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Universalism and racism in Kant’s critical philosophy

Andree Hahmann
p. 6-27

Abstract

This paper discusses the presence of potentially racist statements in Kant’s philosophical work and the complexity of interpreting their implications for his philosophical system. The goal is to correct a common misunderstanding about the apparent conflict between Kant’s moral universalism and these seemingly racist statements. In addition, the problems arising from Kant’s universalist framework that can lead to pejorative judgments about non-white or non-European cultures are illuminated. In conclusion, it is emphasized that there is an urgent need to examine whether these judgments qualify as a form of racism and how they relate to Kant’s critical systematics.

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  • 1 See, for, e.g., Mikkelsen 2013: 3. What makes Kant’s philosophy racist, according to Eberl (2019: 3 (...)
  • 2 See already, Hill and Boxill 2001. They also make what I think is a very important distinction betw (...)

1Kant’s philosophical work contains statements that many readers today consider racist.1 One challenge is to discern the true implications of these statements for assessing Kant’s philosophy.2 Particularly troubling for Kant scholars is the perceived contradiction between Kant’s proclaimed moral universalism and these assertions, from which it seems to follow that certain groups of people are ascribed inferior status because of certain characteristics associated with their racial predispositions.

2In this paper, I will argue that this contradiction is misunderstood: Not only will I show that Kant’s seemingly racist remarks cannot contradict his universalism, but I will also point out that the real problem lies in the fact that Kant’s universalism itself produces pejorative judgments about non-white or non-European cultures and societies in the systematic context of critical philosophy. Whether these judgments are racist in the strict sense, and if so, how exactly this relates to Kant’s critical systematics, is a question that has not yet been adequately explored. My aim, then, is twofold: First, to clarify the extent to which Kant’s moral universalism is affected by discriminatory judgments, and second, to emphasize the urgent need to interrogate the notion of racism that underlies our assessment of the philosophical classics. In other words, what degree of pejorative terminology in our discourse about other cultures are we willing to accept or regard as an inevitable consequence of the universalism inspired by Kant and demanded by his conception of reason?

3I will proceed in three steps. First, I will critically engage with the contemporary debate about the apparent contradiction between Kant’s moral universalism and what is perceived as racist statements in his work. In the second part, I will shift the focus to his philosophy of history and show that discriminatory statements necessarily emerge from Kant’s systematic approach. I will also highlight the close relationship between the systematic status of the philosophy of history and moral universalism. Finally, in the third section, I will raise the question of how we should understand racism in assessing classical philosophical texts.

1. Does Kant’s racial theory contradict his moral universalism?

  • 3 For a detailed discussion of this alleged contradiction with reference to further secondary literat (...)
  • 4 An early attempt to trace Kant’s alleged racism, taking into account also the teleological view cla (...)
  • 5 See, for example, PG, 9: 316; Refl 1520, 15: 878. Kant uses the term ‘natural predispositions’ or ‘ (...)
  • 6 Kant distinguishes four races, “1) the race of the whites, 2) the Negro race, 3) the Hunnish (Mongo (...)
  • 7 VvRM, 2: 438; ÜGTP, 8: 174; VvRM, 2: 438.
  • 8 GSE, 2: 255; see also V-Anth/Collins, 25: 233; V-PG/Hesse, 26/2: 116; 290. However, Kant also claim (...)
  • 9 GSE, 2: 253. Kant there refers to Hume’s description of the national character.
  • 10 V-Anth/Mensch, 25: 1187; Refl 15: 878. Considered by Kant to be incapable of all culture are the Fi (...)
  • 11 Refl 1520, 15: 877.
  • 12 VvRM, 02: 438; V-PG/Dönhoff, 26/2.891: 36-37; BBM, 08: 103.

4The contradiction seems obvious: how can one simultaneously be convinced that all human beings possess the same morally inviolable status and at the same time claim that some individuals are inherently inferior to others because of their membership in a particular biological race?3 Kant is known to be one of the founders of the first position and is still celebrated in contemporary moral philosophy for having provided the theoretical basis for the establishment of crucial moral concepts such as the inviolable dignity of humanity or the inalienable rights of the individual. Until relatively recently, however, it was not widely known that Kant also held the second view.4 Kant’s writings do indeed contain statements suggesting that the white race is inherently superior to the other races because of its capacity for cultural advancement.5 He also seems to associate certain human characteristics with members of the black or brown races,6 which by today’s standards sounds like abhorrent racism. Kant claims that blacks are lazy,7 stupid,8 incapable of valuable or higher feelings or thoughts,9 unable to attain education or cultural development,10 cannot govern themselves which is why they are only suited to be slaves (unfree servants),11 and even emit a foul odor associated with their skin color,12 to name just a few claims that are pejorative.

  • 13 See Mills 2017: 91.
  • 14 On the increasing international interest in this topic, see Lu-Adler 2023, 1-2.

5For a long time, this aspect of Kant’s philosophy, if it was recognized at all, was explained by the fact that Kant, too, was only a product of his time. It was therefore considered inappropriate to apply the moral standards expected in contemporary discourse to Kant’s texts. However, as critical engagement with the racist and colonial foundations of Western modernity progressed, the focus also shifted to the widely accepted classics that formed the foundation of that very modernity.13 Today, this explanation is increasingly seen as insufficient. Instead, an intensive discourse has developed that addresses the problem of the supposed contradiction in Kant’s philosophy and tries to find a solution for it.14

  • 15 See Mills 2017: 91. See also Eze 1997, who does not use the term “sub-person” but maintains that Ka (...)
  • 16 However, a closer look reveals that although Kant does not grant women the same rights, he does gra (...)

