, meaning that the content of laws proceed from the practical endorsement of the public.208 Thus, all citizens are aware of the absolute obedience

206 Guyer, 2000, p263. 207 Williams, 1983, p152. 208 Langer, 1986, p45. These arguments belong to a more specifically political analysis of Kant’s relation to liberal theory and democracy, with which I am not presently concerned, but arise in the context of analysis of publicity. Luban proposes that the publicity principle can only be argued from the basis of popular sovereignty, p192. Davis thinks that on his interpretation of publicity Kant’s theory is proved anti-democratic. Simone Chambers divides the function of publicity into a democratic one – are policies in the public interest? – and a “Socratic” one – are policies based on the best possible reasons? And decides that the democratic function can be achieved in secret hypothetically, while the Socratic function “often cannot”. See “Behind Closed Doors: Publicity, Secrecy, and the Quality of Deliberation” in The Journal of Political Philosophy vol., 12, no. 4, 2003, p407. 146 that the rightful condition requires of them (see, for example, the discussion above in the example of a moral rebellion) and is also essential to maintaining a peaceful stable society.

Furthermore, Williams makes clear that what publicity ensures is that this obedience is “won” and not coerced.209 Stated above is the distinction Williams makes between the principles of Right and virtue. This is based upon the difference he notes between freedom of conscience and publicity. Publicity has a restricted social context; the principle of freedom in Right is about preventing a hindrance to freedom. Williams believes that Kant is not concerned with the problem of individual freedom to choose in his political theory, but rather with “the problem of the political use of reason to seek to change the existing system.”210 This is the prevailing concern of Kant’s political thought - progress - to which this present thesis continually returns. Williams’ point is that political freedom, as regulated by publicity, prevents one citizen from dictating to others the nature of their political arrangements. Thus Williams explains Kant’s use of Frederick the Great’s motto: “Argue as much as you will and about whatever you will, but obey!”(WOT, 8:37) Public reason is still the domain of a loyal citizen for criticising their government, as well as the rightful path to a stable enlightened society, but there are limits to public reason. Hence publicity, as directed at political progress, ensures that those limits are respected.

This suggests that the happiness of the public referred to above in the explanation of the positive principle of publicity would not be broadly interpreted as the freedom of individuals to pursue the choices of their private lives. Rather, given that the “universal end” of the positive condition of publicity, as appropriate social progress, is happiness, it properly means a well-functioning public life in a society.211

209 Williams, 1983, p151. 210 Ibid., p156. 211 This brings into question whether Kant’s conception of politics is liberal or perhaps perfectionist. In liberal theory public happiness firstly references the individual sense of happiness of individuals free to choose and pursue their own private ends. Certainly there is a public notion of happiness that requires a polity to be stable or well-functioning enough such that individuals can achieve subjective happiness. There is evidence of this in Kant’s moral philosophy, the Second Critique in particular, when the good is defined as the combination of both ends, happiness and morality, and happiness is defined as the satisfaction of all the diverse ends of different individuals. We can additionally read the principle of Right as providing quite minimally for the public good as it only prevents a hindrance to freedom, thus positive freedom is still given priority. However, there may also be an argument present in Kant for a perfectionist conception of politics, whereby the social good – public happiness – overrides individual 147

Publicity ensures that politics fulfils its proper task of activating and advancing the public life of humans. This measure of happiness is another means by which the engagement of politics, within reason, with the particular conditions of the people and society can be guaranteed. The second formula no longer speaks of the compatibility of maxims but rather the need for publicity in order for politics to obtain its ends. This suggests that actual publicity is required.

Ellis too thinks that the particular empirical conditions of society are an essential reference point for Kant’s political theory. Ellis’ interpretation of public judgement, however, sits oddly between both camps of commentators and cannot be neatly included in the argument that publicity produces a type of political authority. Her interpretation agrees with this thesis, as chapter two emphasises, insofar as it makes the supreme aim of Kant’s political philosophy progress, as achieved through public judgement. Yet her interpretation parts company with the argument in this chapter because for Ellis the site of this public decision-making, the public sphere, is dedicated to the application of the moral law albeit for political progress. Ellis believes public reason is the mechanism through which politics accesses moral authority for its activities.212 Admittedly Ellis is not directing this analysis at the principles of publicity alone. Actually there is not much explanation of the formulas of publicity in her monograph except to say that there is a need for further inquiry into their nature and implications.213 Her interest lies in developing a doctrine of public judgement from Kant’s texts, Conflict, in particular. And, as discussed in the previous chapter, Ellis’ theory of Kant’s political thought explicitly includes the moral law as the standard by which citizens publicly judge a provision for political progress.

Ellis believes that Kant’s public sphere is best exemplified in his example of the spectators to the French Revolution. As “real-world partisans” the spectators were

goods. This would be found in Kant’s argument for the perfect final end of a kingdom of ends. In TPP Kant writes, “Seek ye first the kingdom of pure practical reason and its justice and your end (the blessing of perpetual peace) will come to you of itself.” (8:378) Not only does he posit the political good of peace as an individual end but the whole premise of the unity of morals and justice suggests that the kingdom of ends is the greatest happiness humans in general can hope for. Perhaps this implies that in the kingdom of ends practical reason takes its primary stand and no longer needs to be divided into morals, politics and religion. This question about Kant’s liberal or perfectionist vision of politics is left for a different project. 212 Ellis, 2005, p159. 213 Ibid., p105. 148 exempt from the corruption of power because of their absolutist monarch. This fact allowed them to “mediate between ideal and actual worlds by pronouncing judgement on current events.” Further, because the realm in which they exercise this judgement is “not only free of but also probably counter to their own private interests”, they gain “extraordinary moral authority.” And in what Ellis calls a “grand” comment that is particularly pertinent to the concern of this thesis, how ideas of reason are grounded or made effective in the political world; the practice of metaphysics, she writes: “Kant’s members of the judging public make themselves virtual ambassadors of the noumenal world to the phenomenal realm.” Ellis thinks that the circumstances of the spectators, “free of all but the interests of reason”, allow them to best approximate the position of divine authority; “the impossible point of view of perfect judges of political right.”214

The axis of Ellis’ interpretation is not square with mine. She asserts that the public as judges inhabit and gain moral authority by virtue of the public sphere where they engage in moral willing guided by “ethical right”.215 Ethical right is what encompasses political right in the greater scheme of human political activity. Her approach to publicity would align partially with the commentators I have criticised above for glossing over the political nature of publicity because she thinks that public judgement operates as a moral principle even while she maintains it is for political progress. The latter provision is our point of agreement. Ellis, however, ignores any distinction that could be made between publicity and universality, notwithstanding her concern with provisionality.216

In the inclusion of ethical Right, however, perhaps Ellis implicitly suggests that publicity leads to universality, which may in fact be true and certainly an idea present in Kant’s political and religious works. There is no disagreement with the educative power of politics in Kant. What is central to the argument is that the principles of publicity, together, require political standards not necessarily at the

214 Ibid., p168. 215 Ibid., p180. 216 Gary Banham criticises Ellis’ definition of provisionality as having a too narrow basis in the description of a right during war. He prefers to see provisionality in Kant as much more broadly originating in ensuring social coordination without war no matter what the state of civil society. He believes that the principle of Right itself expresses the core of provisional Right in Kant. See “Publicity and Provisional Right” in Politics and Ethics Review, 3(1), 2007, pp73–89. 149 expense of morals for political progress. When we examine the second publicity principle in particular it cannot be ignored that Kant is providing a real-world standard for politics that does not accord with a test of moral universalism. Publicity understood as requiring actual political evaluation also seems to accord better with Ellis’ idea of a provisional politics: publicity tests what is politically acceptable under certain circumstances and not what would be acceptable in general in the way that “an application of the moral law” would be. We can, however, read Ellis less literally and construe her approach to the public sphere as the site for including the moral law in political deliberation to more narrowly mean that morals forms the limit to political activity, an approach that is certainly in agreement with this thesis and will be explained below.

Most conspicuous in the positive formula of publicity is the explicit concern with ends, which represents a clear departure from Kant’s moral philosophy. Kant writes, if the end of politics (i.e., happiness) “is to be attainable only through publicity, that is, by the removal of all distrust toward the maxims of politics, such maxims must also be in accord with the Right of the public, since only in this is the union of the ends of all possible.” (TPP, 8:386) The second formula of publicity is instrumental about public Right. Although it is transcendental, we can productively use this principle to evaluate political action: it is by no means sterilised of political reality. This means that Kant’s political philosophy is not fully deontological like his morality. Publicity deals with ends, projects outcomes, opposition and not logical contradiction, or abstract intentions. It requires a principled engagement with current political realities, with the zeitgeist so to speak.217

Gerhardt makes expansive claims about the end of politics for Kant. He concludes that happiness and satisfaction come about when people can live, in a liberal Rawlsian turn of phrase, according to their own ideas about the good, when they can follow and desire to follow their own wills.218 Gerhardt thinks that in order to

217 Banham’s interpretation, 2007, of the publicity conditions in Kant is that these are what ensure that social cohesion, no matter what the state of Right, i.e., provisional or otherwise, is the primary concern of politics. And it is the minimal condition of publicity, because it endorses both the possibility and desirability of political institutions, that keeps open the possibility of transition to a civil state, p74. 218 Refer to footnote 68 above for a discussion about Kant’s liberal or perfectionist concern with happiness. This statement suggests that Gerhardt would place Kant in the liberal camp. 150 make this possible for individuals within a mass of people, such that this action is transparent for all, a society needs a process that makes ideas and wills public. Publicity is, therefore, the form that permits the ideas and opinions of the people to be expressed, discussed, tested and exchanged; that makes a general understanding and even agreement possible. 219 Gerhardt is referring to, of course, the realm of the political.

The raison d’etre of politics is the desire to form a will, both individual and collective as “the union of the ends of all”. We can say, hope and believe that this will be possible, and it may in fact be the case that this is a moral desire, but as Kant announces: “The problem of setting up a state … is solvable even for a people of devils (if only they have the understanding)…” (TPP, 8:366) Publicity gives politics its own measure, which may not be completely independent from morals but at least is not simply an application of morals to politics.

The question that remains to be asked regarding the publicity principles, however, is in whose hands does the power of publicity reside? In Williams’ discussion of publicity he advises heed be taken of the empirical backdrop of the era of absolutism in which there were no rights against government and he criticises Kant for assuming that the sovereign is benevolent. There is a contradiction, according to Williams, between absolute allegiance to a sovereign and publicity.220 Ellis too observes that Kant’s “mature conception” of the judging public contains this complexity, for example, Conflict provides that only the state is capable of acting. Ellis argues that although rulers may be stimulated by “ethical truth made by public partisans of right”221, Kant is adamant that all change proceeds not “from bottom to top, but from top to bottom.” (Conflict, 7:92) The obligation to enact change remains with the sovereign, which makes the power that publicity bestows on citizens appear ineffectual. Interestingly, to solve this contradiction, Ellis resorts to the metaphysics of freedom. So, while Kant at the end of Conflict appears to have relinquished hope in publicity in favour of the natural antinomy between peoples as the best course for progress, what this leaves us with again is the antinomy between freedom and nature.

219 Gerhardt, 1995, p210. 220 Williams, 1983, 156–157. 221 Ellis, 2005, p179. 151

So, Ellis concludes her main theme of public judgement with the causality of freedom. In chapter one I demonstrated how this is solved: we assume that freedom does affect the world so that it can.

Ellis argues that Kant separates the public judges, those with the power of freedom, from practical power, that is, governmental authority, in order to ensure the slow pace of reform, which is the only possible way actual social change can occur. She writes: Kant cannot be satisfied with the mere construction of an image of the perfect republic. Nor can he advocate revolutionary change such as the immediate implementation of the vision of the ideal state would require… The power of ideas must be exercised over the very long term, in order to allow fallible human judges in the public sphere to approximate perfect judgement: change must come by evolutionary, not revolutionary, means, over a considerable time.222

Ellis makes no technical distinction between the authority of morals and the authority of reason. Her position on public judges is that “their sole motivation ought to be the universalistic interest that invested the public sphere with its moral authority in the first place - the interest shared by all ‘rational beings as such’ in ethical right.”223 This is perfectly correct and in a different context would not be a problem, as for Kant, morality is indeed an aspect of reason. In this context, however, what is at stake is the peculiarity of political action. Politics also needs the authority of reason but for the end of social public progress, which is why, I argue, Kant includes so many ideas of reason in his politics. The authority of publicity too originates in the practical use of reason. Thus, Ellis and I are not in fundamental disagreement: the authority of ideas is what is important to the public sphere where citizens act like ambassadors of the noumenal realm to the empirical. All of which is aimed at political reform, which Ellis stresses is slow so as not to corrupt the wills of these ambassadors. It is up to rulers and nature to pick up the irrepressible ideas of reason.

Reform is also a leitmotiv in Gerhardt’s interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy. Gerhardt states that reform is the essential germane moment of politics.224 Therein lies a suggestion that reform has an implicit role in the relation between both

222 Ibid., p178. 223 Ibid., p180. 224 Gerhardt, 1995, p185. 152 sides of the antinomy: between the hand of providence and human freedom. Gerhardt believes that politics provides the medium through which society can continuously follow not only its historical truth but also its declared legal and moral goals.225 Politics, therefore, is what continues the thread of history.226 Further, according to Gerhardt’s interpretation, the historical reality of politics is in giving a rightful order to human relations, which is then the condition of the existence of politics itself. There can, therefore, be no radical break with the past - revolution is not a political method. And this leaves reform to be the guarantee of historical progress. Gerhardt concludes that reform is germane to politics because politics can only be successful when it moves a community towards a state that accords better with its principles. Gerhardt believes that morals and Right are internal to politics because hope is necessary not only to achieving reform but also in making real progress towards better political conditions.227 Thus Gerhardt’s work represents a claim to a strong identity for politics in Kant’s philosophy, which he attributes to the theme of historical reform or political progress. Ellis’ interpretation of the special status of reform in Kant’s political thought is less deeply rooted in Kant’s general philosophy. This demonstrates the limitations, for the purposes of this thesis, of Ellis’ interpretation of Kant’s provisional politics as based on public judgement: there is no explicit attempt to examine the relationship between the moral and political for Kant.

3.3 True politics and the moral politician There is no lack of examination in Kant regarding the relationship between morals and politics. The most prominent place is the first appendix to TPP and the figure that Kant presents there: the moral politician.228 The above analysis of publicity argues for politics containing its own standard for political acceptability, which measures differently to morals and the moral law. What is the relationship between morals and politics in Kant? A cursory glance at the first appendix, about the necessary and

225 Gerhardt, 1995, p13. 226 Although Gerhardt does not discuss Habermas in relation to this it is interesting to note that Habermas, in his argument that publicity forms the bridge between morals and politics, posits Kant’s philosophy of history as the guide to the public because in this philosophy the laws of reason are equivalent to the requirements of welfare. See Habermas, 1989, pp115–117. 227 Gerhardt, 1995, pp184–185. 228 I am influenced by Gerhardt in taking seriously Kant’s belief in the existence of the moral politician. See, for example, his discussion of the moral politican and political moralist, 1995, pp166–176. 153 natural harmony between morals and politics, could lead one to think that the political question is answered by morality, indeed Kant’s closing sentiment to the appendix is: True politics can therefore not take a step without having already paid homage to morals, and although politics by itself is a difficult art, its union with morals is no art at all; for as soon as the two conflict with each other, morals cuts the knot that politics cannot untie. (TPP, 8:380)

However, as argued above, the principles of publicity give the means for politics itself to maintain its own purpose independently of morals. Furthermore, the idea of public Right gives the specific context in which morals and politics can relate. Indeed, even in this quote that makes politics subservient to morals, Kant maintains that politics is its own “art”; that has its own, albeit “difficult”, practice. Thus, the relationship between morals and politics is more complex than the first appendix ostensibly presents, that is, with morals simply ruling political conditions. This is the interpretive tendency in some of the commentators on Kant’s first principle of publicity discussed above. There is, however, a more nuanced picture of the way politics and morals relate in Kant’s philosophy. If we take an example of a good mother, the requirements of morality do not exhaust the requirements of a good mother. Morals may well be the limiting or necessary condition, bust is not the sufficient condition for motherhood. And yet, the nature of the good mother and the decree of morals are not in conflict (again we are reminded of the antinomy of freedom where a natural causality at least does not conflict with a causality of reason). So too, in the way that politics is unified with morals, is good politics not in any way reduced to morals and can still be in harmony with it. Even if morals provides the superior goals, politics contains its own impetus, as we will discover by way of the conceivable figure of the moral politician.

Kant introduces the moral politician thus, I can indeed think of a moral politician, that is, one who takes the principles of political prudence in such a way that they can coexist with morals, but not of a political moralist, who frames a morals to suit the statesman’s advantage. (TPP, 8:372)

Why does Kant believe we can think of a moral politician and not a political moralist? The easy answer is because morality could never serve politics: this would be heteronomous willing. A political goal could not be deemed moral because such a 154 goal is not in accordance with the purity of moral action or duty. This tells us about the main story, the relationship between morals and politics. If there is ever a conflict between morals and politics, and the latter tries to solve it, then this cannot be a moral determination; rather we are left with a practical contradiction. In such a case there cannot be a person with the title political moralist, for they are not being moral at all; there is no moral content to a problem solved by pragmatic considerations alone. But the moral politician demonstrates the proper hierarchy of concepts: politics is secondary; it is subordinate to and serves morals when the politician makes political decisions. This does not imply, however, that politics and morals are identical, indeed it argues for the opposite conclusion, that they represent different fields requiring different principles.

The relationship between morals and politics can be seen as one of checks and balances, whereby the expediency and necessity of political demands is reviewed by morals. A moral politician begins with his political convictions, and then, tests them against moral principles. Importantly, political prudence comes first, which Kant further emphasises in the defining duty given to the moral politician: A moral politician will make it his principle that, once defects that could not have been prevented are found within the constitution of a state or in the relations of states, it is a duty, especially for the heads of states, to be concerned about how they can be improved as soon as possible and brought into conformity with natural Right, which stands before us as a model in the idea of reason, even at the cost of sacrifices to their self-seeking [inclinations]. (TPP, 8: 372)

This duty to change the constitution or extant problems with interstate relations is about the moral politician binding political goals to principles. His duty is firstly to politics, to directing politics towards ideas of reason, not towards any personal moral code or advantage. Further, the moral politician does not obey Right from the genuine moral will of Kant’s moral philosophy, which is implied by Ellis when she makes the action of the public sphere an application of the moral law. Instead, the moral politician pushes for an improvement of the political order from his own moral insight. The form and object of this willing are political. Ellis suggests this can be encapsulated by the general idea of moral willing, for example, when she 155 writes, “human progress towards the ideal state is an object of moral willing.”229 Progress is certainly an object of practical reason but the necessary willing aims at the end condition of progress and not attaining the pure form of will. This, then, is a political kind of willing, that is informed by morals but not able to be completely characterised as such. The moral insight of the moral politician comes from a political view of himself as also a citizen, such that he puts aside his ability to use political power for his own advantage and gives primacy to political principles.230

It is only when political power is in use that moral testing becomes an issue. Hence, we cannot say that Kant’s figure of the moral politician begins with morality. His actions are led by political circumstances, his political views and then what is Right, as he tests the politics against ideas of reason, which are moral political norms. The moral politician, therefore, is not one who acts exclusively beholden to his moral convictions, rather he ensures that political determinations and political reform is made in accordance with principles of reason. This activity occurs in the public sphere. Ellis describes the public sphere as the place for application of the moral law, which, insofar as principles of reason can be moral principles given by practical reason, is not incompatible with this reading of the moral politician. The distinction, however, between moral willing and political obligation remains important.

Thus, morals in general does not subsume politics, but rather assists it to “stay on the path of duty.” Politics does have its own scale, its own place, and will, Kant assures us, have its own time in the sun: The Right of human beings must be held sacred, however great a sacrifice this may cost the ruling power. One cannot compromise here and devise something intermediate, a pragmatically conditioned Right (a cross between Right and expediency); instead, all politics must bend its knee before Right, but in return it can hope to reach, though slowly, the level where it will shine unfailingly. (TPP, 8:380)

This demonstrates, following Ellis, the importance of the slowness of reform for Kant. When political power is wielded rashly or pragmatically it cannot be “true” because

229 Ellis, 2005, p166. 230 Gerardt supports his understanding of politics as premised on reform with such a view, that is, that the moral impulse of the political agent is essential to political reform and a politics that is itself conceptualised as continual reform. See Gerhardt, 1995, p174. Compare the next footnote regarding Rawls' conception of specifically moral-political principles regulating a well-ordered society. 156 politics can only act after it has “paid homage to morals.” (8:380) Although this logic is not inconsistent with moral reasoning, Ellis misleads us by calling it as such.231 In the figure of a moral politician, Kant shows the absolute necessity of linking politics with Right. The moral politician is beholden to moral principles, but these are not sufficient enough to dictate his political maxims. The reasoning that results, while limited by morals, must nevertheless hold its own practical public ground. The moral politician, and the precise combination between morals and politics he represents, exists by virtue of publicity.

231 This is perhaps where Ellis’ Rawlsianism blinds her to Kant’s approach to the political. Rawls intimates that his political theory involves moral willing of a political object. See Political Liberalism, “Introduction to the paperback edition”, 2005, p xxxviii, where he writes: "I emphasise that the ideas of the domain of the political and a political conception of justice are normative and moral ideas in their own right,” that is, their “content is given by certain ideals, principles, and standards, and these norms articulate certain values, in this case political values." And, p xliv, “Thus, political rights and duties are moral rights and duties for they are part of a political conception that is a normative (moral) conception with its own intrinsic ideal, though not itself a comprehensive doctrine." Though this is not necessarily incompatible with my presentation of Kant’s political willing, it does depend on how Rawls maintains the distinction between moral willing and adherence to comprehensive moral doctrines. 157

The political moralist, on the other hand, begins with expedient “facts”, and then measures his political activity according to the success of his power. Hence, the three sophistical maxims of the political moralist are: 1. Fac et excusa (Act first and justify later). 2. Si fecistic, nega (If you are the perpetrator, deny it). 3. Divide et impera (Divide and rule).232 As Kant notes, these maxims are, though not publicly declared, well known. Great power, we are told, is never shamed before the people; it is only their personal “failure” that can shame those powers. (TPP, 8:375) This is because they are political realists.233 Kant lists the way that moralising politicians are realists: first, “by glossing over political principles contrary to right on the pretext that human nature is not capable of what is good in accord with that idea, as reason prescribes it”; second, they “make improvement impossible”; and third, they “perpetuate, as far as they can, violations of right.” (TPP, 8:373) The general failure of the political moralist is being lead by pragmatic beliefs and not principles. In this way the political moralist creates conditions that are ripe for conflict between morals and politics. (TPP, 8:379)

Kant believes everything that obstructs the path of perpetual peace, arises from the fact that the political moralist begins where the moral politician correctly leaves off and, in thus subordinating principles to the end (i.e., putting the cart before the horse), frustrates his own purpose of bringing politics into agreement with morals. (TPP, 8:376)

Principles, morally consistent principles, must be given primacy in order to reach the political end of peace. And while this means, Kant tells us in a lengthy footnote “a great step is taken toward morality” it is not the same as, or not yet, a moral step. (TPP, 8:376) Kant is emphasising that the limiting condition of morals, in the form of reason, is what the political moralist fails to put first. Ideas of reason are essential to politics as they regulate proper political activity, which may “yet” lead to moral activity.234

232 It is strange that at the beginning of the appendix Kant says he cannot think or imagine the existence of the political moralist, as if they are a contradiction in terms, and yet then goes on to present the maxims by which they operate, as if they are active and alive in politics. This serves to demonstrate, however, the power of the empirical for politics. 233 For further discussion see Ellis, 2005, on the “Realpolitik” of the first appendix, pp101–104. 234 Perhaps this means that publicity is a permissive idea that will eventually become redundant as morals comes to reign supreme in the form of the kingdom of ends. This would happen in the manner that chapter two presented the idea of sovereignty, where the physical representation of sovereignty has no place in the idea of the republic. Perhaps this is what Ellis is implying when she makes the public sphere also of provisional status, “to ensure humankind’s progress toward the ideal state”, see Ellis, 158

Morals cannot, however, fulfil the discipline of politics. The moral politician follows the categorical imperative as Kant presents it here, “act that you can will that your maxim should become a universal law (whatever the end may be).” (TPP, 8:377) The context, however, is public Right: the principles of publicity refer to a politics that is cognisable a priori. (Cf, TPP, 8:378) Kant is not directing the moral politician or the citizen to a personal imperative of publicity, the individual internal use of freedom. The subject matter for the application of the principle is restricted to what results from the use of peoples’ external freedom.235 Kant states that the first formula of publicity “is not to be regarded as ethical only (belonging to the doctrine of virtue) but also as juridical (bearing on the Right of human beings)” (TPP, 8:381). He is clearly extending the reach of morals with respect to its principles of public Right. So, we can agree with Rawls and state that publicity also consists in the moral law. What I dispute, however, is to what extent the moral law contains publicity. I propose that publicity has an additional bearing to the moral law that covers the consequences of public human interaction, at which the moral law is not directly aimed. Publicity is the rightful principle for a priori politics.

Pogge’s argument for distinguishing the RL from Kant’s moral philosophy is also based on Right as the sphere for external freedom. In this sphere Pogge posits mutual security as paramount, which is a separate criteria to acting in accordance with duty, the primary criteria of the moral law.236 His separability thesis is that the RL does not necessarily presuppose the moral philosophy. The analogy with the publicity thesis presented here is not perfect: we cannot say that publicity does not presuppose the moral law. I argue that publicity presupposes the moral law insofar as politics is to be limited by morals, but it is not a sufficient condition for politics, as demonstrated by the moral politician. Pogge’s argument is useful, however, because he draws

2005, p173. This suggests no distinction between the kingdom of ends and the republican state, which Kant implies at various points, see, for example, TPP, 8:378. 235 Waldron, 2006, thinks that interpreting the role Kant provides for the state as the guarantee of our external freedom as “too superficial” because he thinks that the state for Kant has inherent moral significance and that this view makes the state merely instrumental. See, Waldron, p188. What I am saying is the subject matter of politics is not the use of our external freedom itself but the area of activity that results from the interaction between uses of external freedom. This makes politics at once both instrumental and moral: the field of the practical use of reason. And this Waldron seems to agree with, as he regards the most important impact of the state to be on our practical reasoning, see p188. 236 Pogge, 2002, pp136–141. 159 attention to the way that the principle of Right (“So act externally that the free use of your choice can coexist with the freedom of everyone according to a universal law” RL, 6:231) may look like a categorical imperative (as does the first negative principle of publicity) but is actually better interpreted as a juridical permission. This means it is not an imperative addressed to the individual but a permission addressed to other citizens to force me to act externally so that the free use of my choice can coexist with the freedom of everyone according to a universal law.237 The permission is gained by virtue of the context of Right.

As I have argued for the case of publicity, Pogge restricts the subject matter for application of the principle of Right to the sphere of activity that results from a use of external freedom. This naturally distances the principle of Right from that of the moral law in the way I have argued it does for the test of publicity. The first formula of publicity also closely follows the form of the CI. Yet Kant, as stated above, alludes to it as consisting in an extra juridical bearing.238 When we consider that Kant’s institution of publicity includes the second formula, with its reference to conforming to the end of public happiness, the distance between the CI and publicity grows even more. According to the second positive formula, publicity aims for the harmony between politics and Right. Kant no longer references morals and politics or ethical and juridical Right, he is referring to political Right. Thus, my argument for the publicly measured independence of the political philosophy is much milder than Pogge’s conjecture that the RL can indeed be interpreted as posing an autonomous political philosophy from Kantian or other moral comprehensive philosophies.

I therefore propose that publicity in Kant involves a kind of political thinking. In Jeremy Waldron’s article, “Kant’s Theory of the State”, he disagrees with Pogge and the thesis that there is a radical difference between Kant’s philosophy of Right and that of morals. Waldron bases this disagreement not on the differences in subject matter between Right and morals, for he grants their existence, but rather on the way

237 Ibid., p141–142. 238 Perhaps this too represents a permission by way of a permissive law which concedes to reality a public sphere that keeps politics on the path to the ultimate idea of the republican state (Ellis remarks that Kant never mentions the public sphere in his discussion of the republican state, but then he does not provide much detail at all on this) and therefore hopes to throw itself off, in the manner of a pure sovereign, once the final condition has been achieved. 160 that “thinking about right is like individual moral thinking”.239 He lists these similarities in thinking as, “an interest in universalizability and conformity to principle”, and a compatibility discipline that subjects individual choice to choices of others.240 His argument is slightly different to Rawls’ assertion of publicity being inherent in the moral law. Rather Waldron regards the principle of Right as “already embedded in moral thinking”.241 For Waldron the opposite of Pogge’s view is true: morality presupposes Right.242 “We begin with the idea of the physical compatibility of everyone’s actions, and we find that morality adds to that the prospect that the very idea of such compatibility might act as an internal incentive.” Hence morality is “Right-plus-something” rather than Right being morality plus something.243

Above I have already presented the case for Kant’s theory of politics exceeding concern with the state, which is an obvious point of difference between the focus of this thesis and that of Waldron’s article. Also, in arguing for the separate subject matter for politics as opposed to morals I have stated that this is constituted by what comes of our use of external freedom, that field of interaction between co- existing uses of external freedom. In contrast, Waldron criticises the narrow delineation in Kant interpretation of the subject of the state as external freedom because it ignores the obvious moral significance of the state for Kant. Further, notwithstanding the similarities Waldron portrays between moral and rightful reasoning, my position is that publicity gives us the mode of a political way of thinking. The argument about publicity is that it extends Kant’s philosophy from Right to politics. The publicity principles give politics its transcendental foundation.

However, as Kant’s figure of the moral politician demonstrates, morals forms the necessary, but not sufficient, condition for politics, which is a position that sits uncomfortably in both Pogge’s and Waldron’s analyses. This is not an argument for a radical break between morals and politics in Kant nor does it vouch for the necessity of politics for morals. My argument is unlike Waldron’s in that I locate a political

239 Waldron, 2006, p190. 240 Ibid., p190. 241 Ibid., 190. This may suggest Waldron believes Kant to be a kind of political perfectionist. 242 And yet, Pogge would not disagree with this position, his argument is simply that the RL doesn’t necessarily presuppose the moral philosophy of Kant. 243 Waldron, 2006, p190. 161 way of thinking endowed by Kant’s political philosophy. It is aligned with Pogge’s position in that, despite the observed continuity between morals and politics insofar as “morals cuts the knot” regarding urgent political problems (TPP, 8:380), publicity provides Kant’s political philosophy with its own measure for its “difficult art”. (TPP, 8:380) Publicity adds to morals in a way that carves out a separate domain for politics.244

The apprehension of the moral law is not coterminous with the scope of the publicity principles. We can say that the publicity principles may encourage greater morality in politics but there is no exhaustive reliance on the moral law to determine the political consequences of the maxim being tested. The moral law is of no practical effect to the test of publicity because the consequences to be judged are political and not moral, even if morals still limits the political norms. That morals is the limiting condition of politics is not to reduce politics to morality, it still retains a separate sphere of operation. The conflict between morals and politics that forms the structure of Kant’s presentation of the relationship is not a reductionism for politics. For example, when we are eating guided by certain moral convictions, we do not cease to eat for the sake of nourishing our bodies, eating does not become a wholly moral activity. It may be constrained by a moral decision; but its goals are its own. The same applies to the example of a good mother: even when her goals coincide with those of moral duty, her actions may not be singularly determined by this duty, and therefore, may not be deemed perfectly moral. The moral politician is good in both senses of the word; he is guided by morality and performs his tasks efficiently, that is, for the sake of politics.

244 Another way we can compare the views on the independence of Kant’s theory of Right is to question the extent of my thesis on publicity delineating politics. Does this imply that publicity is the necessary and sufficient condition for politics? It would appear so when we consider both the weak and strong principles for politics: the negative formula providing the necessary test of political maxims, while the positive test demonstrates which maxims need publicity in order to be sufficiently political. The sufficiency of the publicity condition for politics, however, depends on the relationship between Right and morals. For Pogge, as they are theoretically distinct, my argument about publicity may imply the conclusion that publicity is the necessary and sufficient condition for politics. Waldron, however, would deny any measure of Right or politics as a sufficient condition for politics, as not only is Right for him already assumed in morals but morals depends on Right to further its own ends. Given my depiction of the moral politician and his need for the direction of morality my argument supports the claim that publicity is a necessary condition for politics, but not sufficient. Other kinds of maxims might require publicity but that would not make them political. 162

Political demands need to be checked by morals because they are so easily justified expediently and by claims of necessity. When morals and politics conflict there is not an abyss into which politics drops and ceases to exist, morals steps in to help politics answer the political question. But this is not as simple as replacing politics with morality. The pressing political questions are not answered by morals for this is politics’ own task, which the idea of publicity maintains.245

3.4 Conclusion This chapter elucidates publicity as a peculiar idea of reason in Kant’s political thought. It is an idea of reason in that it guides practical activity and demands to be instantiated in current political conditions. But its importance for the practical field of politics means it exceeds this basic function of ideas of reason. Publicity is the method that enables us to follow the other political ideas of reason; it is through publicity that we can enact them as political maxims, which then become political practice. In this way publicity enables us to demonstrate our commitment to the political ideas and to guard our commitment to the ultimate conditions they represent, like perpetual peace. This is publicity’s special role as an idea of reason that creates its own institution.

This status for publicity was then used to argue for the specificity of the political as opposed to the moral in Kant. Publicity founds the political and, therefore, assists in its demarcation. For Kant politics has its “proper task”, and as this is guaranteed by publicity, it is used as a discriminating reference point for the creation and success of politics. Thus, publicity gives politics its own scale and a sphere of operation that is separate from the workings of morality. The domain of politics is what comes from the use of the doctrine of Right, the use of external freedom in a principled fashion. Politics uses the idea and principles of publicity to answer the question how we should all live together, while the moral law guides our individual

245 Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, in their book Democracy and Disagreement, argue that publicity has a moral basis, yet I find their comment that “publicity has its moral limits, but those limits must themselves be publicly affirmed” supports my approach to Kant’s idea of publicity. That is, yes morals limit politics but publicity extends the requirements of good politics in a purposefully political direction. See Gutmann and Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996, p96. 163 responses to the question. These are not incompatible, rather they admit of different fields for application. We don’t cease to apply the moral law as political subjects but we additionally apply publicity as the test of our political actions. Publicity founds the context of this shared activity.

The idea of publicity is for our common understanding; the political use of reason, as even devils still need reason in order to play good politics. And so I begin this thesis with the theoretical deduction of freedom and not its moral proof. The purpose of publicity, in idea and institution, is to guide our behaviour with a particular political focus. In fact, it forms the ground of politics; it gives politics its own context. This gives publicity an exemplary status as the prime political idea of reason. Publicity permits our political duty, the work towards the political ideas of reason, to be discharged.

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Chapter Four

Rawls’ Public Reason as a Kantian Idea of Reason

If a reasonably just society that subordinates power to its aims is not possible and people are largely amoral, if not incurably cynical and self-centered, one might ask with Kant whether it is worthwhile for human beings to live on the earth? We must start with the assumption that a reasonably just political society is possible, and for it to be possible, human beings must have a moral nature, not of course a perfect such nature, yet one that can understand and act on, and be sufficiently moved by a reasonable political conception of right and justice to support a society guided by its ideals and principles. (Rawls, “Introduction to the Paperback Edition” [IPE] in Political Liberalism [PL] plx)246

Political philosophy, it may be argued, begins for both Rawls and Kant with a hope in the possibility of a reasonably just society. This genetic assumption demonstrates a faith in ideas and in humanity’s ability to follow them. The import of this quote for my thesis lies in its unsaid premise that ideas are powerful, that they have an inherent practical nature to condition humans in their communities, a notion that is exemplified by Kant’s ideas of reason (as is explained in Chapter One of this thesis). The power of ideas is what Rawls unwittingly needs in order to form the idea of the reasonable or public reason. The evolution in Rawls’ political liberalism shows that the reasonable enters the field at a certain stage and comes to dominate the structure of his political theory. In fact I will argue that the idea of the reasonable becomes so central a condition that we cannot understand or practice political liberalism without it. By way

246 John Rawls, Political Liberalism, 2005. 165 of introduction to this chapter, what we witness in Rawls’ entire political philosophy is a change from a theory of justice as fairness to a theory of justice as reasonableness. Admittedly, this looks like an exaggeration as Rawls would say that his preferred political conception is that of justice as fairness, but he would specify that fairness is to be preferred because it is reasonable, or because it belongs to the family of reasonable conceptions of justice that political liberalism would countenance. Rawls would probably say that justice as fairness is re-situated within the context of the reasonable, this chapter, however, argues that it is replaced by it.

While the focus is the idea of the reasonable, also introduced will be the other main ideas that Rawls develops in the attempt to outline the structure of a stable public political conception of justice. These ideas, such as a reasonable conception of justice, a well-ordered society and an overlapping consensus, are all interconnected in political liberalism. Thus, while they may all operate as ideas of reason in the Kantian sense, there is a further question here about whether they are in fact different ideas or the one idea of reason characterised from different points of view. This is where the reasonable emerges as the prime idea.

First to be discussed is what the stability problem is for Rawls and how this motivates a key shift in his political philosophy from a comprehensive account to a political account of justice. The fact of pluralism drives the need to propose “freestanding” political theory, and this in turn necessitates the development of the idea of the reasonable amongst several other fundamental ideas and conceptions. Importantly, justice as fairness becomes one of a family of such reasonable conceptions of justice.

Secondly this chapter will show how Rawls’ idea of public reason operates as an idea of reason in a Kantian sense. Public reason too undergoes a development from a content-orientated idea to a broad form of the reasonable that regulates the political in general. The proviso and the wide view of public political culture expand the purview of the reasonable such that it becomes the central tool for addressing the stability problem and allowing for modifications to justice over time. Thus, public 166 reason negotiates the mutual relationship between the comprehensive doctrines of citizens and the reasonable political conception of justice.

The following concluding chapter makes the Kantian comparison explicit. It compares Rawls’ idea of public reason with the function of the regulative ideas that the rest of the thesis has covered. It is the action of ideas that I am comparing between Kant and Rawls rather than the concept or conception247 of reason itself. I am not saying the reasonable is Rawls’ replacement for Kant’s a priori reason. I argue that “the reasonable” operates as a regulative idea for Rawls, like soul or world in the First Critique or peace, publicity or a republican constitution in Kant’s political writings. These are all ideas of reason for Kant, and as such they call for humans to create them. They have no objective reality but regulate the subjective reality of human behaviour and social conditions. They do this, not by presenting the world below with a higher truth, but rather by becoming a kind of provisional truth to help bridge human freedom and human nature; the ideal and the empirical. They are in themselves practical, which means they only exist by virtue of the use we make of them. I simply recall here the interpretation of ideas of reason outlined in Chapter One - their function - so the reference I make to this function in my analysis of Rawls’ idea of the reasonable is read with the preceding Kant interpretation in mind.

While the Kant comparison will be made explicitly in the next chapter it has been at times impossible to remain within Rawls’ architectonic for the purposes of gaining a working understanding of the idea of the reasonable. Indeed Rawls himself remarks on the loose quality of the reasonable when he replies to Habermas, “I grant that the idea of the reasonable needs a more thorough examination than Political Liberalism offers.” (“Political Liberalism: Reply to Habermas” [RTH], p150)248 Thus, at times I have used some of my previous Kantian interpretation to expose what is otherwise unclear in Rawls’ idea of the reasonable. My aim in applying Kant’s sense

247 Rawls does at various points attempt to systematise his use of the terms ideas, concepts and conceptions. Idea is always a general unspecific term, whereas concept signifies the real meaning of the term and conception, as is clear in A Theory of Justice, denotes an articulation of a complex of meanings and particularities. (See PL, p14 fn15) It is interesting that Rawls never does actually try and set out what he means by “idea” and its operation or practical effect even though he makes systematic use of it, especially in his “three fundamental ideas” in PL. 248 John Rawls, “Political Liberalism: Reply to Habermas”, The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 92, No. 3, Mar., 1995, pp132-180. 167 of ideas of reason to Rawls is not to detract from his achievement of political liberalism or to argue against the differentiation of the reasonable from the comprehensively true. Rather, Rawls’ approach to the political and political philosophy is a prime example of the dynamic effect of ideas in the world, which is, I believe, essential to Kant’s theory of politics. The effect of ideas in the realm of politics is thus to show that political principles and their application are to be judged by their ability to promote political progress, rather than by their capacity to adhere to some set of ideal norms. Therefore, I propose that the essential practical function of a system of ideas of reason is beneficial to understanding and employing Rawls’ political theory.

This chapter and the next presents an analysis that shows how the reasonable works through the instantiation of the Kantian mechanism of a regulative idea. In this way the reasonable can ground and operationalise the other ideas so necessary to political liberalism without the comprehensive foundations of A Theory of Justice [Theory]. 249

4.1 The stability problem and the answer of the idea of the reasonable Stability in Theory is conceived as the relation between justice as fairness and our conception of the good “so that both work together to uphold a just scheme” (Theory, p397). Justice as fairness requires unanimous moral support by the people, and this is what lends such a politics a stable basis. This approach is clearly unrealistic – and unstable - for a society that consists of a plurality of comprehensive moral, religious and philosophical positions. Modern societies lack such a shared comprehensive basis and cannot, therefore, expect such a basis for stability. It is this “fact of reasonable pluralism” that leads Rawls to recast stability as the political problem. Rawls clarifies that he is not talking about the fact of simple pluralism. (PL, p36) Reasonable pluralism is a fact of “free practical reason within the framework of free institutions” (PL, p37) Under the conditions that the fundamental ideas establish in the framing of a political conception of justice it is natural, or as Rawls writes “the inevitable outcome of free human reason”, that a diversity of reasonable doctrines and core

249 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, revised edition, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. 168 beliefs develop. (PL, p37) Simple pluralism is when there are just narrow diverse views that remain unfocussed and self-limiting. Reasonable pluralism expands the use of the practical reason of citizens and their comprehensive standpoints because they work with and for the political conception. Furthermore, “these are the doctrines that reasonable citizens affirm and that political liberalism must address.” (PL, p36) What is required then given the fact of pluralism is a political conception of justice as fairness, one that finds its cause and operates independently of the differing comprehensive doctrines present in a given society and yet able to be affirmed, in its political domain, by all as politically reasonable.

This new focus on a political rather than a comprehensive approach to justice and stability naturally requires “a family of ideas not needed before.” (Introduction to Political Liberalism [IPL] in PL, pxvii) The change in Rawls’ approach to political theory from “metaphysical” to “political” means that, while substantive principles and their application to the basic structure are still prime concerns, universal foundations are affected by the move to political liberalism in such a way that renders the former of less systematic concern. The distinction between the comprehensive and political domains becomes fundamental in political liberalism and brings with it new and necessary ideas that operate axiomatically. Thus, to show how a stable society governed in accordance with a conception of justice is possible Rawls introduces the ideas of a political conception of justice, an overlapping consensus (in a new guise) and public reason, in addition to a political conception of the person and a reasonable - not simple - pluralism. (IPL in PL, pxvii) The guiding question of all this intellectual effort is, “[h]ow is it possible that there may exist over time a stable and just society of free and equal citizens profoundly divided by reasonable though incompatible religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines?” (IPL in PL, pxviii)

I argue that the structure and content of the answer to this question is given by the idea of the reasonable. Rawls qualifies each of his new political conceptions with “reasonable”: we have a fact of reasonable pluralism, a reasonable overlapping consensus, a reasonable conception of justice, reasonable comprehensive doctrines, and the specific instantiation of the reasonable in the idea of public reason. In addition the “freestanding” (moral) political conception of justice is characterized by its own 169 internal “normative and moral ideal”, which for Rawls is exemplified by the criterion of reciprocity. Importantly, this intrinsic principle requires a double-dose of reasonableness: reciprocity is when we offer fair terms that we must reasonably think will be reasonably accepted by those to whom they are offered. (Introduction to the Paperback Edition [IPE] in PL, pxlii) Thus, the weight of this seemingly innocuous adjective-cum-noun is considerable. Additionally, the aim of all these new ideas (as conditioned by the idea of the reasonable) is to find the “most reasonable basis of social unity”, that is, a basis such that diverse citizens may hold “a reasonable political conception that supports a just democratic regime”. (IPE in PL, ppxxxvi & xxxvii)

This sudden outcrop of abstract ideas is necessary, however, because this level of abstraction is appropriate to the task we are undertaking. Rawls defines it as a “conceptual task” of “specifying the public reason of a well-ordered society when it is regulated by a political conception.” (IPE in PL, pxlv). Rawls avows that political philosophy in particular requires abstractions because of the attendant deep conflicts of politics. “Profound and long-lasting controversies set the stage for the idea of reasonable justification as a practical … problem.” (PL, p44) Even at this early stage in the discussion of Rawls the reasonable stands out as the conceptual-practical tool for creating the political conception of justice.

The reasonable is the most abstract and essential condition for the creation of a “special” political domain as separate in origin and purpose from the comprehensive. The very possibility of political liberalism depends on the reasonable. Thus, the reasonable becomes the preeminent idea in the evolution of Rawls’ political philosophy. This eminence becomes even more pronounced in the development of the idea of public reason, to which the second and third sections of this chapter will be devoted. It is the idea of the reasonable and its conditioning of all the other fundamental ideas of political liberalism that answers the stability problem for Rawls.

4.1.1 The idea of a reasonable overlapping consensus We begin by analysing one of the fundamental renovations Rawls makes in PL; that of the idea of a reasonable overlapping consensus. Rawls clarifies the two-stages of a 170 political conception of justice as fairness first in his 1989 essay “The Domain of the Political and Overlapping Consensus” [DPOC], and makes an expanded discussion of it in lecture IV of PL. The first stage is the freestanding provision of values applicable to the domain of the political. This results in a constitutional consensus that is “not deep”. (PL, p152) The second stage is where the problem of stability is addressed and the idea of an overlapping consensus is introduced. It is not a simple political consensus but rather a consensus about a political conception that arises from a range of different and conflicting comprehensive doctrines. Rawls stresses that it is only after the first stage, the establishment of the political conception for the basic structure of society together with the content of its principles of justice and ideals, that the stability question can be addressed. But he qualifies the conclusiveness of this first stage when he writes that we only have the political conception of justice and its content “provisionally on hand” when we enter the second stage, that of assessing the stability of the conception. (DPOC in Collected Papers [CP], p486 & PL, p141)250

The provisionality of the constitutional consensus performed in the first stage is revealing for the type of stability Rawls wants to promote. It is not simply about enforcing the conception of justice that has been worked out in the first stage. Rather, stability for Rawls means that the articulated political conception of justice inspires “a reasoned and informed allegiance” to its principles and institutional content sufficient to render the basic structure of society stable. Stability is not about coercion by a dominant conception but rather about willing and informed political practice that adheres to the political conception of justice; “[c]itizens act willingly so as to give one another justice over time.” (DPOC in CP, p487 & PL, p142) The motivation to participate in the political conception of justice and its enduring relevance is also based in the reasonable; “justice as fairness relies for its reasonableness in the first place upon generating its own support in a suitable way by addressing each citizen’s reason, as explained within its own framework.”(DPOC in CP, p488 & PL, p143) This is because a political conception “should guide reflective judgment”, that is, stability is not gained by dictating what citizens must agree to but by enjoining them to participate in the political conception of justice. (DPOC in CP, p494f) This confirmation of provisionality in Rawls will be important to remember when I argue

250 Collected Papers – John Rawls, edited by Samuel Freeman, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. 171 below that the way public reason emerges as a process by which a society can work towards higher justice, and in the comparison in the next chapter between Rawls and Kant (via Ellis) on the energising role of provisionality in political theory. What we will focus on here, however, is the role of the idea of a reasonable political conception, which is that of guiding or regulating public judgement.