6In view of other historical cases, a plausible solution to this contradiction seems to lie in the assumption that Kant did not mean universalism to be as universal as it first appears. In plain English, this means that not all human beings possess the same moral dignity; only white Europeans can be considered persons in the strict sense and thus bearers of rights. In contrast, blacks or members of other races are not real persons, but something like “sub-persons.”15 This radical solution is also supported by Kant’s apparent treatment of women, who, according to Kant, also do not possess the same rights as their male counterparts.16

  • 17 In current research, the alternative to choose from is formulated as follows: “either Kant was an i (...)
  • 18 This view is famously argued by Kleingeld 2007. Variants of this thesis are represented by Allais ( (...)

7Another way of dealing with the problem is to assume that Kant did not initially notice this contradiction.17 This means that Kant began to philosophize with racist attitudes and only after the publication of his major critical works on practical philosophy slowly realized that these racist attitudes ultimately contradicted his philosophy. For this reason, Kant later distanced himself from his early views.18

  • 19 Or better, why does Kant in his later works (see, for example, Anthropology from 1798) refer to Chr (...)

8Both proposals for resolving the perceived contradiction are unsatisfactory for several reasons. The second proposal is opposed not only by the apparent objection that it is almost incomprehensible that Kant himself should not have noticed that he was in contradiction with this universalistic moral conception and that it took him several years to come to this realization. There are also numerous exegetical reasons to argue against this supposed resolution. If such a development took place, one must ask why Kant had his earlier writings reprinted almost unchanged or why similar statements can still be found in other, later writings.19

  • 20 Mills is aware of this exegetical problem, of course, but this does not, in his view, argue against (...)

9The idea that Kant restricted universalism to a particular class of people has, at first glance, some exegetical and systematic advantages. In this case, one can at least adhere to Kant’s universalism but must accept the reproach that he himself did not follow this universalism. The question arises, however, why these sub-persons are nowhere to be found in Kant’s writings.20 Kant does not devote a single discussion to this group of persons, which is quite surprising given his otherwise detailed classifications and elaborations, especially in the later Metaphysics of Morals.

10However, these are not the only, nor the most significant, problems associated with these two approaches. Defenders of Kant’s theory have pointed out considerable errors in the formulation of the problem itself, some of which concern the method of interpreting Kant’s texts, but also the understanding of Kant’s critical systematics (see, most forcefully, Geismann 2022). These problems already begin with the neglect of important distinctions between the stages of development of Kant’s theory and the types of texts available, which are of crucial importance for Kant scholarship.

11Accordingly, one must consider the important division of Kant’s work into two major periods: the pre-critical and the critical period. This division is crucial for understanding the evolution of Kant’s philosophical thought. The pre-critical writings include all of Kant’s works that predate the publication of the seminal Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. In contrast, the critical works range from the publication of the First Critique to Kant’s death. It should be noted that this division is not uncontroversial, and there are good arguments that challenge it. However, in assessing Kant’s critical philosophy, one must acknowledge a significant development between the earlier and later critical writings that makes it inappropriate to regard them as equivalent. Therefore, despite the acknowledged difficulties, I will adhere to this division in the discussion that follows. Accordingly, my assessment will focus exclusively on texts published after 1781. The question of whether there were later developments or changes in Kant’s views can be left aside for our purposes.

12Secondly, it is essential to distinguish between writings published by Kant himself and those published posthumously from his Nachlass or by his students. Clearly, texts that Kant did not explicitly intend to publish cannot have the same status as his officially published works. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that these supplementary texts can provide valuable insights into Kant’s thought at particular points in his intellectual development, as well as crucial information for reconstructing the development of his critical system. However, because of the often unclear circumstances of the origin of such statements or their anchoring in teaching, it is not advisable to give this material the same importance in the reconstruction of Kant’s mature philosophical system as his officially published works. Therefore, texts not published by Kant himself cannot be considered relevant to an assessment of Kant’s critical system. Thus, reflections and lecture notes will also be excluded from this investigation.

  • 21 On the systematic status and nature of Kant’s Anthroplogy, see, for example, the introduction to Br (...)

13Moreover, one should not attach the same importance to those texts whose publication was authorized by Kant himself, but which were compiled and edited by others. A prominent example of this type of text is Kant’s Physical Geography. It is important to note that Kant’s Physical Geography and its associated lecture notes, together with the lectures on the closely related Anthropology, are the primary sources from which most of Kant’s statements now considered racist are drawn. This presents a particular challenge because these writings require careful handling. Both writings are based primarily on the material that Kant used for his teaching. In order to arrive at an adequate assessment of this material, it is necessary to consider the nature of the lectures and their systematic position in relation to Kant’s critical philosophy.21 Kant delivered these lectures to a wider audience, as a significant portion of his income depended on audience fees. As a result, these lectures have a more popular character and exhibit a different style and structure than Kant’s other published works, which, by contrast, have a more scholastic form.

  • 22 Kant often, but not exclusively, used travel reports, which he was also highly skeptical of, which (...)