Rawls asserts that a political conception of justice expresses values outweighing other more fundamental and even conflicting comprehensive values. This is because the values of political society, cooperation and constitutionalism, are “very great” and sui generis. Rawls lists as examples the “great political virtues” of “tolerance and being ready to meet others halfway, and the virtue of reasonableness and the sense of fairness”(PL, p157) Commitment to the political as a “special domain” is achieved by these virtues: any values that conflict with the political conception of justice will be seen to threaten “the very conditions that make fair social cooperation possible on a footing of mutual respect.” (PL, p157) In the political there is a freedom from comprehensive foundations that is secured by the mutual respect of an overlapping consensus and is, therefore, capable of creating its own political commitments. “A political conception is at best but a guiding framework of deliberation and reflection which helps us reach political agreement on at least constitutional essentials and basic questions of justice.” (PL, p156) And, given Rawls insistence on the greatness of the political virtues, we can see that it is indeed our moral nature that is called upon by the reasonable and our social nature that wants to create the reasonable for political cooperation. According to Rawls, the cooperation between our moral and social nature under the auspices of the reasonable creates stability and legitimacy; the twin central concern of the tradition of Rawls’ political philosophy. (DPOC in CP, p488 & PL, p143).

Rawls concludes his section on stability in Lecture IV in PL with a demonstration of the very tight interrelationship of, not only stability and legitimacy, but also the political conception of justice and, of course, reasonableness. He writes: [J]ustice as fairness is not reasonable in the first place unless in a suitable way it can win its support by addressing each citizen’s reason, as explained within its own framework. Only so is it an account of legitimacy of political authority as opposed to an account of how those who hold political power can satisfy themselves, and not citizens generally, that they are acting properly. A 172

conception of political legitimacy aims for a public basis of justification and appeals to public reason, and hence to free and equal citizens viewed as reasonable and rational.(PL, p144)

Rawls does three things in this brief remark. First, he makes it clear that the definition of a political conception of justice includes both the reasonable and reason: it is reasonable if it can speak to each citizen’s reason. Second, this definition is actually about the point of stability: the political conception is stable if it is reasonable in the self-determining way described. And third, this account of the stability of the political conception of justice then doubles as an account of legitimacy. The idea of legitimacy is introduced as further part of the official trinity of ideas of public justification and is what sets the conditions under which citizens can validly exercise coercive authority over each other. It too depends on the specific form of the reasonable in public reason. So here we have four basic ideas of political liberalism; a political conception of justice, stability for the right reasons, political legitimacy and public reason all defined by, dependent on or founded by the reasonable. The reasonable is what creates a legitimate stable political order of justice, and it is important to note the status of such an order: we “aim for” it. We are pushed from the first stage to the second, “even supposing a full overlapping consensus is never achieved but at best only approximated.” (PL, p165)251

4.1.2 The reply to Habermas on reasonable justification The relationship given above between legitimacy and stability is arguably Habermas’ starting point for his questions to Rawls on the role of the idea of an overlapping consensus and political justification. The answer to which can already be found albeit in Rawls’ conceptual shorthand in the last sentence of the long quote above: political liberalism aims for a public basis of justification by political society. This is a product of the reasonable overlapping consensus involved in a political conception of justice and it is the work of the reasonable. Rawls takes Habermas to be asking two questions that are highly relevant to this thesis. The first asks Rawls to separate the problem of stability and legitimacy, and the second asks directly about the use of the term “reasonable”.

251 This, of course, recalls Kant’s insistence that we only ever work “towards” perpetual peace in our attempts to approximate it. See for example TPP, 8:386. 173

The answers to both questions, Rawls tells us, lie in the three kinds of justification entailed in political liberalism and in the idea of a reasonable as opposed to a common political overlapping consensus. The three kinds of justification are pro tanto, full and public. Pro tanto justification is an enclosed form of justifying the political using political concepts. Full justification is based in the individual point of view; how each individual finds a justification for the political conception within their own comprehensive view. Public justification is when there is a shared point of view from which all citizens together can judge the politics on offer. This means that there is an easy mutuality of respect for different comprehensive doctrines because they have all accepted as reasonable the political conception, which in turn provides society with a public point of view.252 Reasonable citizens respect other citizens as reasonable.

This answers Habermas’ second question about the use of the term reasonable, which Rawls discretely defines as simply expressive of a reflective attitude toward tolerance. (RTH, p149) But in Rawls’ answer to the first question about the idea of an overlapping consensus and public justification the reasonable is doing work above and beyond a simple attitude, even if it is not bringing in a covert standard of truth as Habermas suspects. Rawls does qualify the simplicity of his answer regarding the use of the term reasonable by saying, already cited in the introduction to this chapter, “I grant that the idea of the reasonable needs a more thorough examination than Political Liberalism offers.” (RTH, p150) I am not concerned to contradict Rawls’ exclusion of the comprehensively true from the political, but rather to argue that the reasonable receives a priority in Rawls’ political liberalism. And further, that this priority takes the form of an idea that regulates this theory of politics. Let us now then look more closely at the subject of the first question: public justification.

Public justification is a basic idea of political liberalism because, Rawls explains, it “works in tandem” with the other three ideas: reasonable overlapping consensus, stability for the right reasons and legitimacy. (RTH, p143) This thesis views public justification, therefore, as essentially entailing the practice of the idea of the reasonable. Rawls writes, “Only when there is a reasonable overlapping consensus

252 Note another double definition here: public justification is also the same as full (wide and general) equilibrium. See the definition of full equilibrium in RTH, p141 fn16. 174 can political society’s political conception of justice be publicly, though never finally, justified.” (RTH, p144) It is the idea of the reasonable that lends this indeterminate characteristic to the political conception of justice: it can be justified by a particular society in a certain time, but that idea may change and is therefore open to being publicly justified again.

This is not about the failure of public justification per se nor is it accused of being content-based, rather it has a positive function. The reasonable opens up the common ground that reasonable citizens can use to attempt to approximate the conditions of the shared political conception of justice. Like full reflective equilibrium, “it is a point at infinity we can never reach, though we may get closer to it in the sense that through discussion our ideals, principles and judgments may seem more reasonable to us and we regard them as better founded than they were before.” (RTH, p142)253 The consensus of political liberalism is not the ordinary idea of a latent agreement in citizens, but rather the freestanding agreement by citizens to create and stay within the political domain, where the criterion of reciprocity rules. In addition, this gives the political doctrine an educational capacity to shape reasonable doctrines toward itself. (RTH, p145) This means, in effect, that the reasonable is able to legitimate itself within and for a given people.

Rawls writes that: If we can make the case that there are adequate reasons for diverse reasonable people jointly to affirm justice as fairness as their working political conception, then the conditions for their legitimately exercising coercive political power over one another - something we inevitably do as citizens by voting, if in no other way - are satisfied. (RTH, p146)

So, a reasonable overlapping consensus is a joint affirmation of a political conception that conditions political legitimacy. With this affirmation, however, comes a stability that cannot be in the name of a merely pragmatic legitimate political coercion. Stability, for Rawls, has to be for the right reasons, and Hobbesian or instrumental values are inadequate for his idea of stability.

253 The reference to a “point at infinity” draws a very close textual similarity to Kant’s ideas of reason and their being a “focus imaginarius”, which occurs at the beginning of the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic. (CPR, A645/ B673) In another very close textual similarity between Rawls and Kant (via Habermas) Rawls states that a “just constitution… in Habermas’ terms… is a project to be carried out.” (RTH, p152) 175

The right reasons to affirm and uphold a reasonable political conception again have to do with the relationship between our comprehensive and political doctrines. It seems that the “basis of a social unity is the most reasonable [and] … deepest because the fundamental ideas of the political conception are endorsed by the reasonable comprehensive doctrines.” (RTH, p147) Political stability cannot ignore the issue of political motivation, and again the notion of embedding the shared political value of justice in comprehensive values plays a role. Rawls thinks that there is greater “hope” of citizens giving primacy to the political when it is justified by each citizen comprehensively.254 This is the superior stability of political liberalism over that of a society where the political conception is a modus vivendi.

And again with Rawls’ discussion of the idea of legitimacy, in which incidentally, as with the political conception of justice and a reasonable overlapping consensus, there is a constant reference to the relationship between the political and comprehensive domains. Legitimacy is based on the acceptance by citizens of reasonable political life and on their giving primacy to the shared political values at certain times. Rawls recalls but fails to directly answer Habermas’ first question, “whether the idea of an overlapping consensus adds to the justification of the political conception or whether it simply lays out a necessary condition of social stability.” (RTH, p149) The answer is that it in effect does both. This is by virtue of the way the reasonable mediates the relationship between the comprehensive and political views.

Public justification and its interrelation with the three ideas of a political conception of justice, stability for the right reasons and legitimacy cannot be detached from the idea of the reasonable and the way that it oversees the relationship between the public political and the comprehensive. I agree with Rawls that political liberalism is still able to avoid questions of truth, as Habermas thinks it cannot, because the idea of the reasonable is not the substitute value for truth and morality. Rawls has not, however, examined or explained how the idea of the reasonable can perform this avoidance. This chapter argues that the reasonable works because it performs as a Kantian a regulative idea. In this way the reasonable creates a political liberalism

254 Compare Kant’s belief that Enlightenment is more probable for a society rather than individually, see discussion in 3.1.2. 176 without the comprehensive foundations of Theory.

Essential to Rawls’ political liberalism is that it “leaves philosophy as it is” and “cannot argue its case by invoking any comprehensive doctrines, or by criticizing or rejecting them, so long of course as those doctrines are reasonable, politically speaking.” (RTH, p134) This means that the reasonable acts as the gatekeeper to the idea and institution of the political. Thus, provided that beliefs are reasonable, that is, willing to accept the condition of reciprocity, they may enter and form the political realm. The reasonable as border protection for the political, however, also permits it to represent itself beyond its own condition and make certain pronouncements on comprehensive doctrines. So while the political leaves philosophy at the gate, it may, according to Rawls go out the gate itself. Rawls writes: “Political liberalism abstains from assertions about the domain of comprehensive views except as necessary when these views are unreasonable and reject all variations of the basic essentials of a democratic regime.” (RTH, p134)

The reasonable seems to be acting as the objective, politically speaking. If it deems a fundamental conviction to be “unreasonable”, that is, one that doesn’t accept the criteria of reciprocity, or is obstructive to basic democratic justice, its judgment does actually affect the domain outside of the political for the sake of keeping politics public by deciding what fundamental convictions can be deemed acceptable to public order. There is a mutual feedback here between the comprehensive and political domains as mediated by the reasonable. In this way, the reasonable does appear to exist at once above and within the political realm. If, however, the freestandingness of the political depends on the reasonable acting for its interests in the realm of the comprehensive, then the reasonable carries to the idea of the political the highest degree of freestandingness practically possible.

It would be an exaggeration to say that the reasonable is an overarching idea as based on a conception of the good. However, in the gatekeeper role Rawls ascribes to the reasonable there is an assumption that such a border between the comprehensive and the political will naturally form; that it is possible to herd together conceptions of the right and to exclude conceptions of the good. And the 177 presupposition of this possibility is that the reasonable exists. The duality of the idea of the reasonable is that it is assumed in order to create the political unadulterated by metaphysics, morals and religion, as well as acting as the judge for the constitution of the political. So the reasonable is not simply immanent to or a product of the political but it also conditions what the political is to be. To use a Kantian turn of phrase it is a necessary condition of the political, and as an idea of reason, we must assume that it exists so that we can create it. The reasonable relies on the practical use of reason.

In Theory Rawls distinguished between two different questions: on the one hand, what is desirable a priori for justice or just institutions; and on the other hand, what is feasible all things considered. This distinction is made clear in the first sentence of Chapter VIII when he writes, "Having presented an account of the good, I now turn to the problem of stability." (Theory, p397) At this stage these are two different problems for Rawls, ones that cannot be mixed. It seems to me, however, that in the creation of a political liberalism Rawls converges these two problems in a virtuous circle: a priori principles and practical political stability can no longer be neatly divided. What allows such a circle to subsist is the reasonable; it is the reasonable that joins the internal path of this circle and continually leads us back to itself as the leading idea of Rawls’ political justice. The reasonable is both a condition of political liberalism and sets a condition for it to realise. The reasonable has a status in Rawls theory that therefore accords with that of an idea of reason in Kant’s practical philosophy. Returning to Rawls lectures on Kantian constructivism we can witness that what he writes of the reasonable there remains true for PL, namely that, “it is an inclusive conception which expresses the ideal to be realized in our social world.” (“Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory”[KC], p532)255.

4.2 Public Reason as Idea of Reason 4.2.1 Publicity and the idea of a well-ordered society Rawls first introduces publicity as one of the “formal constraints of the concept of right” in Theory. Here the purpose of the publicity condition is to ensure the conception of justice is one that is publicly acknowledged and not constituted by

255 John Rawls, “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory, The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 77, No. 9, Sep 9, 1980, pp515-572. 178 principles that are deemed either universal or esoteric. Interestingly, he does refer to Kant’s categorical imperative (acting on maxims that one would desire to be a law in the kingdom of ends) as the example of publicity in operation because the kingdom of ends depends on principles made in accordance with it as its “public charter.”(Theory, p115) And yet in a footnote he remarks that although publicity is “clearly implied” in the moral law he can only find reference to it in Kant’s political works (Theory, p115 fn. 8). Certainly Rawls makes the right conclusion in this footnote, that is, that the vocation of publicity is social justice. However, he need not refer to the categorical imperative to make this point, there is ample evidence for this conclusion in Kant’s political writings. As argued in the previous chapter, publicity is additional to the universality requirement for the specific task of maintaining Recht.

In Theory publicity is also discussed as one of the factors of stability. (Theory, pp397f) This is the argument that Rawls continues as the main focus of PL; actual public acceptance and knowledge of the principles of justice in a political community is required for an enduring and well-ordered society. In a premonition of the way he expands the limits of public reason Rawls also argues that publicity furthers political stability in the way it supports the self-respect of citizens, which in turn advances general social cooperation. (Theory, pp155-156) His argument here is comprehensive; he draws on the notion that publicity encourages citizens to treat each other “as ends in themselves” and it clearly foreshadows the duty of civility that he devises as the ideal of public reason in PL. The duty of civility provides that we treat each other reasonably in a way that we expect others to find reasonable. This is evidence of the political liberal value of the reasonable replacing the comprehensive moral value, but it also shows that the moral preparedness of citizens is still a firm expectation in Rawls’ theory of political liberalism, a point I will also discuss in dialogue with O’Neill and that I will develop further in section 4.2.2 below.

While there is a similarity between the role of publicity in the stability argument in Theory and PL, what Rawls wants to change with regard to publicity in PL is its basis in the moral idea of a formal constraint to the concept of right and instead make publicity a condition governed by reasonable political reciprocity. In PL Rawls provides publicity as the condition of an effective conception of justice and 179 states that in a well ordered society “the full publicity condition” is satisfied. This means that it meets all three levels of publicity. The first two levels involve the manner in which public justification of the political conception is achieved, through “commonly shared beliefs confirmed by methods of inquiry and ways of reasoning generally accepted as appropriate for questions of political justice.” (PL, p66) The first level exhibits this in the way that public principles of justice are generally accepted and known to be accepted. The second level uses this public mode of political justification for the common sense beliefs that are generally understood to underlie the acceptance of political principles. The third level of publicity is satisfied when all our justifications of the conception of justice are public. This means it is not only the conception of justice that is publicly accessible and understood but also the “full justification” of it must also be acceptable, meaning “known “ or “publicly available”. (PL, p67). All three levels must be present to qualify as a well-ordered society because of the need for reciprocity between citizens: the use of coercion on fellow citizens must be understood and accepted. Publicity is also about granting the self-determination of citizens despite and indeed through the “pervasive influences of the basic structure.” (PL, p68)

Rawls creates a special meaning for his use of the term ‘society’ in the idea of well-orderedness. It is defined in particular as a fair system of cooperation over generations and entails two further ideas; firstly the idea of citizens as free and equal persons, and secondly the idea of a well-ordered society as one that is effectively regulated by a public political conception of justice. (PL, p35) Rawls’ definition of a well-ordered society sets out three facets it implies, each of which correspond to the above three levels of publicity. The first facet of the idea of a well-ordered society, he tells us, is implied by the idea of a publicly recognised conception of justice and is about the shared acceptance and acknowledgement of that shared acceptance of the governing principles; the second facet, implied by the idea of effective regulation of a political conception of justice, is that the basic structure is “publicly known, or with good reason believed, to satisfy these principles”; and the third facet is about the effective sense of justice of citizens, which means they regard the principles to be just and comply with them accordingly. Rawls concludes his elaboration of the well- ordered society with, “[i]n such a society the publicly recognised conception of justice 180 establishes a shared point of view from which citizens’ claims on society can be adjudicated.”(PL, p35) Rawls posits this “shared point of view” as the essential achievement of publicity because only then can a society be legitimate, which means all citizens are treated as free and equal. The final level of publicity, the common platform for judging political action, is the measure for being in accordance with reasonable political justice.

The full publicity condition, therefore, satisfies the idea of a well-ordered society. More important, however, is how the different levels of publicity demonstrate the genesis of such a society, how it operates and on what basis. This is important because, as Rawls states, the idea of a well-ordered society is a “highly idealised concept.” (PL, p35) Such concepts are necessitated by the fact of reasonable pluralism. Rawls clarifies again here that he is not talking about the fact of simple pluralism. It is freedom of thought that creates the reasonable plurality and reasonable unity of the political domain. We have already seen how Rawls provides for stability for the right reasons in the idea of an overlapping consensus. There is a very close connection here between public reason and the “free” acceptance of government authority. In a footnote to this use of “free” Rawls employs Kant: the freedom of reason as manifested in action is what Rawls believes is a limit to public reason and political authority. (PL, p222 fn9) This provides further evidence for Rawls’ employment of a Kantian system of practical regulative ideas.

The fact of reasonable pluralism and the nature of our free practical reason is explained further by the connection to the second fact, that of “oppression”. If a society is established or governed by one comprehensive doctrine of any form, it can only do so on the basis of coercive state power. Under such conditions there will always be those who stray from the ruling conception and must, therefore, be brought forcefully into line with the comprehensive foundation of the society. The third fact is that for a democratic regime to be continuing and secure there must be general support by its subjects. This shows why publicity is essential to a well-ordered society as Rawls conceives it: a political conception for that society must be publicly justified by those of “widely different and opposing though reasonable comprehensive doctrines.” (PL, p38) 181

The idea of the well-ordered society is another way for Rawls to explain the publicity condition where the reasonable negotiates, individually and collectively, the relationship between the political and the comprehensive domains: “citizens must decide for themselves in what way the public political conception all affirm is related to their own more comprehensive views.”(PL, p38) The well-ordered society is reasonable because it does not impose the unreasonable requirement that all citizens support the same comprehensive view. This is not to say, however, that there is no imposition on citizens for politics is about adjudicating the legitimate coercion of others. All that is required of people in political liberalism is that they affirm the same public political conception of justice, which is now relaxed to allow one of a family of reasonable conceptions of justice. (PL, p39)

What Rawls wants to distinguish with the idea of a well-ordered society is the particular capacity of a political conception of justice to win allegiance to itself. (PL, p40) This capacity is also provided for by the publicity condition insofar as it belongs to the wide role of the political conception of justice. The aim of publicity is not simply to create norms that achieve minimum social co-operation; it also aims much higher towards the cultivation of an enduring conception of justice. Once publicity effectively conditions the public culture of a society, it also assists in the education of the conception of justice. Again, Rawls refers to the impact on the self-determination of citizens as achieved by the wide role of publicity, when he writes that they “are given a way of reading themselves that otherwise they would most likely never be able to entertain.” (PL, p71) There is a belief in the ability of a well-ordered society as conditioned by a public political conception of justice to give a moral education. “To realize the full publicity condition is to realize a social world within which the ideal of citizenship can be learned and may elicit an effective desire to be that kind of person.” (PL, p71).

We see that the reasonable holds sway beyond the political. Indeed, the reasonable can regulate the very beliefs and behaviour of individual citizens. Moreover this power to gain voluntary political endorsement attributed to the political conception of justice shows how the publicly reasonable is the keystone for Rawls’ 182 idea of a stable and freestanding political liberal just society. A well-ordered society based on public reason operates by virtue of the reasonable commitment of citizens to the idea of reasonable, which must be an ongoing process.

4.2.2 The idea of public reason Publicity, the “distinctive element of a Kantian view” (KC, p535), is not jettisoned by Rawls in the transition from his comprehensive position in Theory to the focus on stability in political liberalism. This is not to imply that Theory does not deal with stability. What Rawls means is, first, that Theory (as he already mentions in the Introduction to PL) misrepresented stability as the effect of general and necessary consensus on the principles of justice as fairness understood as a moral comprehensive doctrine rather than as a political conception; second, that PL differs in its account of stability. Theory’s account of stability is given in PL as an example of stability for the wrong reasons because there the stability of social union resulted from persons agreeing to the principles of justice as fairness and only these.

In contrast, PL presents the stability of social union as a result of persons coming, from within their own comprehensive doctrines, to affirm one of a family of reasonable political conceptions, which also includes justice as fairness (the conception that Rawls thinks is the most reasonable). This is stability for the right reasons because it does not require allegiance to any comprehensive doctrine but only requires allegiance to those moral values that are also reasonable political values. And even then, it does not require that these reasonable political values be formulated and ordered in the same way as justice as fairness (although that, says Rawls, would be most reasonable). Indeed given the focus of PL and the integral nature of public reason it comes as no surprise that political stability, which, due to the fact of pluralism, must include room for change, is what generates the idea of public reason as one of Political Liberalism’s three main ideas. Furthermore, public reason is also what creates a reasonable political stability. It is public reason that invokes the requirement that stability be for the right reasons. There are many types of political stability (aristocratic, autocratic etc.), which would not invoke an idea of public reason. However, the kind of stability Rawls seeks for modern plural societies is the primary push behind the genesis of the idea of public reason. This demonstrates a 183 kind of circularity; we have political stability qua public reason and public reason qua political stability.

Rawls provides a very clear definition of public reason at the start of “The idea of public reason” in PL that is worth presenting in its entirety. He writes, Public reason is characteristic of a democratic people: it is the reason of its citizens, of those sharing the status of equal citizenship. The subject of their reason is the good of the public:256 what the political conception of justice requires of society’s basic structure of institutions, and of the purposes and ends they are to serve. Public reason, then, is public in three ways: as the reasons of citizens as such, it is the reason of the public; its subject is the good of the public and matters of fundamental justice; and its nature and content is public, being given by the ideals and principles expressed by society’s conception of political justice, and conducted open to view on that basis. (PL, p213)

Rawls first presents the partner notions of the reasonable and the rational as “two elements of any notion of social cooperation” in “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory” and gives each a capital letter, in the style of all German nouns. (KC, p528) He later drops the capitalisation of the terms but calls the distinction originally Kantian. (PL, p48)257 In KC Rawls also comments that the reasonable is an “obscure notion”. (KC, p529) In PL, however, there is no such admission but on closer examination there is a possible cause for confusion about the status of the reasonable as attributed to persons vis-à-vis its relationship to the moral power of a sense of justice. The two moral powers endowed to citizens are provided by Rawls in the section on the “fundamental idea” of the person in political liberalism as free and equal. These moral powers are “a capacity for a sense of justice” and “a capacity for a conception of the good”. The way that Rawls defines them, is dependent on the two main elements of the idea of society as a fair system of cooperation: the idea of fair terms of cooperation and the idea of each citizen’s rational good or advantage.

Rawls elaborates on the sense of justice by saying that given “the nature of the political conception as specifying a public basis of justification, a sense of justice also

256 My emphasis, the reason for which will become clearer in the next chapter. At present, however, recall the end of public happiness that Kant makes the goal of politics by virtue of the second positive formula of publicity. See 3.2.2. 257 Rawls analyses this distinction in detail as a major “theme” of Kant’s moral philosophy in his paper on “Themes in Kant’s Moral Philosophy” in CP 1989, pp407- 528. 184 expresses a willingness, if not the desire, to act in relation to others on terms that they also can publicly endorse (II:1)." (PL, p19) The numerical reference here is to the first "power of citizens” in political liberalism, that of reasonableness. Here he declines to define it directly but rather presents “two of its basic aspects as virtues of persons.” (PL, p48) These are a kind of social reciprocity of fair terms of cooperation and a predisposition to accept the consequences of reciprocity, i.e., tolerate others reasonable views. (see also RTH, p134) There is an explicit correspondence between moral personality as holding a capacity for a sense of justice and an idea of the good and the capacity of a citizen to be reasonable and rational. However, there is a far greater association, and source of obscurity, between the sense of justice and the idea of the reasonable as attributed to persons.

In PL Rawls emphasises that the reasonable and the rational are each fundamental and that the reasonable cannot be deduced from the rational, in a Hobbesian manner, in the Dewey Lectures where he states that the “Reasonable presupposes … and subordinates the Rational.” (KC, p530)258 Later, Rawls stresses their independence and denies any instrumentality between the reasonable and the rational because the conception of the political is practical and not metaphysical or epistemological; it does not aim to be true but rather “a basis of informed and willing political agreement between citizens viewed as free and equal persons.” (Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical [JFPM], p23)259 We also keep in mind that, as Rawls tells Habermas, “the reasonable” is not used to express truth or validity of moral judgments but rather to “simply express a reflective attitude toward tolerance.” (RTH, p149) However, in PL he suggests that it is the reasonable in people that allows them to work towards the rational. He writes that in a reasonable society “all have their own rational ends they hope to advance” but behave reasonably. The members of a reasonable society “stand ready to propose fair terms that others may reasonably be expected to accept” so that “all may benefit and improve on what every one can do so on their own.” (PL, p54)

258 The full quote runs as follows: “The Reasonable presupposes the Rational because it needs conceptions of the good as motivation to social cooperation for agreement on the right and principles of justice, and it subordinates the Rational because it proposes the limits to the ends that may be pursued.” (KC, p530) 259 John Rawls, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 14, No. 3, Summer 1985, pp223-251. 185

Therefore, a society that is motivated by the rational, that is, the desire of individuals to fulfil their own conceptions of the good, requires a sense of justice informed by reasonableness to give rise to the public condition of reciprocity. The reasonable is needed in order for society to move together towards the fulfilment of justice as fairness where the reasonable and the rational are distinct but complementary ideas. Rawls wants to separate the reasonable and rational so there is no suggestion of a moral deduction for his political philosophy. But there is clearly a pre-eminence given to moral powers in the very aligning of a person’s capacity for a sense of justice with a citizen’s capacity for reasonableness.

Perhaps the obscurity of the idea of the reasonable as applied to persons stems from this association with the moral power of a sense of justice. The reasonable is not simply a capacity of citizens; it too is a “moral power”. This is confusing in the context of the idea of the reasonable because Rawls so strongly insists that we are in the domain of the political where private moral considerations are not appropriate. In a footnote about Rawls’ sources for the distinction between the reasonable and the rational he writes that the “disposition to be reasonable is neither derived from nor opposed to the rational but it is incompatible with egoism, as it is related to the disposition to act morally.”(PL, p49, fn1) Rawls also notes that the “moral power “ of reasonableness is an “essential social virtue.” (PL, p54)260

This is remembering that reasonableness, as a basic power of citizens, is not an epistemological idea, but rather a “political ideal of democratic citizenship that includes the idea of public reason”, and its content is “what free and equal citizens as reasonable can require of each other with respect to their reasonable comprehensive views.” (PL, p62) We must also note that one of the main differences between the reasonable and the rational as moral powers is that the reasonable is public and the rational is not: “this means that it is by the reasonable that we enter as equals the public world of others and stand ready to propose or to accept, as the case may be, fair terms of cooperation with them.” (PL, p54) The public arena must be established free from comprehensive justification. We enter into an agreement based on a mutual

260 Perhaps Kant’s figure of the moral politician discussed in 3.3 could assist Rawls’ explanation of the way the rational and the reasonable relate to each other. 186 expectation of all others that whatever we bring to or effect within and for this public realm will be a product of the reasonable. The mechanism for achieving this is public reason.

Given the fact of reasonable pluralism, Rawls describes the operation of public reason best in his “revisitation” of the idea when he says, “I propose that in public reason comprehensive doctrines of truth or right be replaced by an idea of the politically reasonable addressed to citizens as citizens.” (“The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” [IPRR] in PL, p441) Rawls’ theory gives great importance to the idea of public reason, and as far more than a political virtue, the idea itself, he states, “belongs to a conception of a well-ordered constitutional democratic society.” (IPRR in PL, p440). Prevailing pluralism means that citizens “need to consider what kinds of reasons they may reasonably give one another when fundamental political questions are at stake.” (IPRR in PL, p441)

Onora O’Neill notes that the conception of reasonableness that Rawls advances in general in PL is specifically a conception of public reason.261 This is obvious from the beginning, for example, in a quote O’Neill also favours: “[p]ersons are reasonable when … they are ready to propose principles and standards as fair terms of co-operation and to abide by them willingly, given the assurance that others will likewise do so.” (PL, p49) We can see that the reasonable is obviously a guide here for how to be political: the idea arises because “it is essential that a liberal political conception include, besides its principles of justice, guidelines of inquiry that specify ways of reasoning and criteria for the kinds of information relevant for political questions.” (PL, p223). In Lecture VI on the idea of public reason in PL this is also called the ideal expressed by the principle of legitimacy, that is, “to live politically with others in light of reasons that all might reasonably be expected to endorse” (PL, p243), the ideal of public reason and the duty of civility (e.g., PL, p217). Citizens must accept and act in accord with the limits of public reason as given by the ideal of citizenship. Thus, what is ruled out by the limits of public reason are comprehensive conceptions of the good and true and ways of reasoning that are not currently commonly accepted, which is an empirical reference point for public reason.

261 O’Neill, 1997, p352. 187

In other words the limits of public reason are the limits of the reasonable as drawn by the principle of reciprocity.262

Reciprocity, for Rawls, means that citizens view each other as free and equal in a system of social cooperation over generations and are reasonably prepared to offer one another fair terms of cooperation according to what they consider the most reasonable conception of political justice; and when they agree to act on those terms, even at the cost of their own interests in particular situations, provided that other citizens also accept those terms. (IPRR in PL, p446)

So Rawls sees the citizens as the prime players in governance, in the creation of political legitimacy, and public reason is the mechanism that accords citizens this role.

Another way to approach the criterion of reciprocity for public reason is through the idea of civic friendship or the duty of civility. Stability for the right reasons means that stability is founded on respect for moral persons. This implies that it is respect that is the overriding concern, which may help explain the link Rawls makes with the notion of civic friendship. We understand citizens to be deliberating together as they exercise and safeguard legitimate political authority. In circumstances of ineliminable diversity, stability for the right reasons is the overriding concern. For Rawls, an idea of converging wills asks too much of the citizens in a polity, rather he thinks that the political aim should be an accepted decision making procedure. Public reason “proceeds correctly from premises we accept and think others could reasonably accept to conclusions we think they could also reasonably accept.“ (IPRR in PL, p465) This is a process of public justification; it is public reason that determines principles of political cooperation.263

262 This does not remain true, however, for Rawls’ development to the limits of public reason. In the following sections I will deal with when it is permissible to include comprehensive conceptions of the true. Rawls develops the “wide view of public reason” which does allow reasonable comprehensive conceptions of the true to be called upon in public reasoning at any time on the proviso (“the proviso”) that in due course these be given proper political reasons sufficient to support whatever the comprehensive doctrines introduced are said to support. 263 Cf. Fred D’Agostino, Free Public Reason: Making it up as we go, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, p3. Charles Larmore would agree here and want to maintain this “due process” function for public reason in Rawls. As I will discuss in the next chapter he argues against the expansion of the limits to public reason and thinks its proper role is the legitimate formation of public principles. See, Charles Larmore, “Public Reason” in Cambridge Companion to Rawls, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp 367-393, p385. 188

The procedure occurs, according to Rawls, within an already bounded society of people. Rawls’ conception of the public is not global but necessarily contained within particular democratic political communities. The idea of public reason is a problem that faces each individual democratic society (IPRR in PL, p441). Perhaps it is worth asking, for the sake of further exposition of the idea of public reason, why it is not a problem that faces autocratic or aristocratic societies. Remembering the above definition of public reason and how its subject is the good of the people we get a sense of why public reason is characteristic of a democratic people. In aristocratic and autocratic regimes, when the good of society is considered, this is not done by the public (if it exists at all) but by the rulers, whoever they may be. The definition Rawls gives of public reason itself demonstrates why it is necessarily contained within democratic communities and cannot be global. This is a point of divergence with Kant’s understanding of a world-public, as I have explained in Chapter Three and as O’Neill also notices.264 So, public reason for Rawls is situated in a democratic and well-ordered community and its content is public political: it aims at accepted and mutually affirmed political justification. The issue of Rawls’ idea of public reason being state-bound will be developed in comparison with Kant in the next chapter.

Rawls’ idea of public reason is initially given as that which is reasonably affirmed by all reasonable citizens. It is, however, this reduction of reasonableness to reciprocity that O’Neill finds too weak in Rawls, and that she sees as causing him to place public reason in the closed context of a democratic liberal society. She argues that Rawls’ conception of the reasonable is identified with the public reason of citizens in an already given bounded democratic society.265 She also thinks that Rawls lacks a moral psychology, which would explain the desire to be reasonable because of his insistence on being political. For O’Neill this entails that all the power of public reason stems from Rawls’ contractualism because this is what assures citizens there will in fact be agreement.266 The limit of public reason is the limit of citizenhood and the mode of citizen’s activity is restricted to the public contract. O’Neill states, “being

264 In O’Neill, 1997. 265 Ibid., p416. 266 It is interesting to recall Flikschuh’s theory of Kant’s politics here and her repudiation that he has a contractualist understanding of political obligation. She believes that for Kant political obligation is found in the idea of freedom and its expression in the principle of Right: I am already obliged to you by mere fact of my being free to carry out my actions in accordance with the equality of freedom. See 2.2.2. 189 a citizen … is constitutive of reasonableness.” This means that public reason stops at the borders of the society, or better, the state.267

Kant, on the other hand, gives us a cosmopolitan public reason. O’Neill thinks this is a more radical conception because Kant is committed to establishing a conception of reasonableness or public reason that would hold for any plurality of social beings. Kant’s conception of the reasonable addresses “the public in the strict sense, that is, the world.” (What is Enlightenment, 8:38) Kant’s public is not limited to a bounded, liberal democratic society.

At this point I express a concern with O’Neill’s analysis of the power of the reasonable and save for the next chapter the full examination of her claims and the debate on the issue of the bounded society being the narrow context of public reason for Rawls. I think that the origin of the power of public reason is not as narrow as O’Neill suggests. She says it is conferred by membership in a closed community hence it is the membership itself that is identical with reasonableness. It is true that being a citizen for Rawls does presuppose being reasonable, as entry into the political domain is guarded by the idea of the reasonable: if you do not accept the criterion of reciprocity and have a reasonable comprehensive doctrine then you cannot be included in the liberal politics he proposes. This fails to imply, however, that the reasonable is identical with citizenship.

Exactly what I am suggesting, in this Kantian analysis of Rawls’ idea of the reasonable, is that it operates at once beyond and within the political. The power of public reason lies in its ability to guide us into and through the political as an idea and not, as O’Neill emphasises, as a substantive location. There is a need to find a justification for the acceptance of liberal political values in terms of one’s comprehensive views, in addition to the need to differentiate the two. This, however, is a task that is not necessarily linked to a particular place, e.g. the USA, but rather is itself a political liberal task. The duty to be reasonable politically is not a duty that

267 I will discuss O’Neill’s categorisation of the forms of public reason, as modal or motivational, in the next chapter, as this will assist in further aligning Kant and Rawls on public reason as the primary idea of reason, which is the main purpose of the comparative chapter. 190 stops at the borders of a particular state; but rather is a duty to be reasonable politically with whomever we enter into cooperative social ties.

So, for example, in Rawls’ later development of public reason, it becomes a tool for encouraging the expression of comprehensive commitments to the political conception of justice. Public justification in the wide view of public political culture includes reference to our values that lie outside our political identity as citizens in order to show our reasonableness or demonstrate our commitment to being citizens, to use O’Neill’s term. Thus our connection as citizens to our reasonable comprehensive doctrines is also constitutive of public reason. In this way, especially as seen in the idea of a reasonable overlapping consensus, Rawls promotes the stability and justice of the guiding political conception. Public reason is powered by much more than its connection to citizens as wholly political beings; it is what negotiates our comprehensive and political commitments. We become citizens with our comprehensive desires and motivations in tact, therefore, they too must feed into the performance of public reason. The power of public reason also lies in its capacity for encouraging political movement. Public reason is beyond the political as tied to citizenhood; first, because it is not linked to a particular political liberal society and, second, because we enter into it from our comprehensive doctrines.

Insofar as this analysis is true, perhaps we can credit O’Neill with identifying a prior commitment to being committed to a political identity in her terms, or a political conception of justice in Rawls’. This commitment, I would argue, is achieved through the practical use of the idea of the reasonable. The manner in which this is performed is reflected in Rawls’ account of stability for the right reasons. Already discussed is Rawls’ approach to stability and its dependence on the political conception of justice being embedded in the citizens’ comprehensive doctrines. The basis of human co-existence for Rawls cannot, or should not, consist in a modus vivendi in a political liberal society, that is, for a people that affirm political liberal values and the idea of public reason. That humans can commit themselves to the political in a manner beyond that of a modus vivendi demonstrates a certain degree of moral psychology in Rawls’ theory. Recall also that Rawls believes that a reasonable political conception of justice “is, of course a moral conception”. (PL, p11) 191

Thus I disagree with O’Neill’s criticism of Rawls’ idea of public reason as lacking moral psychology. Consider how public reason cannot set the conditions for a political conception of justice under prudential arrangements. Stability is rather sustained in political liberalism by the moral psychology of citizens living within a reasonable overlapping consensus. (PL, p141) Rawls does, of course, qualify his account of moral psychology by stating that it is philosophical and not psychological. (PL, pp86-88) However, I think O’Neill misleads us when she applies this to his idea of reasonableness. She concludes that his “account of the reasonable might therefore accurately be characterised as “political not psychological”, corresponding to his view that justice is “political not metaphysical”.268 Because Rawls calls the sense of justice of citizens a capacity rather than a desire or motivating drive, O’Neill implies that the basis of reasonable agreement comes from a freestanding political personality.

Observe, however, that Rawls’ account of the reasonable is philosophical and not psychological insofar as it oversees the creation of the political and works for the stability and progress of the (moral) political conception of justice; this is the practical nature of an idea of reason. In addition, and as will be argued in section 4 below, public reason, especially in its relaxed version, cannot be accounted for without a notion of the moral impulse of human beings. There are numerous references to the “sincerity”, “good faith”, “good sense”, “natural affection, “good will” and “honesty” of citizens in all three main discussions of public reason, which are the lecture in PL, the revisitation of the idea and the introduction to the paperback edition. Indeed it is the ideal of public reason – the duty of civility – that Rawls deliberately posits an “intrinsically moral duty” (IPRR in PL, p445), without which the idea of reason is meaningless and useless to political liberalism. 269 Although Rawls states that he puts accounts of human nature aside so as to rely on a political conception of persons as citizens, (IPRR in PL, p482) this idea of citizenship arguably includes individual

268 O’Neill, 1997, p418. Note this also brings into question whether our ability to be reasonable is a moral power, similar to our capacity for justice as O’Neill (perhaps following Rawls’ unclearness as discussed above) also seems to conflate the reasonable with a sense of justice. 269 Note Bernard Williams’ discussion of political theory that gives priority to the moral over the political. He includes Rawls’ theory as a structural modal where morality constrains what politics may rightfully do. See “Realism and Moralism in Political Theory” in In the Beginning was the Deed ed. Geoffrey Hawthorn, Princeton University Press, 2005, p1f. 192 identities and impulses beyond the formal political. Rawls does after all provide that we are born into society where we will lead a “complete life.” (PL, p41)270

Thus, I disagree with O’Neill firstly regarding Rawls making “no assumptions about individual motivation” and secondly regarding her belief that his idea of public reason is the basis for a “convergence of wills among fellow citizens”.271 The very idea of reasonableness relies on an impulse in human beings above the political even as it aims to circumscribe the political. In addition, Rawls believes that a convergence of wills is too much to expect from citizens. This is why he gives politics the idea of the reasonable as a shared procedure for creating legitimate principles. We are left with our wills intact because we must ourselves decide how we will justify the political principles. As noted above in the section on a reasonable overlapping consensus Rawls gives us the political conception as a “guiding framework”. He explains this further with “[i]f it seems to have cleared our view and made our considered convictions more coherent; if it has narrowed the gap between the basic ideas of a constitutional regime, then it has served its practical political purpose.” Furthermore, this “remains true even if we cannot fully explain our agreement.” (PL, p156) There only needs to be sufficient convergence of political judgement to maintain the reasonable, that is, the basis of mutual respect as the mode of political cooperation. The reasonable is a philosophical idea even as it works for the political, and this means that the reasonable cannot be equated with being a citizen for it is a higher order idea. It is too restrictive to define the reasonable as identical with being a citizen. We will follow the cosmopolitical implications of this in the next chapter.

270 There are two other concepts that support the claim that Rawls does offer an account of moral motivation. First, the somewhat Kantian notion of “higher order interests”. When talking about the parties in the original position Rawls writes that “they are concerned with securing for the person they represent the higher order interests we have in developing and exercising our two moral powers and in securing the conditions under which we can further our determinate conception of the good. Since the list of primary goods and the index of these goods is to be explained by reference to those higher order interests, interests that are taken to specify people’s needs as reasonable and rational, the parties’ aims are not egoistic but entirely fitting and proper. This contrasts with Schopenhauer’s belief that in Kant’s doctrine maxims are tested by how likely they are to meet the agent’s natural needs and inclinations seen as egoistic.” (PL, p107). Second, the Aristotelian principle which he calls in Theory “a basic principle of motivation”. Although PL only mentions it twice, Rawls does there say that his moral psychology uses the so-called Aristotelian principle, and it is quite prevalent in Theory. This is the principle that “other things equal, human beings enjoy the exercise of their realized capacities (their innate or trained abilities) and this enjoyment increases the more the capacity is realized or the greater its complexity.” Given the higher order interests in developing our moral powers, the Aristotelian principle is a principle of motivation: we are thus motivated also to develop our moral powers (which, as we know, include having a sense of justice, i.e. the reasonable). See Theory §65, pp374. 271 O’Neill, 1997, p421. 193

4.3 The proviso and the wide view of public political culture Public reason limits what citizens may base their reasoning on and what they reason about. Already exempted when they come to the public realm as citizens are their comprehensive beliefs about the right and the good, in addition, however, they must also limit the form of their reasoning. They must present their arguments as consistent with Rawls’ conception of justice as fairness or a related family of reasonable political conceptions of justice. And, as already mentioned, one of the main rules of public reason is the restriction of topics to questions regarding constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice. What Rawls is trying to do, as we already know, is to map the certain bases of agreement already given in public political culture as the common ground for the citizens to stand on when they pose and answer political questions. Public reason acts as the gatekeeper to this common ground for political activity. It does seem like an extraordinary task for public reason to police any representation of comprehensive views on the public political domain, to prevent citizens from advocating and voting based on their fundamental philosophies.272

The more Rawls talks about public reason, we witness a recognition that comprehensive beliefs need to be factored in, specifically reasonable comprehensive beliefs, in order for the political common ground to be responsive to citizens and historical change and, therefore, stable. The criterion of reciprocity, however, remains essential to the expansion of the limits of public reason albeit in a more abstract and less empirically conditioned way. It still remains true that only reasonable comprehensive beliefs are able to enter public reason, remembering that they are reasonable by virtue of their willingness to honour the duty of civility and a prior acceptance of the value of a constitutional democracy.

In the wide view of public culture, public reason includes arguments based on or with reference to comprehensive doctrines. And it seems that Rawls goes beyond the proviso that this must be expressed in terms that can be found mutually reasonable. He takes the limits of public reason even further when he permits

272 Samuel Scheffler discusses how public reason and its relation to the achievability of an overlapping consensus in “The Appeal of Political Liberalism” in Ethics, Vol. 105, No. 1, Oct., 1994, p16. 194 fundamental opinions a voice as long as they further the commitment to the public political conceptions of justice. In effect, this is not simply about amending or creating a provisional rule for public reason but, in addition, puts the ideal of public reason at the centre of politics: it is through public reason that we express our differences, demonstrate our commitment, advocate political change and find our political motivation. This is certainly an expanded role for public reason, it becomes the political peace-maker. It is here that we are given good cause to express our fundamental commitments in the aid of a stronger unified consensus on the political conception of justice we all desire to bring about.

It is this last action that sees public reason loosened further to be essentially about public justification. We express to others not just our current commitment but also our enduring commitment to public society. It is obvious why such a mechanism is essential to a fundamentally diverse society. Public reason allows us to justify to others, who have different core beliefs to ourselves, why we are a part of this political unit and why the advocacy we perform is not threatening to that unit, but rather aids the promotion of a greater justice for the political community.

The mention that Rawls makes of public reason in the IPE further emphasises this point that public reason presents the opportunity for a society to implement change in line with justice. In the end it seems that the reasonable is actually about adhering to justice at all times, where justice is in negotiation with the changing ideas of different times but in a way that prevents radical, or unreasonable, overhauls to the legitimate basis of society from occurring. And this evolution of public reason demonstrates a further similarity with Kant, which is the belief in political evolution and not revolution. This is the approach that deems reform necessary to politics but violent or unreasonable revolution antithetic to it. This argument will be further developed in the next chapter comparing Kant and Rawls. With this in mind, let us now chart the expansion of the limits and aims of the idea of public reason.