14It should also be noted that in these lectures Kant used the material that was available to him, that is, the material that reflected the scientific state of his time, as a means of addressing the questions he was dealing with in order to entertain his students.22 Moreover, Kant does not seem to have placed much emphasis on precision in citing the sources of his material. Of course, this is partly because both the Anthropology and the Physical Geography were not originally intended by Kant for publication, although he may have changed his mind later. Kant scholars, however, have extensively studied and documented the exact sources, which unfortunately is not always taken into account in this debate.

15Furthermore, it is important to recognize that these lectures remained virtually unchanged from Kant’s pre-critical philosophy to his critical philosophy. However, this also underlines that the material covered in the Anthropology and the Physical Geography has a different systematic status than the essential parts of Kant’s critical system that were fundamentally reformulated and systematically reoriented after his so-called critical turn.

  • 23 One exception is Eberl (2019: 391) who points out: “Kant presented these lectures [Physical Geograp (...)

16These, as mentioned, are all points that should be taken into consideration when examining the systematic significance of Kant’s views, which are now regarded as racist. Unfortunately, the specifics of these two writings are often overlooked or given little attention in the current debate about Kant’s alleged racism.23

  • 24 Lu-Adler 2023 and Ramsauer 2023 argue similarly, interpreting the relationship between the moral la (...)
  • 25 See, for example, Kant’s definition of Person: RL, 6: 239: “In the doctrine of duties man can and s (...)
  • 26 See, for example, TP, 8: 286. For the same reason, Kant also refers to the moral competence of chil (...)
  • 27 The fact that someone is a moral person is thus revealed not by the degree of his external civiliza (...)

17However, even if we take all the above distinctions into account, this alone does not explain away the perceived contradiction between Kant’s universalism and the above-mentioned racist judgments, even if some Kant scholars believe so and point to the text-critical inadequacy of much of the literature dealing with this issue. What is ultimately crucial is another shortcoming that most works on Kant’s racism have. This shortcoming does not so much concern the distinctions of Kant scholarship mentioned above, but results from a more exegetical or philosophical weakness. For it is clear that Kant’s moral universalism cannot contradict statements about the biological characteristics of particular human races!24 His moral universalism refers to the human being insofar as it is not a spatio-temporal, that is, a biological entity, but to the person as noumenal being.25 Therefore, strictly speaking, persons cannot be affected by empirical properties attributed to particular biological races. Rather, persons are detached from all concrete empirical manifestations, which is also why Kant repeatedly emphasizes that in matters of morality, there is no difference between an educated and a completely uneducated person or between a civilized man and the wildest savage.26 Both are equally addressed by the moral law and thus assured of their inviolable human dignity as persons, even if the savage, for whatever reason, is prevented from cultivating his own nature and talents.27 Kant’s moral universalism is indeed universal; it is not limited to peculiarities of actual legislation, place, or time, nor to accidental traits of character or talent. All of these must be considered irrelevant to one’s status as a person, which is why the “sub-persons” mentioned by Mills cannot be found in Kant.

18One can approach the same problem from another perspective: From a systematic point of view and taking into account the systematic structure of Kant’s critical philosophy, the statements about the qualities of certain ethnic groups are empirical judgments that do not refer to a priori qualities. Whether pure philosophy has certain empirical conditions for its application, or whether there must be a transition from pure philosophy to its empirical instantiation, is a secondary question that concerns not the validity of a priori universal moral principles, but the application of those principles. In other words, as empirical judgments, these discriminative statements cannot touch the pure content of Kant’s moral philosophy. Thus, they cannot contradict those very principles. One could therefore easily delete all the allegedly racist statements considered so far (and even the entire Anthropology and Physical Geography) from his philosophical work without changing a single line in Kant’s moral philosophy. The latter can be taken as a clear indication that everything said in these two writings clearly has a different systematic status than Kant’s moral philosophy.

19Could this also be the last word on racism in Kant’s philosophy? Not necessarily, for there is a whole group of discriminatory judgments that, in some ways, occupy a special place in Kant’s critical philosophy. In the next section, I will deal with this group of statements, all of which come from Kant’s philosophy of history. What is special about these judgments, as we will see in the next section, is that although they do not contradict Kant’s universalism, they are somehow to be seen as a direct consequence of it.

2. The systematic place of Kant’s philosophy of history

  • 28 Sutter 1989 has already pointed out the close relationship between Kant’s philosophy of history and (...)
  • 29 There is controversy in the secondary literature as to how exactly cultural, legal, and moral progr (...)
  • 30 The origin of Kant’s philosophy of history goes back to the lectures on Anthropology from the mid-1 (...)

20Although the philosophy of history does not occupy a central position in the current debate about racist statements in Kant’s philosophy,28 it plays a special role in the systematic assessment of Kant’s alleged racism, as I will show in this section. All the relevant statements revolve primarily around a common theme: the cultural, legal, and moral development of human societies.29 It is about the idea that man has a special vocation that consists both in his moral perfection and in the development of his natural dispositions and talents, a vocation that man, unlike other living beings, cannot realize in the individual, but only in the species. The latter is of crucial importance for the emergence of the philosophy of history, as we will see more clearly below, because the full development of all human dispositions is a task that extends over several generations, that is, a historical period.30

21It is important to point out that although this issue is clearly related to Kant’s Anthropology, which is also concerned with the vocation of the human being, Kant’s philosophy of history, and thus any discriminatory judgments that arise in this context, has a different systematic status, as I will point out in what follows. But let us first consider in what way these judgments can be considered discriminatory. What unites these statements is their disparaging assessment of non-European cultural achievements. Kant’s judgments result from the fact that he directly contrasts the technical, cultural, and political achievements of various known societies with the European standard of development. Measured against the achievements of enlightened European rationality, these societies thus lag behind in their development. This is clearly expressed in Kant’s review of Herder’s main work on the philosophy of history, in which Kant accuses Herder of having neglected precisely this important point in his assessment of the achievements of peoples. Herder, however, made happiness the end of history. According to Kant, this makes it impossible to assess the progress of different societies in comparison to each other and to previous generations. In contrast, Kant states that the end of reason ascribed to history cannot be happiness, which levels out all differences between peoples, but rather the development of human culture, which in turn depends on the legal order created by reason: “But what if the genuine end of providence were not this shadowy image of happiness, which each makes for himself, but rather the always proceeding and growing activity and culture that is put in play by it, whose greatest possible degree is only the product of a state constitution ordered in accordance with concepts of human right […].” (RezHerder, 8: 64) Not personal happiness, but the development of law as a prerequisite for cultural progress, which, as we shall see more clearly below, contributes to the moral development of man, must therefore be regarded as the ultimate goal of history. If this were true, however, non-European societies would have to be regarded as inferior and underdeveloped. This leads Kant to a somewhat disturbing conclusion from today’s perspective:

Does the author really mean that if the happy inhabitants of Tahiti, never visited by more cultured nations, had been destined to live for thousands of centuries in their tranquil indolence, one could give a satisfying answer to the question why they exist at all, and whether it would not have been just as good to have this island populated with happy sheep and cattle as with human beings who are happy merely enjoying themselves? (RezHerder, 8: 65)

  • 31 In Guyer’s and Matthews’ translation, it says: “Or the mosquitoes and other stinging insects that m (...)
  • 32 See also GMS, 4: 422-423; IaG, 8: 21; KU, 5: 378-379; RGV, 6: 32-33.

22Thus, considered from the endpoint of history, the achievements of non-European peoples must be accorded a lower value, which in this particular example leads Kant to equate these peoples with domesticated animals, an idea that Kant takes up in his Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim (IaG, 8: 21). Another striking example of the conclusions arising from this view of history can be found in Kant’s characterization of the Native Americans in the Critique of the Power of Judgment as little more than “angehende31 human beings” (KU, 5: 379).32

23In what follows, we need to address two issues that arise from this finding. Firstly, we need to clarify whether these statements should be considered racist in the narrow sense. It is important to note that Kant is not discussing races in the context of history, and we are not dealing with racial characteristics that are innate qualities. Secondly, we need to determine the systematic status of these claims. Let us first examine the second question. We will discuss the first question in more detail in the next section.

  • 33 Of particular importance is Spalding’s short essay Über die Bestimmung des Menschen. On the history (...)
  • 34 On the systematic relevance of this claim, see Kuehn 2009: 83.
  • 35 Cf. also the programmatic remarks of the Göttingen historian August Ludwig Schlözer: Vorstellung se (...)
  • 36 A famous example of a non-discriminatory account of history in eighteenth-century Enlightenment Ger (...)
  • 37 See Rohbeck 2006: 90: “Zu dieser Bewertung bedarf es eines allgemeinen Maßstabes, anhand dessen die (...)

24In the following, it will be argued that Kant’s pejorative judgments about non-European peoples result from three assumptions that are deeply rooted in Kant’s critical philosophy and, ultimately, closely related to his particular universalist conception of reason. In this context, the assumption that human beings are bound by their reason to perfect their dispositions and talents plays a central role (GMS, 4: 422-423). This idea is based in German Enlightenment thought. Thus, at first glance, Kant’s statements are not particularly original but merely reproduce an idea established in his contemporary discussion.33 Crucial for the formation of Kant’s philosophy of history is, as said, the further assumption that this development cannot be accomplished by individuals but must take place in the species (IaG, 8: 18-19).34 This assumption accomplishes two things: first, it lays the groundwork for a philosophical consideration of history, since development now extends over a period of time. Second, and more important for our concern, it also provides an endpoint for the historical consideration.35 For not every account of history will lead to discriminatory judgments.36 Thus, the assumption of an endpoint of history plays an important role in judging the level of development of the societies under consideration. Depending on the endpoint or target conception, different assessments result.37 If one assumes, for example, with Herder that the end of the human being is happiness, one will gain a different perspective on the people of Tahiti than if one takes juridical and cultural (that is, for Kant, technical) progress in the respective societies as a yardstick. The exact nature of the assumed historical endpoint is therefore of great importance.

  • 38 Refl 1440, 15: 629; Refl 1443, AA 15: 630. See also Schlözer, Universalgeschichte, § 1, p. 3; §7, p (...)

25At this stage, two additional assumptions become significant. First, Kant believes that this universal perspective includes all peoples equally. Only then does history become a “general history in a cosmopolitan view” or a “universal history” that does not address only particular histories, that is, the histories of individual groups or societies.38 This conclusion is, of course, closely connected with the assumption that all human beings are equally destined to develop their rational talents. For it is a quality that belongs to the human being qua being human. Closely related to this is the second assumption, that this consideration follows necessarily from the nature of reason itself! According to Kant, reason itself proceeds systematically, and from the systematic nature of reason follows also the historical consideration of its development. Thus, the philosophy of history plays an important role in systematic terms.

  • 39 As mentioned above, Kant believes that technical-political development conditions moral development (...)