The changes that Rawls makes to public reason are fundamental to the way he develops his entire political theory from developing a specific conception of political justice, as in Theory, to a way of formulating a freestanding political conception that 195 all members of a reasonably pluralistic society could reasonably be expected to endorse. Theory was based on a “comprehensive liberal doctrine” and as such it cannot account for stability in a reasonably pluralistic society. PL begins with the fact of reasonable pluralism and aims to address the ‘how’ and not the ‘what’ of justice. Rawls states that PL views the kind of society Theory proposes as “impossible” (IPRR in PL, p489). Hence, the philosophical question that PL addresses is “How is it possible for there to exist over time a just and stable society of free and equal citizens who remain profoundly divided by reasonable religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines?” (PL, p 4) And he increasingly focuses this problem on irreconcilability of doctrines based on religious authority (see IPRR and IPE).

It is the idea of public reason that gives rise to the possibility of conceiving a just and stable society. As explained above, public reason is about providing a principle guide on how we discuss political values such that they are tractable to all citizens in our society. It shows where political discussion begins and ends. As Rawls refines his idea of political liberalism we see a difference in the demarcation of the boundaries of the publicly reasonable. This becomes essentially a question about the relationship between a citizen’s comprehensive views and the reasonable political conception of justice, a relationship at the core of Rawls’ entire enterprise. This current section consists of four subsections each of which will deal with a stage in the expansion of the limits to public reason; the opening up of the criteria of reciprocity that lifts the idea of public reason further above the empirical political domain.

4.3.1 The “inclusive” idea of public reason in PL In its initial form it seems necessary that public reason exclude specific mention of comprehensive doctrines to justify political action. Public reason proceeds in accordance with the criterion of reciprocity and appealing to our comprehensive truths would invariably conflict with other conceptions of the whole truth and render our advocacy unlikely to be received. Rawls denies the paradox in limiting public reason in this way because, as we have discovered above, our membership in a democratic society motivates us to give sufficient weight to political values, which thereby creates an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. This means that our comprehensive doctrines have already affirmed the conception of justice as 196 reasonable and we affirm the ideal of public reason, the duty of civility, out of a fundamental commitment to it and not merely because of political compromise. So, when we are using public reason we aim not to discern the right and true but rather, as Rousseau proposed, “which of the alternatives best advances the common good.” (PL, p218) And this involves a reasonable way of justifying our opinion.

Rawls does allow that the idea of public reason in its initial form in PL is “inclusive” for what he calls “sociological” reasons, (PL, p247f) which means it encourages citizens to fulfil the ideal of public reason. Excluding all mention of comprehensive views fails to take account of the fact that different historical conditions may require the duty of civility to be performed in various ways. So, in Rawls’ example of a dispute about public education for religious schools, different sides of the debate may come to doubt each others commitment to fundamental political arrangements like the separation between church and state. Such doubt discourages any honouring of the duty of civility. However, if the opposing groups can demonstrate an affiliation between their comprehensive views and political principles then they are more likely to create the conditions for a productive political discussion of the topic. They will encourage trust that their political ideas are trying to advance current political arrangements and not threaten them.

His other example is where the political conditions are more turbulent and therefore requires an even greater flexibility in how the ideal of public reason is honoured. Rawls says that although the abolitionists historically may be seen to have gone against the idea of public reason and presented their arguments for change in religious terms, if we view their actions conceptually, going beyond the immediate time of their reasoning, we come to see that “they hoped for that result [i.e., the destruction of the great evil and curse of slavery] and they could have seen their actions as the best way to bring about a well-ordered and just society in which the ideal of public reason could eventually be honoured.” (PL, p250) So the conceptual reading of the history of the public debates surrounding the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement in America reinforces the main aim of public reason, which is the articulation of an ideal, reasonable, conception of justice that a people want to 197 be governed by. Any latitude given to public reason must be for the sake of promoting political justice.

Thus, citizens are permitted “in certain situations” to introduce reasoning that indeed stems from their comprehensive views “provided they do this in ways that strengthen the ideal of public reason itself.” (PL, p247) There is normative looseness here in Rawls’ discussion of the limits of public reason and the honouring of its ideal. He writes we “try” to justify political actions “on terms supported by public values that we might reasonably expect others to endorse”, and that even when we think others may oppose our view they can “nevertheless understand how reasonable persons can affirm it.”(PL, p253) Rawls has high expectations of the power of the duty of civility. Furthermore his examples show that even with the greatest commitment to what are thought of as foundational democratic political values, such as the abolition of slavery and equality for all citizens, proposed political principles may not be contemporaneously judged to be reciprocally reasonable.

Rawls avoids the issue of mutual acceptance and argues in relation to the civil rights debates that, despite King’s exhortations for equality for African Americans being expressed in terms of moral laws, they were actually in conformity with the political values already present in the constitution “correctly understood.” (PL, p250) Although we know that historically they were not received as politically reasonable Rawls makes them retrospectively reasonable and indeed conceptually reasonable because “in these conjectured beliefs … the political forces they led were among the necessary historical conditions to establish political justice.” (PL, p250-251) This reveals an elevation of public reason beyond the historical conditions, the empirical conditions, which determine the reasonable because the aim of public reason is demonstrably the reform of the status quo towards a greater justice. Indeed, political progress seems to be the unmentioned purpose of public reason and its inclusive view.

This represents quite a relaxation of the required reciprocity of public reason, especially when we recall that the duty of civility, the ideal of public reason, asks us to explain to fellow citizens our political actions with reference to reasonable political values that we expect them to also hold as reasonable. Rawls’ idea of public reason is 198 supposed to be that the reasonable is actually accepted and not universally acceptable. He defines a reasonable person as someone willing to accept terms “which all can accept” and as such “insist that reciprocity should hold”, so that each benefits along with the others.” (PL, 50) Rawls is referring to the “social world”, the real-life conditions of peoples. He is avoiding reference to an a priori condition of reasonableness because reasonableness is based on what can be found and agreed upon under actual empirical conditions. This is a criterion for the reasonable based on what is in fact the case, what all within that social world accept.

Yet, here in the examples, Rawls says that the abolitionists and leaders like Martin Luther King fulfilled the ideal “provided they thought, or on reflection would have thought (as they certainly could have thought), that the comprehensive reasons they appealed to were required to give sufficient strength to the political conception to be subsequently realised.” (PL, p251) There is no mention here that their ideological opponents would or could also accept the comprehensive reasons as a reasonable step towards a more reasonable political justice. Already Rawls opens the inclusive view out beyond the factually, in time and place, reciprocally accepted. This is a counterfactual reading that suggests there is a guiding – perhaps more universal - principle to be found in Rawls’ position on reasonableness, which is similar to Kant’s. This interpretation seems to complement Rawls’ provisions for political transition and how it is to occur. The inclusive view of the limits of public reason is necessary because it takes into account the political preference for reform over other more violent or less principled means. And reform must necessarily reference the historical conditions of public reason as well as maintain an in principle hope in progress, which is necessary to achieving justice. Public reason for Rawls, like for Kant, is a process that works towards greater justice. Therefore, the idea of the reasonable in Rawls is at once of the public, that is, conditioned by what they can accept, and beyond it, that is, a higher condition that aims to improve public circumstances.

4.3.2 The proviso in IPRR By the time Rawls writes “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” in 1997 he increases the focus on religious doctrines as those that can be most problematic for political liberalism. In the letter to his editor proposing a revision of PL he intimates a growing 199 recognition of the centrality of public reason to the whole enterprise of political liberalism. He writes that IPRR is “by far the best statement I have written on ideas of public reason and political liberalism. Many people have told me this and complimented me on it, as if they now understood it for the first time.” (PL, p438) We read the “it” here as Rawls’ project of a political conception of justice, and what he realises is that it is public reason that lies at the heart of political liberalism and, as such, makes it possible in theory and practice. This is because public reason answers the practical political question he poses in various forms in his discussions on public reason: “By what ideals and principles … are citizens who share equally in ultimate political power to exercise that power so that each can reasonably justify his or her political decisions to everyone?” (IPRR in PL, p 445-6)

The “reasonable” is qualified to include a family of political conceptions because political liberalism aims not to “fix public reason once and for all in the form of one favoured political conception of justice.” (IPRR in PL, p451) Rawls also introduces the notion of deliberation borrowed from the theory of deliberative democracy as an exemplar of this approach. This is all in aid of the implicit aim of public reason expressed as the “inclusive view” in the first edition of PL, that of political change. But notice that his exemplar of public reason in PL, the Supreme Court, was a much more politically structured and institutionally legitimate example. Deliberation is a considerably more civic enterprise.

In the later IPRR Rawls expands or recasts the inclusive view of public reason into the “wide view of public political culture.” He states there are two elements to this new wide view but proceeds to enumerate three: the first is a kind of negative principle for public reason, “the proviso”; the second is a permissive principle based on the admission that “there may be positive reasons for introducing comprehensive doctrines into public political discussion;” and the third aspect is that “public reasoning aims for public justification.” (IPRR in PL, p462 & p465)

The proviso writes into the inclusive view the time aspect Rawls only refers to in his initial discussion. The formulation is: reasonable comprehensive doctrines, religious or nonreligious, may be introduced in public political discussion at any time, provided that in due 200

course proper political reasons, and not reasons given solely by comprehensive doctrines, are presented that are sufficient to support whatever the comprehensive doctrines introduced are said to support. (IPRR in PL, p 462)

Rawls gives little explanation for this except to say that “good faith” is the standard for the application of the proviso, the time aspect in particular. The rules as to how the proviso is to be satisfied will naturally emerge from the cases themselves. The practice of the proviso, we are told, depends on “the nature of the public political culture”(IPPR in PL, p462).

The implementation of the proviso also depends on “good sense and understanding.” (IPRR in PL, p463) Again we witness Rawls stress the commendatory role of citizens in the fulfilment of the political system of which they are a part, which requires a very high-level of individual self-determination on behalf of the citizens. He wants to say that in practice the proviso means that what arguments have sway in a particular case is not an in principle question, it depends on the audience. So for example there can be two citizens agreeing that the killing of an innocent is wrong, one using a rights-based philosophy and the other appealing to utilitarianism; they both agree that it should be outlawed but from different comprehensive positions. Applying the proviso here and deeming that it is appropriate to engage with non-political values doesn’t determine which argument is given more weight. It is up to the consensus in the society to decide why they will agree to make the killing of an innocent politically wrong. This is Rawls’ appeal to the common sense of the public political culture.

Rawls caveats the proviso by saying that he is not emending the kind of justification of public reason itself, as this is still guided by a family of reasonable political conceptions of justice. What the revision applies to is “how” religious or secular doctrines are to be expressed: these doctrines need not, for example, be by some standards logically correct, or open to rational appraisal, or evidentially supportable. Whether they are or not is a matter to be decided by those presenting them, and how they want what they say to be taken. They will normally have practical reasons for wanting to make their views acceptable to a broader audience. (IPRR in PL, p463)

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Presumably this means that the opinions expressed under the proviso do not have to meet standards of science or logic, but what remains unclear is the application itself of the criterion of reciprocity. What exactly does Rawls mean by “how” views are to be expressed? It is difficult to imagine an opinion that was justified in the manner appropriate to public reason, that is, in accordance with the standard of reciprocity (that is, there is an expectation in the presentation of your view that others will find it reasonable), but then “expressed” in a wildly unreasonable way. The criterion of reciprocity applies as a rule to the “nature and content of the justification in public reason”. Then it appears, however, to slide over individual preferences for presentation of their arguments. If the latter is what is relaxed under the proviso it doesn’t seem to amount to much given the strict standard of the former.273 Rawls appears here to be again appealing to the good sense of citizens. He is not placing comprehensive beliefs in the public realm, he believes that they properly belong within each of us, and yet he appeals to a common sense in each of us that is part of the collective sense of a political community. This is why an idea of the reasonable is necessary: to elicit the work of that collective sense.

Public reason demarcates where political discussion starts and stops, so expanding this border to include discussion of comprehensive views is about recognising the importance of political motivation. We can all justify our political views in different ways because our political conceptions are derived from our comprehensive beliefs. So, for example, public reason wants to make the arguments for stem cell research tractable to all in a reasonable, political way. This means that a catholic and a utilitarian may of course justify their arguments in terms like the sanctity of life and the danger of eugenics as long as they reasonably believe that the political community can understand these terms. And in a society where the sharing of how we form our political commitments is central, there will be greater room for shared construction of political arrangements. The principle is that the discussion must re-occur, that is be ongoing. For example muslim migration will cause another debate on political equality because of the mere presence of dissent. Rawls is permitting averting to religious, moral and philosophical convictions without saying which arguments will hold the greatest sway.

273 Discussion of an example would have helped here. I will come to Rawls’ cryptic example of a fulfilled proviso after explaining the second part of the wide view of public political culture. 202

What public reason must ensure is that the legitimacy of the political arrangements will depend on the context of the consensus. The comprehensive views must be consistent with the political conception of justice but this does not mean that the political conception of justice rules the roost or straightjackets our wider beliefs. What determines the consensus is garnered through public reason on what political arrangements are considered most appropriate to the shared political conception of justice. Our commitment to this occurs in the public realm from which there can be no radical dissent. But if there is a worry with my comprehensive support of the political conception I may voice a felt need for amendment. I may appeal to my moral doctrine, for example. But in a way that will have sway with everyone. It is not fair to simply appeal to the God-given rights to the inviolability of human life in an argument against stem-cell research because not all citizens can understand and/or accept this, and I am not engaging in public reason in a way that demonstrates mutual respect and reciprocity.

4.3.3 The wide role of public reason in IPRR The second aspect of the wide view of public political culture Rawls mentions in his revisitation of the idea of public reason is the benefits to the political conception of justice of expanding public reason beyond the political conception itself. He acknowledges the fundamental nature of comprehensive beliefs to people’s lives and how it is these very beliefs that create their conviction about their allegiance to political ideas and institutions. When comprehensive doctrines are permitted a stand in public reason, stability is strengthened and work towards the ideal of public reason is encouraged. He again gives the example of public support for religious schools and how such a debate creates suspicion between citizens about the level of commitment to basic constitutional ideas. “It is wise, then, for all sides to introduce their comprehensive doctrines, whether religious or secular, so as to open the way for them to explain to one another how their views do indeed support those basic political values.” (IPRR in PL, p464) The advantage of widening the scope of public reason is such a fostering of the ideal polity, which public reason represents.

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Rawls then recalls his previous examples of the Abolitionists and civil rights proponents. While he mentions that the proviso was satisfied in both their cases, in IPRR the examples are rather more in the interest of demonstrating the second aspect of the wide view of public political culture. Rawls avoids the conceptual legitimation argument he gave in PL and much more simply explains that it was appropriate for the activists to advocate change using their comprehensive religious doctrines “because these doctrines supported basic constitutional values, as they themselves asserted, and so supported reasonable conceptions of political justice” (IPRR in PL, p464)

Rawls does, however, refer again to the question of whether the Abolitionists and King can be said to have fulfilled the proviso or not. While in PL the question was whether they thought they met the “ideal of public reason”(PL, p251), in the later IPRR and the IPE, and both written in a footnote, it is whether they considered themselves to be fulfilling the “purpose of the proviso”. (IPRR in PL, p464 fn54 & IPE, pl fn27) And in PL the inclusive limit of public reason meant that the ideal was met if they “would have thought (as certainly they could have thought)” that they needed to use the comprehensive reasons for their political cause. In identical footnotes to IPRR and IPE Rawls explains the modality of the proviso as it applies to his example. He writes, “I do not know whether the Abolitionists and King thought of themselves as fulfilling the purpose of the proviso. But whether they did or not, they could have. And had they known and accepted the idea of public reason, they would have.” (IPRR in PL, p464 fn54) What this means is that they “could have” been honouring the purpose of the proviso, which is to strengthen the political conception of justice, even though, and we certainly cannot command otherwise, the conceptual resources were not available to them. What is important though, is that the ideas they argued for are thinkable; they are implicit in the moral and political resources of a society that wants to share a political conception of justice. So, had they reflected in this way, they would have fulfilled the proviso as a normative constraint.

This qualification in footnotes is significant for the present argument because it shows how Rawls develops his idea of public reason beyond the extensional where the reasonable is what is in fact accepted by all as reasonable, and towards the more 204

Kantian a priori requirement that acceptance of the reasonable is reasonably (universally) possible, as in the examples above. Rawls affirms the (universal) knowability of his idea of public reason in this expansion of its limits. This is especially obvious in the last sentence where he writes, and had they known the idea of public reason they would have adhered to its limits. The limits of promoting a political practice in line with a political conception of justice are certainly quite broad to begin with. What is implied here though, is that the idea of public reason is knowable across time and circumstance. This is certainly a more abstract notion of the reasonable but not one that demands foundational consistency in our political conceptions of justice. So, for example, if we think that we do share a political conception of justice and are committed to sharing one, then we can think the pre- conditions through together and apply it back to what we do, and if this is not acceptable, as was with the case of slavery, then we can change the practice.

Public reason is the best tool for achieving reflective equilibrium because the idea of the reasonable acts as a platform upon which we can stand to criticise and assess all the other many and diverse platforms which support the political conception of justice. If one platform is found to be in tension with that then we do not simply jettison the political conception of justice but rather the political practice that conflicts with it. Importantly, already implicit in this model is the belief in ideas as a productive and necessary resource; moral and political ideas enable us to criticise and change aspects of a society whilst maintaining a political conception of justice. And this may occur after the fact, as it did in Rawls’ examples, where the tension was not noticed until later but still resolved under the conception of reasonable justice. This also suggests retrospectivity in judgements about the reasonable. An example here may be colonial decisions about just acquisition of native land. This again shows the manner in which Rawls detaches the judgment of the reasonable from the immediate historical circumstances. As I show below, what we are committed to is, in some sense, answered by reference to form rather than content. And the content is subject to change over time. As Rawls suggests in response to Habermas, the question of what reasonable people would accept is one that can be re-posed at any time. (RTH, 154)

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What seems to be given primacy is the commitment to the limits moral values provide for a political conception of justice. Rawls clarifies, again in a footnote, that “political conceptions of justice are themselves intrinsically moral ideas” and emphasises that we must “hold fast to the idea of the political as a fundamental category and covering political conceptions of justice as intrinsic moral values.”(IPRR in PL, p484 fn91) We stand on a platform of public reason so that we can adjust the political in harmony with moral values. These may, and probably will, be in conflict and one is not more fundamental than another. The reasonable, however, gives us a place to rest upon while we advocate which one is more committed to the political conception of justice.

In dealing with the objection to public reason being irrelevant to a well- established constitutional democracy, Rawls writes that “harmony and concord depend on the vitality of the public political culture and on citizens’ being devoted to and realizing the ideal of public reason.” (IPRR in PL, p485) It is not one theory or value that we should be committed to, but rather the idea of the reasonable as it allows us to navigate the points of tension in our political practical and conception of justice. As Rawls writes in the IPE the “content of political reason is not fixed any more than it is defined by one reasonable political conception.” (IPE, pli) It seems that for Rawls public reason guarantees that politics and morals are in accordance with each other for the sake of the political conception of justice.

We are still concerned with the core idea of the second aspect of the wide view of public reason: public stability. When we make declarations in public reason we are beholden to the reasonable political conception of justice. This forms our starting point, that is, what gives us the ground from which to introduce our cases, and our aim, that is, we introduce our arguments from the wider perspective of the current political domain in order to further the “justice” of the conception. While Rawls seems to be encouraging an inclusion of our comprehensive beliefs in the public realm, what it is based upon is the fact of commitment as a precondition to political society. Rawls’ examples raise the question of how much we have to be committed to.

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The examples he gives of effective uses of public reason are of radical upheaval in society. The abolition of slavery is a founding moment in American politics. In this context, I think the answer he gives to the question, what we are committed to, is a formal one. It seems we have to be committed to the formal reasonable political conception of justice; the idea of a reasonable conception of justice itself, and not necessarily any implied substantive conditions. The requirement of consensus, that this is our idea, our aim and our ultimate condition, allows space for debate about what will best work in creating political justice. I am not presenting an argument that Rawls’ permissive approach to public reason changes his stance about the political and not metaphysical nature of politics, for the limits remain firm here. What I am suggesting his theory aims at is a regulation of the political dynamic: if we are committed to a reasonable conception of justice we will always have to negotiate this condition under the guidance of the idea of public reason and its wide role.

4.3.4 Public justification in IPRR We have seen above in the first two aspects of the wide view of public political culture, as also affirmed in the IPE, a development of the limits of public reason from ones that are more substantive, based on form and content, to ones that are more deontological (for want of a better term). This means that the limit on public reason is represented by how well its purpose is followed, or, even less determinately, “could” be followed. This move from content to purpose is shown by the limit of public reason being formed, in its first instance, by the restriction of its content to constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice to, in the later versions and at the very extreme, being formed by the intention of a citizen simply to “bear witness” to their comprehensive doctrine. This latter limit is admittedly applicable only to an ideal, that of the fully just society, and it comes up in the third aspect that I will now discuss. What witnessing indicates, notwithstanding its ideal-only application, is how far public justification can go in Rawls’ development of not just the limits of public reason, but also its very role as essential to the possibility and practice of political liberalism. This also comments on the power of the reasonable: its nature begins to appear more like a universalisable process. Furthermore, it becomes hard to imagine how unreason could surface once the reasonable imbues and educates a social union. 207

The third (surreptitious) point that Rawls gives under the wide view of public political culture expands the horizons of public reason even further: Public reasoning aims for public justification. We appeal to political conceptions of justice, and to ascertainable evidence and facts open to public view, in order to reach conclusions about what we think are the most reasonable political institutions and policies. (IPRR in PL, p465)

Reciprocity remains the basis of public justification, a form of reasoning that “proceeds correctly from premises we accept and think others could reasonably accept to conclusions we think they could also reasonably accept. This meets the duty of civility, since in due course the proviso is satisfied.” (IPPR in PL, p465) The duty of civility is about citizens imagining themselves as ideal participants in ideal situations, it is, furthermore a moral duty, which obviously becomes more important given the relaxed time-frame for meeting it. Rawls has already intimated that satisfying the proviso calls upon the intrinsic morality of citizens to enact their “good sense and understanding.” The motivation to uphold public reason is to uphold public order for the greater good of reaching towards a greater justice: “what we think are the most reasonable political institutions and policies.” (IPPR in PL, p465) There is an expansion here of Rawls’ whole system of political liberalism, one that gives considerable weight to the importance of political reform and how public reason is centrally concerned with this process. This we will now examine.

What we witness in this small section on the wide view of public political culture in IPRR is not simply broadening the permitted content of public reason via the proviso (the first aspect), it is also about acknowledging the roots of political stability in citizens’ non-political life through creating an avenue for mutual understanding to develop the different comprehensive doctrines that come together for a political public life – a demonstration of commitment to this public political life (the second aspect). The third aspect then goes one step further by making the noun of public reason verbal: it now becomes public reasoning and brings with it the broader aim of public justification.

What is puzzling is that here in the third aspect of the wide view, where the aim of public reasoning is given as public justification, Rawls names a further three 208 types of public discourse but discounts them from being public reason proper, and yet affirms their status as public justification nonetheless. The result is that he brings our attention more intensely to the idea of a stable yet responsive political order. His explanation of the wide view of public political culture emphasises that public reasoning is an effective vehicle for political change because through it we may speak from outside of the status quo, whilst showing our essential commitment to the political order. In this way we may publicly justify an intervention into the very political situation we are committed to and are a part of. So, while the factuality of reciprocity in our public reason may fall away, we maintain our public reasoning or reasonability in the striving for public justice. Rawls further impresses upon the reader the view that change is necessary and important to politics because justice can never be ruled true for once and all, or be finally attained.

The three other types of discourse that Rawls includes in the wide view of public political culture as public justification but not forms of public reason are; declaration, conjecture and witnessing. He names the first two forms in the body of his text and the third one in a footnote. The first form of public justification is declaration. When we introduce our comprehensive beliefs it is not to “declare” unilaterally what they are, but rather to demonstrate to our fellow citizens how we support a reasonable public political conception of justice from our fundamental and fundamentally different beliefs. And we expect that they reciprocate this type of reasoning, that is, that they justify their faith in a reasonable political value through their own non-public values. This attempts not only to avoid alienation between citizens of different faiths but works positively to create a greater understanding of how different believers come to contract together in the political domain, a function of public reason we are already familiar with from the public justification purpose of public reason.

The second form of public justification Rawls cites is conjecture. Conjecture is when we use arguments based in someone else’s comprehensive doctrine to show how it can in fact support a reasonable political doctrine “despite what they may think.” (IPRR in PL, p465) Again Rawls calls on the honesty of citizens by saying that conjecture must be “sincere and not manipulative” (IPRR in PL, p466) He says 209 that this is another way that the ideal of public reason, the duty of civility, is strengthened. Thus, although these forms of discourse are not called examples of public reason, the work they perform is in aid of the ideal of public reason. This represents a further abstraction of the reasonable from its empirical institutional limits.

The third form of discourse is “witnessing”, which is interesting to us because it typically occurs in an “ideal, politically well-ordered, and fully just society.” Witnessing provides the opportunity for some citizens, who so desire, to express “their principled dissent” from current political practices or institutions. Rawls gives an example: “I assume that Quakers accept constitutional democracy and abide by its legitimate law, yet at the same time may reasonably express the religious basis of their pacifism.” (IPRR in PL, p466) This is not civil disobedience because they are not appealing to political principles; they simply need to voice their opposition to their fellow citizens and to bear witness to their faith. Rawls says they accept the idea of public reason and that while they may deem the outcome of a vote that all have conscientiously made incorrect, they nonetheless affirm it as legitimate. Their intention is to violate the law but rather simply to testify their fundamental disagreement.274 It is important to note that although Rawls provides that witnessing is not a form of public reason, he writes that the Quakers “may reasonably express” their religious convictions. (IPRR in PL, p466) Thus witnessing is “reasonable”.

The uniting factor in all three forms is that they work to further the aims of the ideal of public reason, that is, civic friendship. That Rawls devotes such a relatively large passage to forms of discourse that are not public reason shows, I think, the imperative role of civic friendship or the duty of civility or the ideal of public reason to Rawls entire theory. Politics comes from the people for Rawls, and while reform must be politically proper, that is in keeping with the family of reasonable conceptions of justice, the impetus for change may need to come from beyond the political or empirically reciprocal. This is the evolution public reason has hitherto been undergoing: now we see the reasonable as coterminous with the duty of civility;

274 It is only in a nearly just society that Rawls says there in a case for civil disobedience and conscientious refusal, see Theory sec. 55 – 59, pp319-343. 210 as a process of ensuring mutual respect; and, one would have to venture with Kant in mind, mutual freedom and equality to our fellow citizens.

But we may ask the question; what is the status of this reasonableness if it is not an example of public reason? Witnessing, it seems, may legitimately flout the reciprocity requirement for it is a unilateral communication and yet it is still classed as “reasonable”. A question then arises about how much unreason can abound in a well- ordered society satisfying the full publicity condition. Although Rawls calls such an order ideal and doubts its past or future existence we can still ask how such a society may call forth political transformation.

All comprehensive doctrines are already reasonable by virtue of their presence in the public democratic polity, and there is a reasonable overlapping consensus on the political conception of justice. The duty of civility is strong by virtue of all the mutual respect and guarantee of reasonableness. Thus, there is a possible argument that public reason, in its gatekeeper role, is no longer necessary but the reasonable as the ideal of public reason, the duty of civility, remains essential to politics. This demonstrates the point that the expansion of the limits of public reason detach it from the principle of reciprocity, and therewith also, from the strictly political such that the reasonable floats above the empirical political as a guiding idea. Indeed witnessing presents an example of the saturation of the idea of the reasonable in a reasonable society. Under such an analysis we see greater emphasis given to the reasonable as a process or method to allow for and guide political reform.

The case of Socrates gives an interesting example to explore Rawls’ distinctions here. Socrates acquiesced to the law by drinking the hemlock despite making a public statement that he personally believed that there should be no crime against public teachings. He agreed to the political edict and acknowledged that his conscientious dissent was in the minority. He refused to flee, notwithstanding the support of his “party” and the expectation of citizens, due to his commitment to the political society that he was born into, and would only exit it by death (although Socrates does acknowledge if citizens are dissatisfied with their country they may take their property and leave as a repudiation of the social contract). 211

Is this extreme form of commitment akin to what Rawls outlines in public justification? It seems Rawls thinks that the commitment is to the political reasonable, the consensus on the political reasonable above all else, and it is from there that public reason can open to minority or otherwise views on the good and true. It is then up to the common sense of the polity itself to decide what arguments hold sway. Obviously Socrates’ expression at the time was not found reasonable because the legal judgement was not overturned, but I think that conceptually it could be. Socrates himself says that we cannot respond unjustly to justice, and I think this is in line with Rawls’ idea about having reasonable advocacy of reasonable justice. This is what public reason hopes for: reasonable arguments that attempt to institute a greater reason for justice. It was not acceptable for Socrates to deny allegiance to his political community neither by fleeing nor by, for example, ordering his followers to annihilate the court that condemned him and thereby committing violence to his society. Perhaps Socrates is a model citizen for Rawls; one who puts aside his moral convictions for the continuing stability of political community and justice.

Public reason is, therefore, a process. It is a process that ensures adherence to the reasonable whilst reconfiguring what that consists in. But the question remains about the prevalence of unreasonableness in Rawls’ picture of a political society and how it may undergo change through the intervention of the reasonable, when the status quo is already reasonable. For example, because Rawls places importance on the reasonableness of the Quakers witnessing their faith, we see the reasonable as the foundation for political justice that must be secure at all costs. So, the Quakers’ dissent on the issue of conscription or war, despite being religiously based, is nonetheless reasonable because of their acceptance of the fundamentals of a constitutional democracy and legitimate law. As Rawls comments earlier, in a footnote to the first discussion of the idea of public reason as one of the three main ideas in PL, when he discusses Catholics and the right to abortion; a political objection may be unreasonable on one particular issue without rendering the whole comprehensive doctrine unreasonable. (PL, p244)

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The reasonable is the necessary condition for the existence of the political. Thus, cases of unreason may arise in a well-ordered society but they cannot be a threat because the reasonable comprehensive doctrines remain convinced by the cause of the reasonable; they accept the greater cause of justice is at stake when they place political values above fundamental comprehensive beliefs for the sake of civic peace and stability. Witnessing is not a case of permitted unreason but rather a healthy exemplar of public justification in wide public political culture. Witnessing is fundamentally reasonable in that it has no intention of threatening the basic foundation of the possibility for reasonableness, the only condition that will approximate justice. The discourses of public justification too come under the purview of the idea of the reasonable. And so they must if the political is to perform its work of striving for justice.

The abolition of slavery and the fight for equality are examples of dramatic change in American society. These movements certainly did not take place in well- ordered societies in the Rawlsian sense, so there was no assurance that all the comprehensive beliefs were reasonable, in that they accepted the basic values of a unified democratic social order. Nevertheless Rawls goes to great lengths to show that their expressions were not a case of unreason and that the reasonable was available to them to argue their case for change in politics. This makes the huge shift in conceptions of justice appear less dramatic or revolutionary for the very reason that the Abolitionists and King were on track with the idea of the reasonable. So, it appears that for Rawls’ political theory, even dramatic changes to society can occur as long as they maintain the structure of the reasonable: the idea of working for justice.

However, it is only from Rawls’ historical vantage point that he can argue for the “conceptual” reasonableness of King’s advocacy and the Abolitionists propositions. This is why the proviso being fulfilled “in due course” is another instance of public reason operating as an idea of practical reason as it has no proof for its content. What it does show is the forward-looking nature of the reasonable and indeed the very conception of the idea itself as dynamic. And such a conclusion recalls the exegesis of the function of ideas made in Chapter Two: ideas of reason aim at and allow for political change. 213

4.4 Individual responsibility in public reason The individual example of Socrates above is appropriate for the last small point in this chapter about the idea of public reason relying on and actually cultivating individual responsibility. It appears that, despite Rawls vowing in IPRR that he puts accounts of human nature aside, so as to rely on a political conception of persons as citizens (IPPR in PL, p482), within this conception is an assumption of human nature as capable of freedom in the Kantian sense. Implicit in Rawls’ political theory is an account of people as being able to follow practical reason; that they are free and responsible. And, without this notion of a moral impulse in human beings, the idea of public reason, especially in its wide form, is not plausible. As we have seen, it is the ideal of public reason, an “intrinsically moral duty” (IPPR in PL, p445), that permits the expansion of the limits beyond the factually reciprocated to what may eventually prove itself to be reasonable, in the light of progress towards a political conception of justice. Indeed, at times when Rawls describes the principle of reciprocity, the term “reasonably” could almost be substituted for “sincerely,” which is an individual standard of good conscience. For example in IPE, “[f]rom the point of view of public reason citizens should simply vote for the ordering of political values they sincerely think the most reasonable. Otherwise we fail to exercise political power in ways that satisfy the criterion of reciprocity.” (IPE, pliii) Legitimacy too is bound up with the sincerity of individuals and their political participation. (see also IPRR in PL, p479)

“Good faith” is another term frequently found in Rawls’ discussion of the centrality and breadth of the idea of public reason. Already noted above, Rawls’ only response to the questions that the proviso raises, especially regarding the “in due course” provision, is that it is to be “satisfied in good faith”. The details about the workings of the proviso he leaves to the public political culture; yet makes a call for “good sense and understanding.” (IPRR in PL, p462-463) In fact, Rawls believes that the wide view of public political culture is about cultivating the individual for politics. He agrees that good politics educates citizens in moral behaviour and conditions them towards a peaceful society. (IPRR in PL, p 474 & 481) Another important part of the full publicity condition is the way it allows the ideal of citizenship to be aspired to 214 and taught. (PL, p71) Thus, it seems that for Rawls, a nation of devils could not form itself into a political liberalism, for there needs to be a sufficient moral nature that is moved by the reasonable in order to create the reasonable conception of political justice that we reasonably hope for. In this way, and in contradiction to the disputed notion that a nation of devils could institute Kant’s political theory, Rawls is explicit that he is partaking in Kant’s general philosophical project of a “defense of reasonable faith.” Rawls states that his own political philosophy “becomes the defense of a reasonable faith in the possibility of a just constitutional regime.” (PL, p172)275

4.5 Conclusion The reasonable is the element in Rawls’ political theory that inspires action; it moves, supports and guides human thought and action towards and within a political conception of justice. I think that what we see in PL and its subsequent revisions is a convergence of what’s desirable in principle and what’s practical all things considered. Especially in Rawls’ “Reply to Habermas” in 1995 we see a lack of real contrast between the way he explains political legitimacy and his approach to political stability. What allows Rawls to bring together the apriority of a conception of justice, and its feasibility in a diverse society, is his clever structuring of the idea of the reasonable. It is a dynamic idea, like those of Kant, because it exists as a standard for reasonable justice at the same time as being a product of the mediation between the comprehensive and the political. The reasonable is shaped by the mix of fundamental beliefs and also influences them, as is necessary for just politics. In this way the reasonable demands to be made real. It is an idea of reason because it cannot exist apart from its use. This is why Rawls’ idea of public reason, and its working latitude, is essential to my argument here. The wide view of public political culture for example, aims to condition politics. Thus Rawls’ idea of the reasonable has a similar capacity to that of Kantian ideas of reason. Rawls needs public reason to operate above both the political and the comprehensive as an idea. The idea of the reasonable remains as the extent of our commitment to political justice, this in turn renders

275 Perhaps there is another shift between Theory and PL that involves a move from a concern with justice as a moral concept of law and state towards political justice bridging this concern with that of justice in a personal sense as a fundamental personal attitude. 215 having a moral political conception of justice stable, whilst allowing for its modification.

This chapter has analysed a Kantianism in Rawls that has not hereto been recognised: the priority of the idea of the reasonable. It is not the reasonable per se that is Kantian, rather it is the system that the idea creates for Rawls’ political philosophy that is Kantian. It is a constructivism that comes out of the function of ideas of reason for politics. The methodology of Rawls’ conception of justice seems to rely on the mechanism of ideas of reason as regulative. The idea of the reasonable creates both the political domain and conditions it for justice. The next chapter will further the different nodes for comparing Kant and Rawls on public reason as the prime ideas of reason for politics.

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Chapter Five

Kant and Rawls Compared

The purpose of this final chapter is to, through the use of comparison, conclude that for both Kant and Rawls it is the function of ideas of reason that makes their politics public and progressive. It is an interesting end point for this thesis that begins with ideas of reason and their explicit practical metaphysics, and finishes with a comparison that shows Rawls’ non-metaphysical political philosophy to implicitly employ the function of ideas of reason in his idea of public reason. This thesis makes a pragmatic point about political philosophy, which justifies the focus on the function of ideas of reason rather than their particular status in a given philosophical system.276 The focus on the question of the function of ideas of reason has given my argument more coverage because it is relatively independent of the question of metaphysics. While I could comment that Rawls’ theory does in the end appear metaphysical in the practical way I have defined it, what is more important for my argument is that his theory needs the conception of ideas of reason as regulative, the doctrine Kant presents in the First Critique.

It is important to note that the First Critique is my point of reference for the Kantianism I use to analyse Rawls’ political liberalism. Rawls himself, and most interpreters, base their Kantianism on the moral philosophy and the supreme principle of the categorical imperative. I focus on Kant’s technical elucidation of the practical use of reason in its theoretical and not moral context. I concentrate my reading of Rawls on a Kantianism that has not been widely discussed in the literature on Kantian themes in political philosophy, namely that Rawls’ political theory employs to its

276 This is where my account of Kant’s politics differs from Flikschuh’s. Her interpretation is an explicit defence of metaphysical importance for political theory, whereas my focus is the coverage for political purposes of ideas of reason not necessarily dependent on metaphysics. 217 advantage a Kantian system of ideas of reason. The aim is not to show the different conceptions of reason itself in Rawls and Kant, and the consequently varying scope of their application, but rather to show that the methodology of creating a practice for shared human life is similar between Rawls and Kant, which leads to a substantive similarity.277 Onora O’Neill undertakes the former project of comparing the construction of reason itself in Rawls and Kant. She, however, bases her analysis on practical reason as given by Kant in the Second Critique, the practical philosophy proper as it were, in addition to denying any metaphysical foundations in Kant.278 My departure point for the Kant-Rawls comparison is the practical use of reason as given by the First Critique in the Dialectic and the function of ideas of reason in Kant’s political philosophy.

The primary point of comparison is, firstly, that the system of ideas of reason is important to the political philosophy of both Kant and Rawls; and secondly, that they both ground their theories through the primary idea of publicity or public reason. Hence the first section will cover the issue of reason in Rawls in order to underline that what we are comparing is the reasonable as an idea of reason and not the conception of reason itself. The second comparison will compare justice and Right. Chapter Three demonstrated that publicity is the transcendental ground of public Right for Kant and we can see a similar move in Rawls, whereby public reason keeps politics on the path of justice. Third, we will compare Kant and Rawls on the reach of their ideas and consequently their political thought. While we know that Kant’s public reason is cosmopolitan, there is an issue in Rawls interpretation about how reliant his conception is on state borders. This will be disputed and instead proposed that the advantage the idea of public reason brings to Rawls’ philosophy is that it also operates outside of the closed notion of citizen.

277 Christine Korsgaard states that Kant’s philosophy is more than a theory or doctrine, that it is a living “method”. She suggests that Rawls is both substantively and methodologically Kantian because his practical problem and his formal ideals are structurally similar to Kant’s. See “Rawls and Kant: On the Primacy of the Practical” in Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress, Memphis 1995. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1995, Vol. 1, Part 3, Sections 3M-3S, 4,5, pp1165–1174. 278 O’Neill. 1997, states that her interpretation of Kant’s public reason is “modal rather than motivational”. This gives rise to her endorsement of constructivism, see p423 fn 12 & p427. For an explanation of her account of constructivism see “Constructivism in Ethics” in Constructions of Reason, 1989, pp206–218. 218

5.1 The reasonable in Rawls as an idea of reason As we saw in Chapter One, Kant’s explanation of ideas of reason, the practical system he sets up for reason in the “Transcendental Dialectic” to the First Critique, carries through to his political philosophy. In the Dialectic Kant criticises previous metaphysical philosophy for presenting us with illusion rather than knowledge because it fails to heed the limits of human sensibility. When the understanding naturally attempts to proceed beyond the limits of its powers and claim knowledge of “supersensible” objects, like God or our own souls, it necessarily falters: there can be no theoretical knowing of the existence of God or our own immortality. But this failure of theoretical reason inaugurates the practical turn of reason for Kant. Working within the limits of sensibility pure reason can provide what is necessary for humans to make sense of their world in the form of the regulative idea. Ideas like the immortality of our souls, the freedom of our wills and the existence of God cannot be proven and so are up for negotiation in the sphere of practical human action, and this work is what Kant calls the practical use of reason. The ideas regulate the determinations of actions and principles for human endeavour.

In the practical sphere then, reason takes up the positive function of giving the conditions necessary to meaningful human behaviour; they guide and regulate human action. And this is how such necessary ideas achieve practical objective reality. Objective reality for these phenomena is conditioned by the task of fulfilling the idea in practice, which, of course, can never be completely achieved. Chapter Four argued that Rawls’ notion of the reasonable, too, is such an idea, one that is necessary to think in order for it to become a practical guide for human endeavour, specifically for human attempts to achieve political justice. Even in a non-foundational theory of politics, it seems, we are unable to give up on the idea of the reasonable.

The reason that we are not here concerned with the supreme principle of practical reason, that is the moral law or the categorical imperative, is so that we can stay within Rawls’ structuring of the public political sphere by avoiding comprehensive foundations. But also, perhaps more importantly, because what we have found, influenced by Flikschuh, is that term and concept “idea of reason” proliferates in Kant’s political texts (see Chapter Two). Hence the interest in the 219 inauguration of this practice of reason as found in the First Critique. Examples of what Kant calls ideas of reason in his political writings includes everything from perpetual peace to the social contract and the republican constitution to Right itself. The fact that Kant is also adamant that we can never reach the perfect conditions these ideas designate simply serves to demonstrate their regulative function; denying their achievability opens the way for constant work towards them.

The aim in applying Kant’s sense of ideas of reason to Rawls is not to catch Rawls out; but rather to emphasise the dynamic effect of ideas in the world. I believe, following Ellis (see Chapter Two), that such dynamism is essential to Kant’s theory of politics. The effect of ideas in the realm of politics is thus about showing that political principles and their application are to be judged by their ability to promote political progress, rather than adhere to some set of ideal norms.

Perhaps this comparison could more broadly point to a shared belief by Rawls and Kant in the primacy of the practical. In the preface to the second edition of the First Critique Kant writes that he had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith, here his concern is practical: hope in human progress. It would be fulsome and wrong to say that this results in a primacy of the political for Kant, which is the approach that Rawls’ develops in PL. At the very least, however, we can say that political progress is a large part of the general historical enlightenment of humanity for Kant.279 The comparison based on the primacy of the practical is too broad. What is interesting is that for Rawls the primacy of the political is created by the idea of the reasonable; it is a practical political necessity in Rawls’ construction of justice. The reasonable can be understood as a regulative idea in the constructive role Rawls ascribes to it for political justice. This role is borrowed from Kant’s doctrine of ideas of reason.

279 O’Neill, in a footnote to her discussion of Rawls statement that he gives primacy to the social in his Kantian constructivism over Kant’s commitment to the individual in the categorical imperative (KC, p339), notes that the individualism of the categorical imperative is up for dispute when we consider – as Rawls does not – works after the Groundwork and his political writings in particular. See “Constructivism in Rawls and Kant” in Cambridge Companion to Rawls, ed. Samuel Freeman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p365, fn18. 220

It is the action of ideas that we are comparing between Kant and Rawls and not the concept of reason itself. The argument is not that Rawls’ idea of the reasonable is his replacement for Kant’s a priori reason. Rather the thesis is that “the reasonable” for Rawls operates like “soul” or “world” in the First Critique or “peace” or a “republican constitution” in Kant’s political writings. These are all ideas of reason for Kant, and as such they call for humans to create them as conditions for practical meaning and purposes. They have no objective reality but regulate the subjective reality of human behaviour and social conditions. They do this not by presenting the world below with a higher truth, but rather by becoming a kind of provisional truth to help bridge human freedom and human nature, the ideal and the empirical. They are in themselves practical: they only exist by virtue of the use we make of them.

A more exact comparison is made between Rawls’ idea of public reason and Kant’s idea of publicity. These are the ideas that ground each political conception as a political conception. Chapter Three demonstrates that, for Kant, publicity is the primary regulative idea for politics: it is the idea that ensures politics remains on the path of Right and that maintains for politics its own sphere of practical activity, which is a well-functioning (happy) public life. Chapter Four argues that, for Rawls, it is the idea of public reason that allows a conception of justice to be formed, which is accessible and acceptable to all who participate in the condition of reasonable reciprocity. Both the idea of public reason and publicity guard the borders of the political to ensure a political flourishing that is not dictated by vested, dominant or singularly moral interests. It is these ideas that for Kant and Rawls ground political activity and progress.

Kant presents ideas of reason as requiring a practical use of reason because they are the necessary conditions for human action in the world; they give humans a task to perform. In this way we view the ideas of reason not as static but instead as tools to help our human work. Rawls employs the notion of “the reasonable” in his political liberalism as something that is not a fixed norm; but rather is an idea that reasonable human co-operation applies to itself. Chapter Four argues that the reasonable acts as the “gatekeeper” to the political such that it is elevated above 221 empirical political life. There is a greater role accorded to the reasonable, over and above being a simply political instantiation or an attitude of tolerance. This role is reinforced in the way Rawls denies any invocation of comprehensive doctrines for political liberalism to argue its case or to perform its work. This work consists in the creation of a reasonable overlapping consensus of the reasonable political, as well as providing a reasonable political conception of justice. We observe this Kantian practice of ideas in Rawls despite or even because of the non-foundational status of his political liberalism. The idea of public reason in Rawls is an idea of reason exactly because it sets politics the task to perform; a reasonable political practice.