26What this means exactly becomes clear when one asks why this development of the human species should be technical-cultural (and thus also juridical) and how exactly this development of natural human capacities relates to the moral development of the human species.39 Kant formulates this connection, and thus the core of the philosophy of history, in the Critique of the Power of Judgment.

  • 40 As Allison (2009: 34-36) notes, Kant does not justify the alleged necessity of this transition from (...)

27The discussion relevant to our topic is found in paragraphs 83 and 84, which deal with the final purpose of nature and the final purpose of creation. In this section, the theoretical foundations of the philosophy of history are elaborated (see also Allison 2009: 41). Basically, the point is that Kant is convinced that once reason has discovered an internal purposiveness in nature, as it exists in the reality of organized living things, it must, because of its own systematic nature, proceed to assume an order in external purposiveness as well.40 The external purposiveness concerns the relationship between ends and means in nature. It should be noted, however, that the sequence of ends and means in nature appears to be reversible. Therefore, it is uncertain whether grass serves as a means to feed sheep or whether sheep serve grass by preserving habitat and preventing landscape desertification (KU, 5: 367-368). A prerequisite for a clear determination of external teleological connections would be an ultimate or final end, that is, an end which is not at the same time a means to other ends.

28An obvious solution to this problem seems to be to regard man as the intended final end, so that all other ends in nature can be understood as means serving man as the end. This view has a long tradition in Western philosophy, with the Stoics probably being the most famous exponents. Kant’s position, however, is more complex. According to Kant, one must carefully distinguish between the final end of nature and the final end of creation. While a final and conclusive end is sought for the systematic unity of nature, it cannot be found in the realm of nature itself, since nature as an appearance does not admit of an unconditional or absolute end. Nevertheless, the human being is not only part of nature but also possesses an awareness of his supersensible being through the moral law. As we have seen above, the relationship to the supersensible is central to man’s relationship to the moral law and forms the basis of that which elevates man above the mere biological body and makes him a morally responsible [zurechnungsfähige] person.

  • 41 KU, 5: 435-436. On this double function of man, see Geismann 2006.

29From this standpoint of pure rational nature, man can be seen as the absolute ultimate end of creation. In this way, the human being becomes a final end in two senses: as a supersensible final end of creation when viewed from its moral nature, and as a final end of nature regarding its phenomenal nature.41

30At this point, the philosophy of history comes into play. For now, we are dealing with the final purpose of nature as appearance. This nature is indeed directed towards the supersensible ultimate end, but it differs from it in that it is the external expression of man’s moral character. This external character represents the appearance of his external freedom, which is why the development of this character is closely connected with the history of his actions. External freedom, however, is organized in legal relations, so that progress in internal moral development seems to be linked to progress in the organization of external conditions. This ultimately makes the establishment of a perfect civil state the ultimate goal of nature for humanity (or the “highest political good”, MS, 6: 355). Only in this way can the development of human culture – defined as the human ability to set all possible goals for themselves – reach its culmination and lead to the full realization of human dispositions.

31Once again, in history we are dealing with three closely interrelated goals that support each other, namely the moral perfection of the species, cultural perfection, understood as the complete development of natural but rational talents, and the establishment of a legal order. The ultimate goal of creation, however, is man, understood as a moral being, which at the same time superimposes history, understood as the historical sequence of human actions as phenomena of this freedom of man.

  • 42 For a further discussion of the historical starting points and systematic relevance of Kant’s philo (...)

32The details of this philosophy of history need not concern us here.42 Rather, and this brings us back to our initial question, it is important to see that the demand for systematic unity, and thus the systematic position of Kant’s philosophy of history within his critical systematics, follows from Kant’s understanding of the nature of reason itself and its striving for systematic unity. For the striving for systematic unity is closely related to the unconditional universality of reason, which therefore also includes all peoples of all times and origins in its unified system, in that they must unconditionally submit to its comprehensive demands. In other words, Kant’s condescending remarks about foreign cultures are not to be understood against this background as meaning that he wanted to hand over foreign and, in his opinion, less developed societies to exploitation and enslavement. This insinuation is not only unfair and philosophically short-sighted; it also completely fails to recognize the universalistic claim of reason as expressed in Kant’s approach. For Kant, the main task of philosophy is rather to actively support development in accordance with reason. In this respect, philosophy has more of a pedagogical function. It is rather a matter of drawing attention to those conditions which, as Kant repeatedly emphasizes, make the human being doubt the goodness of providence. The insight into the rational course of history and the adherence to the guide of history given by reason itself should make man realize that even seemingly contradictory and warlike actions are ultimately guided by providence and serve only one purpose, namely, the full development of all natural dispositions (but in particular the human faculty of reason). The fact that this unfortunate fate primarily affects those peoples who, in international comparison, have relatively weakly developed legal structures and technical achievements appears to Kant from this perspective as a wise providence of nature, which thus compensates for the natural advantage of living conditions, because these have so far prevented these peoples from also being forced to develop their natural dispositions (VrRM, 2: 431).

3. Is Kant’s philosophy of history racist?

33Let us now return to our first question of whether we must regard the discriminatory statements found in Kant’s philosophy of history as racist. It should be noted that the question is not whether Kant’s philosophy as a whole should be regarded as racist. At this point, I am only concerned with what we have presented above as Kant’s philosophy of history. We have seen that this part of his critical system necessarily produces discriminatory statements because of the systematic requirements that arise from Kant’s specifically universalist account of reason. Note that I am not claiming that every universalist account necessarily leads to this kind of discriminatory statements, but rather I am limiting this result to Kant’s specific methodology as set forth in his Critique of Pure Reason, which is also relevant to his discussion of the transition from nature to freedom in the Critique of the Power of Judgment.

  • 43 This is also highlighted by Lu-Adler 2023: 76. She also mentions Charles Mills’ definition: “racism (...)
  • 44 See, for example, Kleingeld 2007.

34To answer this question, we need to be clear about what we want to consider racist in the first place. As far as I can see, this question has rarely been asked in the context of evaluating the potentially racist claims in the writings of the so-called philosophical classics.43 We have seen that most commentators agree that some kind of racial hierarchy is fundamental to racism.44 Therefore, all statements that take up or reproduce the idea of a natural racial hierarchy of peoples are perceived by readers as particularly repulsive and outrageous. It follows, however, that the division of peoples into different biological races must clearly be a necessary condition for racism. At this point, we must be very careful. As already mentioned, Kant does indeed distinguish between different human races, and as we have seen above, he is even considered one of the co-founders, if not the actual founder, of the scientific theory of race. He also seems to argue for some kind of hierarchy between these races, at least if we take into account the lectures on Physical Geography. But as I said, we are only concerned with Kant’s philosophy of history at this point. Race, however, plays no special role in Kant’s philosophy of history. In fact, Kant does not mention race at any point when it comes to assessing the cultural or legal state of peoples. So when he speaks of the Indians or the inhabitants of Tahiti, he is not concerned with their racial characteristics (even if he does elsewhere regard the Indians as representatives of a single race).

35What makes these statements so repulsive and seems to bring them close to racist statements is the fact that Kant establishes hierarchies. For even if they are not racial hierarchies, they are hierarchies that rank the different cultural and legal achievements of the peoples under consideration. As we have seen from Kant’s review of Herder’s account, these societies lagged behind in their political, legal, and ultimately moral development because these savages, as Kant called them, were not forced by their natural environment to develop their own talents but had to be urged to do so by external intruders. Kant understands this lack of development as inferiority, which is why he speaks of these other cultures or societies as lacking fundamental human qualities. Furthermore, his idea that the cultural and legal development of societies is triggered by external coercion seems to speak in favor of colonialism.

  • 45 Thus, the pejorative judgments Kant makes about non-European cultures in the context of his philoso (...)
  • 46 That is, at other points, he also applies this standard to European societies, and they too are acc (...)

36But once again: in his philosophy of history, Kant does not link this alleged backwardness of non-European societies compared to the more developed political and legal systems of Europe to biological characteristics.45 On the contrary, from the perspective of the endpoint of history, which Kant, as we have seen, must presuppose for systematic reasons, the colonial aspirations of his contemporaries, even if they are regarded as such as evil, constitute a necessary means to propel these peoples from their present state towards the envisioned endpoint of history. But nowhere in his philosophy of history does he explicitly rule out the possibility that these peoples are capable of establishing a constitutional state as a precondition for the full development of their rational dispositions and ultimately their moral perfection. Rather, Kant applies the same moral standard universally.46

  • 47 These ideas are often mixed undifferentiatedly with the statements about the different races, e.g. (...)

37But given the absence of any reference to race, why do scholars still consider Kant’s philosophy of history to be racist? I see two reasons for this judgment. First, either because they confuse Kant’s philosophy of history with other aspects of his philosophy, especially his account of race, or with the problematic claims found in his lectures on Anthropology and Physical Geography. In this case, we are dealing with a Kant-philological problem, which can also be solved by a closer reading of the material.47 Second, and I think this is the more common but also problematic view among scholars who accuse Kant and his approach to history of being racist, they do not hold that racism necessarily presupposes the use of immutable biological races. Rather, it is assumed that the propagation of a view that places European cultures or political or legal systems in any way at the top of a universal historical development is in itself racist, and that therefore any form of hierarchy from which discriminatory statements about non-European societies follow is sufficient to characterize the approach as racist. Assuming that this perspective and this kind of hierarchy necessarily follows from Kant’s unique approach to history, this explains why some even see Kant’s philosophy of history as the centerpiece of his alleged racism.

  • 48 Ultimately, I think that the question of whether or not Kant’s statements should be called racist i (...)

38I would like to conclude this section with some reservations about the appropriateness of this understanding of racism as an approach to classical philosophical texts. Rather, I believe that this approach is highly problematic and that we should be very wary of adopting an understanding of racism that is based on the mere hierarchization of social or legal conditions and achievements and that considers any critique from a universalist perspective, even if expressed by a European philosopher, to be racist, as this could potentially lead to some troubling consequences. For Kant’s conception of universal reason explicitly includes all human beings and compels us to evaluate all human social forms equally in order to measure this developmental progress – a progress that embodies the true vocation of humanity. This is precisely one of the core ideas of the historical movement that we now call the Enlightenment. For Kant, it is essential to see that this process of Enlightenment is not something that individuals or societies can opt out of. Rather, the unfolding of human reason represents the true and universal providence of humanity, an ineradicable force that is impervious to passing trends and prevailing Zeitgeist-ideas. Therefore, in my view, it will hardly be possible to detach this aspect of Kantian reason, which from today’s perspective is perceived as discriminatory, from its Enlightenment foundations. But whether Kant’s moral universalism is possible without this equally universal claim of reason, which manifests itself in history as the true vocation of man, is a question that requires closer examination. The aim of my contribution was to point to the need for such an investigation and thus also to the urgency of clarifying what exactly we want to understand by racism.48