Despite, as mentioned above, the different departure point between O’Neill’s project and my own, her insights remain instructive for the discussion here. She examines Rawls’ moral philosophy lectures and criticises his Kant interpretation for positing both persons and reason as not able to be constructed.280 Rawls deems that moral reason in Kant constructs its own objects but that reason itself is not constructed; practical reason is the “material” from which the construction begins.281 O’Neill believes that a proper reading of Kant reveals that the CI as the supreme principle of practical reason “can itself be constructively justified.”282 Her argument is that reason’s authority must be instituted or constructed by humans themselves and this is, by virtue of the need for universal acceptance, what lies at the core of the CI: “the overarching principle of thinking and acting only on principles which [people] regard as open to, and followable by, all.”283 Indeed, this analysis assigns reciprocity, the value at the core of Rawls’ political liberalism, directly to Kant’s morality. O’Neill’s argument is that Kant is more radically constructivist than Rawls allows.284 Certainly my thesis reads into Rawls a more complete constructivism than his theory acknowledges. Rawls’ political liberalism is more fundamentally non-foundational once we witness the practical work performed by the idea of the reasonable. The operation of ideas of reason for Kant is about the practical creation of, and the

280 Ibid., p356. 281 See John Rawls “Themes in Kant’s Moral Philosophy”(1989) in Collected Papers: John Rawls ed. Samuel Freeman, Harvard University Press, 2001, pp513–14. 282 O’Neill, 2003, p357. 283 Ibid., p358. 284 Korsgaard, 1995, makes an interesting point about the way Rawls scholarship has influenced Kant scholarship both methodologically, the way we approach the subject, and substantively, the way we view the content. O’Neill may be giving an example here of both methodological and substantive influence working together. 222 decision to follow, an idea that is necessary to some aspect of human functioning, or, in this case, political life.

In an address to the 8th Kant Congress Susan Neiman also criticises Rawls with regard to his theory needing a more radical and Kantian conception of reason.285 In her monograph Neiman shows that the structure of theoretical reason for Kant is closer to that of practical reason than some Rawls commentary suggests.286 Her criticism of Rawls’ notion of reason is based on the argument that the only way he can coherently separate the reasonable from the epistemologically true is if he indeed has a conception of reason as itself constructed. Which implies that reasonable judgements could not only distinguish between truth and reason but also re-evaluate “the priorities which have commonly been assigned to them”.287 We can use O’Neill’s work here to interpret this to mean that if we take the reasonable to be a kind of truth, then it operates as a type of reason itself and gains authority through its own operation, that is, when it reasonably responds to specific problems. Neiman, however, offers a Rawlsian defence of Rawls for not making explicit the nature of reason as that whose authority is to be constructed. This is because Rawls would want to remain “agnostic” regarding the truth and any definition of reason risks becoming a comprehensive account that founds his theory of political liberalism.288 If Rawls defined his notion of reason in the way he establishes the idea of the reasonable, as that which gains authority when all reasonable people agree, he would jeopardise his very idea of the reasonable! 289

Perhaps, however, the point these two commentators can be seen to further is that empirically constructed authority legitimates reasonable ideas. Certainly the comparison of this thesis is based on the way ideas of reason inspire exactly this type

285 See Susan Neiman “Symposium: The Rawls Legacy” in Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress, 1995, Vol. 1, Part 3, pp1174–1184. 286 Susan Neiman, The Unity of Reason: Rereading Kant, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. 287 Neiman, 1995, p1180 288 Ibid., p1180. 289 Although there may be an argument that this is implicitly what Rawls has done. For example in his lectures on Kant’s philosophy there is a tendency to interpret and express Kant’s reason, the moral condition, in terms of the reasonable. He thinks that the moral view is the idea in the CI that moral constraints are determined by what reasonable people, ideally situated, would legislate for themselves. See John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy ed by Barbara Herman, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000, pp208–211. See also Thomas Hill Jnr discuss Rawls view that Kant’s ethics is not so much an “ethics of duty” as an “ethics of self-esteem”, which does rather present the moral law, reason itself, as something of reasonable agreement, 1995, p1160. 223 of practical and “good” work. O’Neill exemplifies this combination of features inherent in regulative ideas in the following summary: Kantian constructivisms proposed by Rawls and by Kant himself are highly distinctive in accepting the challenge of showing that ethical justification is possible without presupposing antecedent agreement on specific social norms.290

5.2 Towards Perpetual Justice In Rawls’ theory we use the reasonable, we abide by public reason, to ensure that we live harmoniously together under a shared reasonable conception of justice. However, given the fact of pluralism and the incomplete nature of justice, our use of public reason must also be in aid of the adjudication between political practice and ideal justice. It is here that I see another similarity with Kant. One of the reasons why Kant gives great emphasis to ideas of reason in his political philosophy, is because of the necessity of politics to negotiate the empirical and the ideal; nature and freedom. Freedom in Kant’s politics is not absolute because what is required for external freedom in the first place, and given the fact of human community, is Right. We must maintain Right in order for freedom to exist at all. This is Kant’s opposition to revolution and argument for reform explained in Chapter Two.

Rawls too sees the intrinsic nature of politics to lie in its ability to bridge human limits and human desires, yet also understands that the managing of these things must be careful. We observe this his remarks about the purposes of political philosophy in, for example, JFPM. He thinks that philosophy wrongly orients itself towards the truth in matters of social organization; this task is beyond the limits of human agreement. And yet, we have these “intuitive ideas” that aim for a shared belief in the political structure. Thus Rawls’ presents the task of political philosophy as bringing forth a conception that organises our human ideas and principles according to a “more fundamental intuitive idea”, which he believes is the idea of a “society as a system of fair social cooperation between free and equal persons.” (JFPM, p229)

Thus Rawls too provides that political reform needs to be in accordance with the reasonable. Without the notion of the reasonable there can be no provision of a

290 See O’Neill, 2003, p361. 224 society that is just, fair and treats its citizens as equals. Even the dramatic changes in the history of American society that Rawls uses as examples in his discussion of public reason, like the abolition of slavery and the establishment of equality of civil rights, he grants as able to be validated by the reasonable in the aid of a greater justice. These examples of fundamental political change demonstrate that conceptual legitimacy is not born through a revolution imposed by ideas of a higher good, but rather, in these examples, legitimacy was proven because the major reforms they proposed were seen to be good in political terms in due course. They, of course, were in aid of progress towards justice. The reform, however, can still be read in a public political way: they adhered to the political principle of public justification as found in public reason. The reasonable is what they paid homage to even as they re-constructed what it was. Reasonableness is like Right because it is a necessary (pre)condition for good politics or justice.

Charles Larmore, in his essay on public reason, states that: One of the benchmark’s not just of Rawls’s conception of public reason but of his political philosophy as a whole is that basic justice takes precedence over civil peace or, perhaps better put, that it is a precondition for any civil peace worthy of the name.291

This statement is misleading, although for my purposes, in a useful way because it assists in clarifying the comparison between Rawls’ justice and Kant’s Right. Thus, the Larmore essay will be used in relation to this very comparison. Certainly, it is agreed that public reason does not aim to avoid deep-seated conflict, rather it, especially in the revised version, actually tries to encourage it, as this furthers the political values of basic justice. However, the case for expanding public reason to include discussion of the deeper reasons of citizens is exactly to avoid what we could call unreasonable forms of political activity, like civil strife. I grant that the highest value of public reason is not civil peace, but basic justice is not correct either. Rawls actually limits what justice is through public reason. The highest value of public reason is the reasonable itself because justice is constructed through the reasonable; the aim of political liberalism is reasonable justice.

291 Charles Larmore, 2003, p385. 225

Rawls does not mention the physical violence of the abolitionists; he refers exclusively to their historically recorded arguments. Kant, for example, explicitly condemns the blood-shed of the French revolution whilst exalting the principles behind it, and yet still bans a right to revolution precisely because it is not consistent with maintaining Right; violence is not a proper political method. We can observe a similar thought-pattern in Rawls: public reason embodies the ideal of a reasonable society, thus it is the reasonable that must be kept afloat in order to change the character of that ideal. It is misleading to say that basic justice is the precondition for civil peace as it implies a more substantive notion of justice than Rawls offers. The reasonable as justice is the precondition for peaceful politics. I reject the pejorative connotation of “peace” here and the definition of basic justice as “fair terms of social cooperation”292 without reference to the reasonable. Larmore may be overstating Rawls’ opposition to the value of civil peace. I think that this is exactly why Rawls places public reason in a wider context, in order to lessen potentially violent sources of division within the political community and show that we are all committed to being led by the reasonable whilst being able to decide how that is constituted, and as also demonstrated in Chapter Four, this is the intrinsic importance of public reason to public stability. Rawls, therefore, helps us to further understand Kant’s rejection of a right to revolution.

Larmore questions Rawls for going beyond the inclusive approach to public reason with the added proviso that in due course reasonable reciprocity of public reason may be fulfilled. This is a change he characterises as moving from the inclusive idea of public reason, that deems reverting to comprehensive views permissible only in cases that will promote greater justice, to a very relaxed wide view, where fundamental convictions may be used at any time. Larmore believes the former view a better discipline for public reason because he thinks that reversion to comprehensive doctrines is antithetic to a well-ordered society. Such arguments, he thinks, belong properly in the “background culture” as “open discussion”. Larmore intimates that with the introduction of the proviso Rawls’ is endangering the due process or legitimacy of resulting principles.293 This, however, is too narrow a

292 Ibid., p384. 293 Ibid., p387. 226 construal of the role of the wide view; Larmore thinks it is simply about “mutual assurance”.

This it certainly is, which Rawls also attests to, but, as we have seen in Chapter Four, Rawls loosens the limits of public reason as far as public justification for the sake of political progress. Through the wide view of public political culture citizens are given the opportunity to stabilise the political conception of justice by showing their deeper commitment to it. This secures social unity precisely through the conception of justice and ensures a mutual respect of each other as reasonable. Under such broadly firm political conditions reasonable propositions can be made as to what can enhance the reasonableness of the society, what can be adjusted to conceive or apply better the political conception of justice, without suggesting fundamental discord. Thus, citizens are given “the means to make effective use of their freedoms” (PL, pxlviii) and the cause of political justice is furthered. It is the reasonable that makes this possible. Reasonableness is the condition that is necessary to guide citizens in the public political culture towards reasonable advancement of their society towards justice.

Larmore argues that fairness “forms the core of the ideal of public reason”.294 According to my reading of Rawls, this is not the case. I propose that it is the idea of the reasonable that conditions all political ideas in political liberalism, including fairness. The reasonable allows fairness to be substantiated by individual communities at different social moments by acting in accordance with the duty of civility. The authority of public reason originates in itself as an idea and does not have to rely on the less institutionalised concept of fairness, as Larmore suggests.295 The core ideal of public reason is the duty of civility. This is the duty to be reasonable; to be committed to the idea of reasonableness. This may include fairness but cannot be replaced by it. There is more at stake in the idea of the reasonable than fairness, in fact, it could be

294 Ibid., p389. 295 See ibid., p389. “citizens having different conceptions of justice have to share a commitment to reciprocity if public reason is to be possible: they must view one another as free and equal citizens and be prepared to offer one another terms of cooperation which all have good reason to affirm. This standard, of course, is tantamount to what Rawls means by fairness…” 227 said that in order to act fairly, if fairness is capable of normativity,296 we must first guided by what is communally reasonable.

Larmore indeed affirms this when he quotes Rawls in explanation of the conception of public reason in justice as fairness, where “the guidelines of inquiry of public reason … have the same basis as the substantial principles of justice.”297 The basis is the reasonable, and public reason too legitimates itself by virtue of its status as a practical idea. Rawls also states that justice as fairness expresses citizens’ shared public reason. (PL, p9) Larmore seems to acknowledge this when he quotes that a just society for Rawls is about “mutual recognition” and concludes that public reason, “is the practice in which citizens make this vision a reality.”298 Such a conclusion fits easily with my observations about the necessity of the primary idea of public reason in enacting the shared political conception of justice. Public reason is the practical idea that grounds Rawls’ vision of a just society to the extent that, without the idea of public reason, the vision is unfeasible. Thus, my counter to Larmore’s interpretation results in a mere qualification based on the priority of the reasonable over fairness, and even justice.299 Fairness for a just political life means that the idea and practice of the reasonable must reign.

Public reason, even in its wide view, is about constraining the ability of our comprehensive views to threaten the political conception of justice. This position is very close to Kant’s approach to Right, in this way, "the reasonable" must be maintained at all costs. Our comprehensive views are allowed in to the political domain precisely because they strengthen our commitment to the political conception and the duty of civility. We explain to our fellow citizens how we are attached to the political through our comprehensive beliefs, which inspires them to do the same, and

296 This perhaps suggests that Rawls’ improves PL and his theory of justice in a manner which responds to the criticism made by Sidney Morgenbesser. Morgenbesser was on jury duty in a case where the honesty of a police officer was at stake. He was asked by the prosecution if he had ever been treated unfairly by the police. He answered, “unfairly no, unjustly yes”. He reasoned that the encounter with the police, where he was hit over the head, was fair because everyone else was too. His duty was thereby discharged. However, it appears that Morgenbesser doubted the normative value of fairness, and we see Rawls, in PL, work more towards emphasising the reasonable as the guiding norm of justice, perhaps because fairness is too situational, like in Morgenbesser’s scenario. 297 Larmore, 2003, p390, (Rawls, PL, p225). 298 Ibid., p391. 299 A different or even longer project than the one attempted here could analyse all of Rawl’s ideas, like justice, and observe their relation to the idea of the reasonable and ideas of reason in a Kantian sense. 228 this in turn bolsters political stability. So, it is the reasonable that allows the reasonable to flourish. If the reasonable did not exist then politics could potentially thwart its own purpose of providing peace and security for a society. This is like Kant's idea of political reform: radical violent change threatens the very thing (Right) that makes Right and rights possible. This is why Kant bans a right to revolution. Just as publicity keeps politics on the path of rightful cosmopolitan peace, public reason guides Rawls’ political liberalism towards justice.

This is where Rawls’ extreme example of witnessing becomes useful to our understanding of his conception of public reason. In an ideal just society, where witnessing can occur, such is the strength of its basis in the reasonable, that it can cope with public testimonies in disagreement with certain political outcomes, without threatening the validity of the whole structure. Fundamental disagreement is not only permitted in political liberalism, but also actually encouraged as foundation building for a reasonable society. We are aiming for the society where witnessing has a place, this is the ideal that Rawls prefigures: a society where comprehensive beliefs are foundational to the public domain and not destructive thereof. Rawls writes, that the “idea of public reason proposes how to characterise the structure and content of society’s fundamental bases for political deliberations.” (IPE in PL, plviii) Thus, the slow introduction of reasonable comprehensive doctrines under the regulating force of the reasonable political means that we move towards the condition they have helped form. Thus, under the wide view of public political culture Rawls demonstrates how our full convictions benefit the conditioning of the political, towards justice.

Rawls loosens the limits of public reason as far as being about public justification. The sphere of the reasonable (or the harmony between political stability and reasonable (ideal) political principles) is still what dictates the political. However, the political is thoroughly reasonable because all the comprehensive beliefs that belong to it are already operating reasonably thanks to the overlapping consensus! This raises the question, when comprehensive doctrines are reasonable and reasonably introduced into the domain of the political reasonable, how much unreason can there be? Could the abolition of slavery really occur under such a system? It seems Rawls thinks this possible under ideal reasonable principles that then end up looking like 229 universal principles of reason. Rawls says that even if King and the abolitionists did not employ public reason, they “could” have, which seems to equate with using a more universal standard of public reason. This starts to look much more like Kant’s positive test of publicity, which appeals to whatever unites politics and happiness. This is, as discussed in Chapter Three, a transcendental concept of Right, but with obvious necessary reference to the historical conditions of the case needing publicity.

Rawls’ theory of political liberalism is often criticised for being exclusive of fundamental beliefs. However, with the development of public reason we see him acknowledge the peculiarity of his statement in JFPM, that is, we must bracket out religion, morality and philosophy from politics because they are “too important”. (JFPM, p230) The wide version of public reason now includes “reasonable” comprehensive views in the political domain due to recognition of their importance for the cause of political justice. Perhaps the avoidance of such doctrines was merely initial for the goal is long-term: an ideal society where justice as reasonableness rules, as in the case if witnessing. This suggests that the limits and breadth of public reason are merely provisional or, like Kant’s approach to Right, permissive in the way that allows for progress to real justice. This, however, requires the interaction of the comprehensive doctrines, which go beyond the aims of politics, to be slow and measured. It is the reasonable that has this qualifying effect. The wide view of public political culture is about conditioning politics.

Rawls even provides that good politics educates citizens in moral behaviour and conditions them towards a peaceful society. (IPPR in PL, p474 & p481) Indeed, he also notes, that the full publicity condition implies that the ideal of citizenship can be taught and aspired to. (PL, p71) He cautions against the publicity condition and public reason being interpreted as norms to achieve a minium of social cooperation or as achieving only a modus vivendi consensus. They do perform wide roles in public culture, which recalls Kant’s second transcendental principle of publicity; it aims at general satisfaction in the population. For Kant, the end of politics is public happiness, which is achieved through the publicity principle ensuring that political policies are in accordance with general social hopes and expectations. If the public are to be content with the organisation of their society, then public reason must indeed be 230 able to ensure that the ideal and the conception of justice is understood and appreciated as appropriate, which is why Rawls too gives the idea of public reason such functional breadth.

Rawls needs public reason to operate as an idea above both the political and the comprehensive. The idea of the reasonable remains, it must be the extent of our commitment, while the way we strive for it changes and further us along the path of justice. Our commitment to Right and justice are permitted by virtue of the ideas of publicity and public reason.300 We decide to follow the ideas of reason in order to work towards perpetual justice. The rightfulness and justice of politics is grounded by public reason as the primary idea of reason.

5.3 Rawls and the reach of public reason The idea of public reason for Rawls is a problem that faces individual democratic societies. (IPRR in PL, p441) The procedure of public reason occurs within an already bounded society of people. Rawls’ conception of the public is not global but necessarily contained within particular democratic political communities. This is a point of divergence with Kant’s understanding of a world-public, as explained in Chapter Three and as O’Neill too notices.301 Kant’s publicity is able to open to the world public, and is, therefore, as O’Neill claims, more radical. Rawls’ idea of public reason is initially given as that which is reasonably affirmed by all reasonable citizens, and being a citizen is being a member of a closed community.

O’Neill compares Kant and Rawls on public reason and deems Kant’s to be a better account because it is based on modal reasoning, in that public reason is determined by the pure obligation of the will of the people. Rawls’ public reason is criticised for sliding between motivational and modal conceptions. The motivational account of public reason is when the public appraises political principles in terms of what all citizens will or would accept as reasonable. O’Neill thinks that in the

300 I think that Gary Banham agrees with me here, when he writes “Rawls’ account of the nature of an institution is hence one that shows that his normative theory, like Kant’s, is meant to prescribe the nature of institutional operation within the framework of a general account of right.” See “Publicity and Provisional Right” in Politics and Ethics review, 3(1), 2007, p86. 301 In O’Neill, 1997, pp411–428. 231 motivational mode of public reason Rawls is not pure or public enough because agreement is premised on the assurance that others will likewise do so. This form of public reason is not modal, like Kant’s, because the outcome is contingent on whether citizens might actually agree to it, and not on a pure political obligation. O’Neill continues to argue that Rawls’ public reason becomes modal when he says that reasonable principles are those that all citizens can or could accept as reasonable for them.

The modal mode of reasoning, as in Kant’s version, is based on the belief in necessary principles, as there may be principles that citizens can modally accept without actually being adopted. O’Neill thinks that public reason should only approve the principles to which citizens can modally and logically agree: modal reasoning, like Kant’s, should have priority over motivational. She argues that Rawls’ account of public reason tends to be more motivational than modal. This leads to her main criticism of Rawls: a predominantly motivational form of public reason results in the participants of the reasoning, that is, citizens, needing to be within a bounded society. This is because, O’Neill believes, once reasoning among fellow citizens is conceived along the lines of reasoning among those who already share a political identity and tradition (borders), the most general principles and standards on which citizens can agree are likely to be those to which citizens will agree. Thus, Rawls’ public reason, according to O’Neill, is restricted to nation states because it fails to give modal reasoning priority. I want to question this categorisation of first, Kant, as proposing an exclusively modal version of public reason and, second, Rawls, as providing for a primarily motivational form of public reason.

Certainly we can compare Rawls and Kant, observing that for Kant, public reason is that which is publicly knowable, that is, modal in form, whereas for Rawls public reason is that which is publicly accepted, that is, leaning towards motivational reasoning. This is a possible interpretation of Rawls, especially easy in comparison with Kant. Evidence for this interpretation is found when Rawls imbues public reason with the ability to find a reasonable answer to all, or nearly all, cases where basic justice and constitutional essentials are concerned. This presents a kind of motivational standard for public reason of that which can be mutually accepted, like a consensus. (See PL, p225) The question for Kant is, how can Right be factually valid 232 and morally justifiable. The answer, of course, lies in the form of publicity. And in Kant, as is made clear in Chapter Three, we are aiming for the possibility of this union, this universally possible form. The content of publicity for Kant, it would seem, is less that which is adopted, and more that which is unilaterally communicable.

For Rawls the publicly reasonable is what we can all politically mutually accept, while for Kant the form of publicity gives us what we could all share. Sharing, however, takes us away from a unilateral type of public reason (perhaps an overly ‘unmotivational’ form) and returns us to his idea of common human reason. In the earlier discussion of Kant’s first transcendental principle of publicity in Chapter Three, we saw that common human reason is based upon reciprocity, that is, the ability to “think in the position of everyone else”, as Kant renders it in Critique of Judgment. (5:294) Thus, as the criteria for Kant’s public reasoning, publicly knowable, appears to be more motivational than O’Neill proposes, moreover it shares Rawls’ main (motivational) criteria for public reason - reciprocity.

Further, if we continue to acknowledge the second positive formula of publicity in Kant, we see that his version of public reason is more heteronomous than modal, which is an aspect of motivational reasoning that O’Neill criticises. Recall that the positive transcendental principle of public Right decrees that maxims, in order to attain their public end (and pass the test of publicity) “must conform with the universal end of the public (happiness)…” (TPP, 8:386) Kant’s account of public reasoning is, therefore, also motivational insofar as the proper task of politics is a happy or well-functioning public sphere. Hence Chapter Three concludes that publicity in Kant’s politics tests what is acceptable under certain circumstances. There is certainly the modal standard of acceptability but this must accord with what can be accepted by people for contemporary conditions, namely, what will promote a well- functioning political life. Thus it appears that, in O’Neill’s terms, there is also a confusion in Kant between modal and motivational modes of public reason. Perhaps this points to the difficulty of opposing the two modes, leading to a suggestion that they are better presented as the spectrum along which public reason freely slides. Why should priority be given to modal public reasoning over motivational? My argument in the previous chapters on Rawls and Kant has been that the combination of modal and motivational reasoning in the idea of public reason is what makes politics able to 233 respond to historical progress in relation to the considered judgements of people about what is fair, just and reasonable. The function of ideas of reason contains both these elements, such that the motivational element introduces the historical restriction on political change, and the modal element in the idea of reason itself is what keeps open the possibility of progress.302

My presentation of Kant’s publicity provisions demonstrates, therefore, a similarity with Rawls’ motivational/modal account of public reason. In 5.2 above we saw that Rawls’ wider view of public reasoning is about conditioning the public culture. Rawls includes citizens’ non-political beliefs in public reason so as to allow for a greater political participation and progress towards a state in which all can witness their comprehensive views as contributing towards the shared conception of justice. Thus, we can say, that public happiness, as represented by a well-functioning public political domain, is also paramount in Rawls’ conception of the reasonable. Furthermore, we can compare the notion that Kant’s account of public reason is also a mix of the modal and motivational with the fact of his cosmopolitan account of public reason, that is clearly not dependent on nation-states for its execution. Cosmopolitan public reason can be motivational too. Chapter Three discusses the issue of whether Kant’s publicity principle applies to actual historical peoples or transcendental ideal subjects and decides that the former was the proper test for political maxims. So, on this motivational view of Kant’s public reason, we can still maintain the publicness of his public: they are motivated by the political duty of publicity itself. Chapter Three shows that publicity is the commitment that helps discharge political duties. Therefore, it is entirely consistent to say that, the purity of the obligation, which O’Neill deems better represented in modal forms of public reason, is maintained when there is an end, that is, public happiness, which must remain in view.