4. Conclusion

39This study was devoted to the complicated interplay between Kant’s critical system and the issues of discrimination and universalism. It was argued that the problem of reconciling Kant’s moral universalism and what are now seen as racist statements in Kant’s philosophy, which many find problematic, can be resolved by considering the different systematic status of these statements. In the second part of my paper, I showed that there is another problem with Kant’s universalist approach that has not been given the attention it deserves. For it must be seen that the same universalist approach, but this time applied to history, produces discriminatory results, insofar as pejorative judgments about non-European peoples who are technically inferior and legally deviant from the Enlightenment ideal of perfection are necessarily based on systematic assumptions related to the idea of a universal, all-encompassing reason. However, as we saw in the third section, the hierarchical assessment of cultural and legal development that leads to a form of discrimination introduced by Kant’s philosophy of history differs from the traditional type of racism in that it is not based on biological distinctions. Nevertheless, it is seen as disturbing because it introduces a cultural hierarchy that demeans non-European cultural achievements. The result of my work is therefore in a way ambivalent: On the one hand, it is becoming increasingly clear how important it is to clarify what should be considered racist. On the other hand, it should have become clear that it is not enough to rely solely on the overt, seemingly racist statements in Kant’s work, which quickly reveal their superficial character, in order to properly assess both the discriminatory nature of Kant’s statements and their systematic status within Kant’s overall philosophical account, which is, after all, deeply rooted in European Enlightenment thinking. Instead, the deeper conceptual contexts should be examined, including their relations to the presupposed concept of reason and the precise conceptual links between the various ideas and views developed during the Enlightenment. This would provide a framework for critical and reflective research in the Enlightenment tradition – research that is not satisfied with hasty judgments but rather seeks to continuously critically examine its own foundations and question the conditions of its own possibility. This is undeniably not a modest philosophical task, which, in my view, not only coincides with the tradition of the Enlightenment, but also represents the challenge of confronting this task as an inherent demand that arises from these very traditions.

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Bibliografia

Allison, H.E. 2009, Teleology and history in Kant: the critical foundations of Kant’s philosophy of history, in A. Oksenberg Rorty, J. Schmidt (eds), Kant’s Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. A Critical Guide, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 24-45.

Allais, L. 2016, Kant’s racism, “Philosophical Papers”, 45: 1-36.

Barskanmaz, C.2019, Recht und Rassismus. Das menschenrechtliche Verbot der Diskriminierung aufgrund der Rasse, Berlin, Springer.

Baum, M.2020, Person und Persönlichkeit, in D. Hüning (ed.), Manfred Baum. Kleine Schriften, Band 2. Arbeiten zur praktischen Philosophie Kants, Berlin - New York, de Gruyter: 57-70.

Bernasconi, R. 2001, Who invented the concept of race: Kant’s role in the enlightenment construction of race, in R. Bernasconi (ed.), Race, Malden, Oxford, Blackwell: 11-36.

Bernasconi, R. 2011, Kant’s third thoughts on race, in S. Elden, E. Mendieta (eds), Reading Kant’s Geography, Albany, SUNY Press: 291-318.

Boxill, B. 2017, Kantian racism and Kantian teleology, in N. Zack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, Oxford, Oxford University Press: 44-53.

Brandt, R. 1999, Kommentar zu Kants Anthropologie, Hamburg, Meiner.

D’Alessandro, G. 1999, Die Wiederkehr eines Leitworts: Die ‘Bestimmung des Menschen’ als theologische, anthropologische und geschichtsphilosophische Frage der deutschen Spätaufklärung, “Aufklärung. Die Bestimmung des Menschen”, 11, 1: 20-47.

Eberl, O. 2019, Kant on race and barbarism: Towards a more complex view on racism and anti-colonialism in Kant, “Kantian Review”, 24, 3: 385-413.

Eze, E.C. 1997, The color of reason, in E.C. Eze (ed.), Post Colonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader, Oxford, Wiley Blackwell: 103-140.

Geismann, G. 2006, ‘Höchstes politisches Gut’ – ‘Höchstes Gut in einer Welt’. Zum Verhältnis von Moralphilosophie, Geschichtsphilosophie und Religionsphilosophie bei Kant, “Tijdschrift voor Filosofie”, 68: 23-41.

Geismann, G. 2022, Why Kant was not a “racist”. Kant’s ‘race theory’ within the context of physical geography and anthropology – A philosophical approach instead of ideologically motivated ones, “Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik”, 30: 263-357.

Hahmann, A. forthcoming, Systematicity in Kant’s philosophy of history, in G. Gava, T. Sturm, A. Vesper (eds), Kant and the Systematicity of the Sciences, London, Routledge.

Hill, T.E. Jr, Boxill, B. 2001, “Kant and race,” in B. Boxill, Race and Racism, Oxford, Oxford University Press: 448-471.

Hinske, N. 1999, Eine antike Katechismusfrage: Zu einer Basisidee der deutschen Aufklärung, “Aufklärung. Die Bestimmung des Menschen”, 11, 1: 3-6.

Kleingeld, P. 2007, Kant’s second thoughts on race, “The Philosophical Quarterly”, 57: 573-592.