What consequence does this have for the criticism O’Neill makes of Rawls that the context of public reason is a “closed society”? O’Neill praises Kant’s public reason because it does not require shared citizenship, rather, what constitutes

302 Interstingly, Flikschuh too criticises O’Neill’s idea of modal public reasoning but her criticism is that this form of public reasoning cannot be without metaphysical commitments, whereas I am arguing that public reason, as an idea of reason, functions both modally and motivationally because this is how we practice ideas of reason, i.e., with reference to the circumstances of their use. However, and as will be seen below in my section 3, we are both interested in expanding the coverage of public reason beyond the state. See Flikschuh, “Metaphysics and the Boundaries of Justice” in Global Society, vol. 14, no. 4, 2000, pp496–505. 234 reasonableness is the capacity of the principles themselves to be made public to all others in the world. She argues that Rawls’ public reason is too restricted by the audience, whereas for Kant, the context is open. I will qualify this interpretation with reference to Rawls. While public reason certainly takes place within and for a particular group it is not singularly applicable to the internal use of one defined group of political association, as O’Neill claims.303 The principles born of Rawls’ public reason are self-legitimating, they have to meet the standard of reasonableness that all others would find reasonable. Thus, his public reason is an empty mechanism that can be used in the same way by different groups of people and across different groups of people within certain traditions.

The main argument against O’Neill’s interpretation of public reason as being a statist conception of the reasonable originates with Rawls’ description of the goal of public reason as articulating the ideal, a reflective equilibrium, of a “people” to govern itself in a certain way. (PL, p232) First to the articulation of a political reflective equilibrium. In a footnote Rawls’ refers to the freedom of public reason as being of a Kantian kind. He states that the limit to freedom is the limit to public reason because freedom does depend on the nature of the broader context of its use, the institutions and social context. (PL, p222 fn9) Public reason, as the free acceptance of political authority, means that over time we come to consider and perhaps endorse the institutions to which we are subject because – through our public reason – we can “guide and moderate the political power to which we are subject.” (PL, p222) This is the way Rawls sees his political conception of justice as entering the free reason of the polity. In the lecture on the idea of public reason Rawls intimates that there is room for a free acceptance of our own political society.304 This is because public reason is able to educate, which introduces another element to add to the list of forms of public reason: modal, motivational and educational. Rawls writes: we may over the course of life come freely to accept, as the outcome of reflective thought and reasoned judgement, the ideals, principles, and standards that specify our basic rights and liberties, and effectively guide and

303 O’Neill, 1997, p420. 304 This contrasts somewhat with what Rawls says in the lecture on the idea of an overlapping consensus. Rawls states that “political society is closed”, i.e., it cannot be entered or left voluntarily (PL, p136), and further in the footnote to this he provides that a right to emigrate does not imply assent to the governing authority (PL, p136, fn4). 235

moderate the political power to which we are subject. This is the outer limit of our freedom. (PL, p222)

This demonstrates that the free use of practical reason exists outside of our citizenship; that in fact we can endorse our participation in the political order actively and not by mere fact that we are deemed members. And the only avenue that permits this is public reason. This certainly grants greater latitude to Rawls’ idea of public reason than that which is tied to state-membership.

Further to the first point on the articulation of reflective equilibrium, in his essay JFPM Rawls sets down how political reality is out there so to speak, the discovery of which is political and historical, and not metaphysical. Thus, to work up to the political conception we draw on “basic intuitive ideas”, that are already present in democratic regimes, and the “public traditions of their interpretation.” (JFPM, p225) So the public justification of the political conception works with a tradition of social organization to form an overlapping consensus. A reflective equilibrium is a process of negotiating the key shared ideas in a culture of liberal democratic thought to induce a shared idea of a reasonable political conception of justice.305 The basis of the consensus is not to do with what is necessarily contained within the borders of a state; but rather, roams further into the public political traditions and cultures that are present in any historical circumstance. Rawls limits the application of political liberalism to a tradition of political practice and not a nation-state.

Second, Rawls outlines his preference, in The Law of Peoples [LP]306 for the term “peoples,” as against states in his conception of a world politics, a “Society of Peoples,” as he calls it. (LP, p23) Again, he refers to the tradition informing the basis of the grouping for political liberalism when he writes, “political liberalism describes both citizens and peoples by political conceptions that specify their nature.” It is their shared reasonable nature, and not necessarily their fact of citizenship, that is the starting point for Rawls’ conception of a just society. In the main, Rawls rejects the term state because he wants to eschew the Thucydidean power oriented picture of a political entity that is guided only by the rational, that is, its own power and interests,

305 Cf., Norman Daniels, Justice and Justification: Reflective Equilibrium in Theory and Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp21–46. 306 John Rawls The Law of Peoples, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. 236 and that fails to heed the reasonable. This works both internally, for a people, and externally, for a society of peoples. Rawls wants to emphasise that it is the people that are the authors of all their own powers. So, for example, a sovereign cannot command citizens to engage in war, and Rawls provides that the moral character of the sovereign limits their external relations through the reasonable. (LP, pp26-27) Thus, the reasonable affects a defined group from without, from their interactions with other related groups. Again what we have to acknowledge about Rawls’ account of membership in a society of a particular people or of peoples is the reasonable nature of the culture that surrounds them, one that importantly also inspires them to be reasonable. Thus public reason is not necessarily internal to a defined group of people, as O’Neill suggests. It exists as part of the historical, political and philosophical circumstances surrounding a given society or societies.

The argument that is most prescient to this thesis is the advantage of coverage O’Neill ascribes to Kant over Rawls in his cosmopolitan public reason. This advantage is importantly also open to Rawls through the mechanism of public reason as an idea of reason. The benefit of Kant’s non-contractualist justification of public reason, as O’Neill states presents it, is that it might serve to query or to justify rather than take for granted the institutions that constitute political identities. It could allow for the possibility and the importance of justifying the wider political order within which identities and states and their boundaries, and even democracy itself, may be constituted – or contested.307

Despite what Rawls says about democratic liberalism, perhaps the reasonable as an idea of reason elevates his liberal society beyond its own bounds and as such it may generate other substantive content if used by other societies. Rawls’ political liberalism is not cosmopolitan. If, however, we reformulate his problem from being one for liberal democracies to one for different groups of peoples308, as his Law of People could be interpreted as encouraging. Then perhaps, in this sense, Rawls’ idea of public reason too has the potential to be applied universally, albeit to different groupings of people rather than the world as a whole. This is because ideas of reason engage our commitment. Kant’s political philosophy aims for the idea of world peace

307 O’Neill, 1997, p427. 308 I thank Miriam Bankovsky for this novel methodological perspective. 237 and Rawls’ aims for justice itself, in both it is our use of the idea of public reason that forms our commitment to these public conditions.

5.4 Conclusion Kant and Rawls both employ the system of ideas of reason in their politics to found a principled yet responsive and empirically open politics. We compared the idea of the reasonable in Rawls, and not his conception of reason, with Kant’s provisions for regulative practical ideas. Rawls’ idea of the reasonable, in the way it defines and guides the public political in political liberalism, contains the features of an idea of reason in the Kantian sense. Second, we compared Rawlsian justice and Kantian public Right to show that it is public reason and publicity that ground the human work towards these conditions. This work consists in, not only progressing towards, but also in actively deciding on how these states are publicly conceived. Third, we compared the extension of Rawls’ public reason with that of Kant’s. Observing that for both philosophers, public reason is both modal and motivational, we speculated that perhaps Rawls’ public reason is not limited to closed communities, and that there is a chance for public reason to exist in human capacity in general and not merely in citizen-based reasoning. This may not qualify Rawls’ public reason to be cosmopolitan in the way that Kant’s is; but it certainly shows Rawls’ public reason is open to broader political application than nation-states. We conclude that the idea of the reasonable in Rawls is a commitment, as are ideas of reason for Kant. We commit ourselves to the idea of the publicly reasonable in order to fulfil our political duty, to remain on the path of good politics. Public reason is the idea of reason that grounds effective, progressive politics in both Kant and Rawls.

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Conclusion

This thesis argues that ideas of reason, which Kant expounds as regulative in the First Critique, are essential to understanding and employing his political philosophy. Ideas of reason are politically meaningful as practical conditions that guide a community in their political decisions and actions. It is the political function of ideas of reason to be grasped, negotiated and followed by humans in their unavoidably social setting. The practical effect of these ideas is to provide the structure for a flourishing and responsive society. Moreover, the publicity of the ideas facilitates that practical effect. Therefore the idea of publicity receives priority in the political domain because it conditions the practice of the political ideas of reason. It is through the publicisation of political policies, decisions and actions that a community of people can institute other ideas of reason, such as world peace, a republican constitution and Right, as the regulative measures of political progress. Publicity becomes the primary condition for effective politics because it assists a community in following the ideas of reason and, thereby also, in discharging their political duty. The political use of ideas of reason results in practical human work; those ideas provide the reference points for humans to decide upon, aim for and act towards. In this way we see a dynamic political function of the regulative ideas of reason: they guide and shape political aspirations, negotiations and actions.

A progressive political community is one that is able to respond to immediate empirical political concerns with sensitivity to the subjects of that community and its particular circumstances. The result is a vibrant community, which is able to improve the condition of all the community and achieve constantly, in Kant’s terms, an advancement of public enlightenment. Progress and, in particular, progress in terms of enlightenment, is an important feature of Kant’s conception of political association. This is why the dynamic function of ideas of reason is important; they allow for a principled engagement with current political situations in order to offer workable solutions that maintain the journey along the path towards the “highest political 239 good”, which Kant calls perpetual peace. (TPP, 6:355) Ideas of reason certainly are formal, but they are far from empty, especially in the political context. They excite a community into action and they inspire the political virtue of participation because of the manner in which they require a situated political unit to respond to their problems, using a tradition of thinking, and to test principles for their scope and strength. In this way the ideas of reason give a reason to act and are not merely formal constraints on action.

In exploring the role of reason in Kant’s political thought we turned, in the first chapter, to the function of ideas of reason in his general theoretical philosophy. In the Transcendental Dialectic of the First Critique he turns away from the limits of theoretical knowledge and to the practical meaning of human life by introducing the unknowable metaphysical ideas of soul, world and God as regulative ideas for the practical use of reason. These ideas regulate our practical life; they become conditions for a practical answer to the questions that humans inevitably ask but that theoretical reason cannot answer. Ideas of reason, therefore, are entwined with problems that we strive to solve. So, for example, we solve the metaphysical problem of freedom, not by coming to a theoretical understanding of freedom but rather by using the idea of freedom to sustain our practical manifestation of it, that is, our acting (as if we were free). This practice of ideas allows for an open-ended expansion of our field of experience because ideas of reason guide the constant determinations we make in and for our world. It is this very productive function for ideas of reason I understand as Kant’s practical metaphysics: the ideas of reason enable our practice to be guided. While theoretical reason would provide no justification for the ideas, as practical ideas they are useful because they instigate action.

This understanding of practical metaphysics provides an important and overlooked qualification to the popular contemporary argument for the disadvantage, or indeed dispensability, of metaphysics for political philosophy. I think that we can respond to this argument by outlining the political importance of ideas of reason; their productive function is in conditioning human life and activity. These ideas help humans orient themselves towards the conditions that assist a shared life and its highest end: a peaceful community. Ideas of reason lead us to the highest end of 240 peaceful human cohabitation. I have sought to argue for the fundamental role of ideas of reason in Kant’s political philosophy because they provide a strong mechanism for regulating the shared ends of political life.

The second chapter continues the focus on metaphysical practice as given by the ideas of reason by exploring the political activity they inspire. This chapter’s main concern was with the dynamics of Kant’s political philosophy as based on the practice of ideas of reason; in other words, how he allows for political progress. The number of political concepts that Kant nominates as ideas of reason emphasises the need to recognise their operation within and for his political thought. We saw how Flikschuh and Ellis give us examples of the manner in which political ideas of reason function in Kant’s political philosophy. It is through the power of the ideas and their functioning that a political community is created and the well-being of its citizens is promoted. This power, or direction-giving operation, does not originate in an absolute command to apply an ideal political concept, as some readings of political metaphysics would suggest. Rather the power of a regulative idea lies in its ability to be instantiated in the way that citizens think fit. The political community decides to follow the idea and, in this decision, they are actively appropriating the idea in a manner that their particular circumstances allow.

Locating the function of ideas of reason in Kant’s political philosophy demonstrates, not only the way Kant justifies his approach to politics, but also shows how the ideas function as key dynamic components of public Right itself. Importantly, however, deciding to follow an idea of reason is asymptotic progress: we work towards the idea and do not simply institute it or achieve it. This means that being led by an idea of reason involves a constant negotiation of how best to approximate it. In this way, Chapter Two highlighted the dynamic function of ideas and the manner in which they both allow for and inspire ongoing political activity.

Chapter Three then addresses the question, how can we follow these ideas; what grounds the function of ideas of reason for politics? The answer is publicity. In this way, it was argued, publicity becomes the primary political idea of reason. The task of publicity is to enable politics to fulfil its unique purpose of public happiness, which we defined as a well-functioning public sphere. Publicity gives politics its own 241 measure and, therefore, its own domain. The principles of publicity represent for the political field its own supreme law to follow, even if the limits of politics must be in accordance with morality. Thus we saw that the standard of publicity is not discontinuous with Kant’s moral philosophy. What is important to highlight though, is the additional bearing accorded to publicity that covers the consequences of public human interaction, with which the moral law is not directly concerned. Publicity is a necessary condition of politics; the moral law is also necessary as a limit to politics but is not a sufficient condition for Kant’s political philosophy. Publicity is the necessary and rightful principle for a priori politics and gives us the mode of an empirically engaged political way of thinking.

The idea and institution of publicity demonstrate how Kant envisages our political duties to be discharged and, in particular, how politics can remain true to the path of perpetual peace for humanity. Publicity represents the means by which we can follow the other political ideas of reason: it is through publicity that we can enact them as political maxims, which are then discussed, tested for suitability and integrated into current political practice. In this way publicity enables us to demonstrate our commitment to the political ideas and to guard our commitment to the ultimate conditions they represent. This is publicity’s special role as an idea of reason that creates its own institution, which is the political practice of negotiating the path towards Right. Publicity guarantees the cooperative human work towards the happy public of a peaceful world community, the ultimate condition of Right.

In Chapter Four we examined John Rawls’ political liberalism, which is famously, or notoriously, divorced from a substantive conception of morality, and avowedly non-metaphysical. In this chapter I argue that Rawls’ idea of the reasonable operates in the manner of Kantian ideas of reason. It is the idea of the reasonable in Rawls’ political philosophy that allows the public political domain to be informed by, yet exist beyond, comprehensive foundations; the substantive moral convictions which can inform our polity yet are required to be held at a distance from the political domain. Reasonableness is the element in Rawls’ political theory that guides a society towards identifying and pursuing its own political conception of justice. The development of Rawls’ political thought reveals a convergence of what were, 242 originally, two different problems: on the one hand, the theoretical question of justice, the Platonic question, “What is justice?” and, on the other hand, the practical question “What should we do here to be just?” I argue that in his account of a political liberalism these two problems become a non-vicious circle, that is, in his development of political liberalism he shows how judgements about what is practically reasonable gives content and shape to a theory of (the nature of) justice. Moreover, what permits him to draw such a virtuous circle is the idea of the reasonable. The reasonable is the element in Rawls’ political theory that inspires action: it moves, supports and guides human thought and action towards and within a political conception of justice. Rawls joins a priori principles and workable political stability through the reasonable as the leading idea of political justice. The reasonable is both a condition that helps achieve political liberalism and also sets a condition of theoretical justice for it to realise.

We also saw how the reasonable is a dynamic idea that regulates political progress because it exists as a standard for reasonable justice at the same time as being a product of the mediation between the comprehensive and the political. The reasonable is shaped by the mix of fundamental beliefs and influences them insofar as is necessary for just politics. In this way the reasonable demands to be made real. It is an idea of reason because it cannot exist apart from its use. Further, in the institution of the idea of public reason, Rawls appears here to rely on the good sense of citizens. He is not placing comprehensive beliefs in the public realm, he believes that they properly belong within each of us, and yet he appeals to a common sense in each of us that is part of the collective sense of a political community. This is why an idea of the reasonable is necessary in the functioning of political liberalism: to elicit the work of that collective sense. I therefore endorse the reasons why Rawls thinks it necessary to avoid metaphysics in political philosophy, out of consideration for a stable plural polity, but nevertheless argue that the idea of public reason, and the expansion it undergoes in Rawls’ thought, operates as a Kantian idea of reason. Moreover, these two aspects of Rawls’ political philosophy are complementary. It is the practical idea of public reason which fosters stability in conditions of diverse fundamental beliefs by allowing expression of those beliefs in a non-threatening manner that demonstrates a commitment to the shared conception of justice.

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The final chapter returns to the direct comparison between Kant and Rawls in order to conclude that for both philosophers it is the function of ideas of reason that makes their politics public and progressive. Chapter Five argues that both political philosophies are grounded by the primary idea of publicity or public reason. We observed that this was not based on corresponding understandings of reason itself, but rather on the operation of ideas of reason as a system. The comparison demonstrated that, while publicity is the transcendental ground of public Right for Kant, there is an analogy between the role of publicity in Kant’s theory of public Right and the role of public reason in Rawls’ non-metaphysical theory of political justice. The finding was that Rawls’ public reason, as idea and institution, keeps politics on the path to the shared political conception of justice. The comparative chapter also argued that one of the advantages of the political function of ideas of reason is the reach that they have across particular notions of reason and communities. This led to the conclusion that Rawls’ idea of public reason actually can operate outside of the closed notion of citizen, contrary to the argument of O’Neill who claims that it characterises the already reasonable peoples of bounded liberal societies.

The primacy of the idea of public reason allows Rawls’ theory to maintain its strong political focus: all public activity must aim towards advancing the political community. What this means remains up to the subjects of politics themselves in their use of public reason. Kant and Rawls both employ a system of ideas of reason in their answer to the political question of how to found a community directed by reasonable principles, yet also responsive to their empirical conditions. The idea of the reasonable in Rawls is a commitment, as are ideas of reason for Kant. We commit ourselves to the idea of the publicly reasonable in order to fulfil our political duty, to remain on the path of good politics. The publicity of political reason is common to both Kant and Rawls.

Ideas of reason do not determine the final forms of political community, but rather assist a community to strive for and maintain rightful goals. In this way ideas of reason are like compass points for progress in reason, that is, a political direction not tied to expediency or power or other vicissitudes. However, as compass points they are also meaningless unless there is a starting place; sure reference must be made to 244 the current and future terrain before the journey is embarked upon. This means that ideas of reason function in politics through their direct engagement with the social and political status quo. This represents an approach to political philosophy that recognises the need for political principles to change according to circumstances and, in addition at the same time, retain the regulative influence of reasonable political ideas. This is, therefore, an approach to politics that ensures the continuing relevance of human political effort. Here we can favourably compare Kant’s theory of public Right with Rawls’ political liberalism. Rawls’ political theory places principles chosen by instrumental empirical reason, or reasonable empirical public agreement, at the heart of good politics. However, essential to this conjunction of the reasonable and the empirical, I argue, is the priority accorded to the idea of public reason. Hence, in order for political liberalism to work the idea of public reason must be practiced, it must condition all political action. Kantian ideas of reason are practical because they present humans with a problem to solve. The vital observation of this thesis is that ideas of reason have great political use. The use of ideas of reason in politics is their dynamic power to establish rightful political order and inspire continual work towards a higher good, whether that be a shared conception of justice or perpetual peace.

The primary argument of this thesis is that ideas of reason are fundamental to Kant’s political philosophy. There is a curious lack of discussion of the regulative function of ideas in Kant scholarship regarding his political thought. I hope to have shown the need for more discussion in this direction, in addition to providing a new development for such research by recognising the priority of the idea of publicity. The idea of publicity grounds our political use of ideas of reason, it is through the public use of reason that we can understand how following an authoritative idea is not an ignoble paradox. We follow an idea of reason in politics when we negotiate and implement it through the public use of reason. Bouterwerk criticised Kant for suggesting that an idea is capable of commanding absolute allegiance. However, with the political function of ideas of reason, Kant provides that ideas lend human social effort a practical reasonable direction, which we can access and test through the idea of publicity.

This reading of Kant has important implications for the tradition of political 245 thought he has influenced, most notably John Rawls’ political liberalism. When we observe how adept the ideas of reason are for regulating the sociability of asocial humans in Kant’s conception of political community, we can read a new kind of Kantianism into Rawls’ political philosophy. Rawls aims his philosophy squarely at managing political stability for modern plural societies. To this end he rules out comprehensive foundations for the structure of a political conception of justice and replaces them with the idea of the reasonable. The idea of the reasonable avoids claims to superior or more universally correct truths but simultaneously sustains a principled engagement of citizens with the political path towards justice. Rawls’ philosophy also gives primacy to the idea of public reason because it is through this practical idea that public participation can be activated and communal decisions regulated for their properly political purposes.

My secondary argument concerns a hitherto little noticed dimension of the relation between Rawls and Kant’s political philosophy and, along with this, a novel insight into Rawls’ political philosophy. My argument here is twofold: first, I identify the operation of a Kantian system of ideas in political liberalism; second, and more importantly, I maintain that the primacy of the idea of public reason - as a regulative idea - is fundamental to political liberalism achieving its avowed aims. Rawls’ eminently practical political theory provides a good example of the function of ideas of reason in the political context. In his specific elaboration of the idea of public reason we observe how ideas are tried out in practice, how political subjects come together and attempt to connect ideas on what is right with the immediate problems they need to solve, all without threatening the stability of social cohesion and order.

Overall, the argument of this thesis enhances our appreciation of Kant’s political philosophy and the manner in which it can contribute to the ongoing practice of politics. We learn from the political function of ideas of reason that philosophy should not be viewed as abstract and irrelevant to political practice. Rather, effective political practice itself relies on the regulative power of ideas. This is the source of strong political culture based primarily on the idea of public reason. The conclusions of this thesis demonstrate that public reason, as an idea and institution, is not necessarily a natural or unrealistic theoretical condition. Public reason must be created through a 246 practice that connects the political circumstances with the practical use of reason. This practice is made possible by following the ideas of reason. Practice is open-ended, and therefore, depends on the activity of humans in their communities. It is through the distinctively Kantian regulative ideas that political philosophy can direct us towards shared ends.

Thus we can make sense of Kant’s belief that enlightenment is more likely to occur in a public: the direction that ideas of reason provide, require cooperative human effort. To become politically enlightened in the contemporary world simply means we decide to follow reasonable ideas and work together in good faith, using public reason, towards them. This practice provides for humans a good foundation for a vibrant political culture. Thus, ideas of reason can allow a community to respond to immediate and overwhelming political problems whilst maintaining a philosophical approach. We can maintain an answer to the question, what is justice, whilst deciding what is just for this specific problem. Kant, in his philosophy, presents reason as humanity’s blessing that can only be such when we use it for our betterment. This is the true measure of his infamous doctrine that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. Ideas of reason offer politics principles for the practical enhancement of human togetherness. 247

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