Kuehn, M. 2009, Reason as a species characteristic, in A. Oksenberg Rorty, J. Schmidt (eds), Kant’s ´Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. A Critical Guide, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 68-94.

Lu-Adler, H. 2023, Kant, Race, and Racism. Views from Somewhere, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Martínez Mateo, M., Stubenrauch, H. 2022, Rasse und Naturteleologie bei Kant. Zum Rassismusproblem der Vernunft, “Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie” 70, 4: 619-640.

McCarthy, T.A. 2009, Race, Empire, and the Idea of Human Development, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Mikkelsen, J.M. (ed). 2013, Kant and the Concept of Race. Late Eighteenth-Century Writings, Albany, SUNY Press.

Mills, C. 2017, Black Rights / White Wrongs. The Critique of Racial Liberalism, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Ramsauer, L. 2023, Kant’s racism as a philosophical problem, “Pacific Philosophical Quarterly”, online first.

Rattansi, A. 2007, Racism. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Rohbeck, J. 2006, Universalgeschichte und Globalisierung. Zur Aktualität von Schillers Geschichtsphilosophie, in M. Hofmann, J. Rüsen, M. Springer (eds), Schiller und die Geschichte, München, Fink: 79-92.

Schlözer, A.L. 1772, Vorstellung seiner Universal-Historie, Göttingen, Gotha, neu herausgegeben von H.W. Blanke, H. Spenner, Waltrop, Spenner, 1997.

Schönecker, D. 2021, Amerikaner seien ‚zu schwach für schwere Arbeit‘. Und Schwarze faul: Wie ich lernte, dass Kant Rassist war, “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” (16.04.2021).

Stiening, G. 2012, „[Es] gibt gibt gar keine verschiedenen Arten von Menschen.“ Systematizität und historische Semantik am Beispiel der Kant-Forster-Kontroverse über den Begriff der Menschenrasse, in R. Godel, G. Stiening (eds), Klopffechtereien – Missverständnisse – Widersprüche? Methodische und methodologische Perspektiven auf die Kant-Forster-Kontroverse, München, Fink: 19-53.

Sutter, A. 1989, Kant und die „Wilden“. Zum impliziten Rassismus in der kantischen Geschichtsphilosophie, “Prima Philosophia”, 2: 241-265.

Terkessidis, M. 1998, Psychologie des Rassismus, Opladen, VS Verlag.

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Note

1 See, for, e.g., Mikkelsen 2013: 3. What makes Kant’s philosophy racist, according to Eberl (2019: 385), is the fact that it supports the idea of a “racial hierarchy.” That Kant seems to have established some form of racial hierarchy is suggested by, e.g., TPP, 8: 175-176. See also Kleingeld 2007: 575; McCarthy 2009: 26; Bernasconi 2011: 293, 304. Boxill (2017: 46) critically notes, however, “Kleingeld never cites a passage in which Kant uses the term “racial hierarchy.” He did rank the races, claiming that the white race ranked over the nonwhite races in intelligence, inventiveness, resourcefulness, and talent, but a ranking is not necessarily a hierarchy, and being more intelligent than another does not mean that one has any authority over him.” References to Kant’s text are to the Akademie-Ausgabe (number of volume and page, preceded by the customary abbreviation of the cited work).

2 See already, Hill and Boxill 2001. They also make what I think is a very important distinction between core elements of Kant’s critical philosophy and only peripheral points that should be crucial for a philosophical assessment of these perceptibly racist statements (ibidem: 448): “In so far as the central objections are to Kant’s philosophy broadly construed, are they objections to his basic ideas (e.g. the central and more foundational claims in the three Critiques and the Groundwork) or to aspects of Kant’s philosophy that are separable parts […]?” Now, one might object that it is irrelevant whether these statements are central or secondary to Kant’s critical systematics. This may be true for a critical race theorist or post-colonial researcher who is only concerned with exposing elements of racism in historical writings. However, I think it is indeed important for a philosopher to know whether these statements are to be found in mere marginal writings whose authorship is unclear and whose sources are purely empirical and ultimately accidental, or whether they arise from or contradict Kant’s core systematic assumptions themselves. Now, of course, it is difficult to see through the systematic connections in Kant’s critical philosophy, and much is disputed in Kant scholarship, but this alone should not, of course, prevent us from undertaking this effort; on the contrary, it is, in my opinion, the only possible way to approach this question, for merely scratching the surface not only does not really help, but is all too quickly exposed as a bogus debate by philosophers familiar with Kant’s real philosophical systematics. For an alternative assessment, see Mills 2017

3 For a detailed discussion of this alleged contradiction with reference to further secondary literature, see also Lu-Adler 2023: 36-43 and Ramsauer 2023. Both Lu-Adler and Ramsauer come to a similar assessment as my study, but under different premises, and they draw different conclusions.

4 An early attempt to trace Kant’s alleged racism, taking into account also the teleological view claimed by his philosophy of history, is offered by Sutter 1989. In a concluding note, Sutter points out that his contribution was rejected without much discussion by the reviewers of Kant-Studien because, for example, with regard to Kant’s writing On Eternal Peace, it must be considered too obvious that Kant was not a racist.

5 See, for example, PG, 9: 316; Refl 1520, 15: 878. Kant uses the term ‘natural predispositions’ or ‘germs’ (Keime) as the cause for the development of these ‘races’ (VvRM, 2: 434). On Kant’s conception of germs, see Stiening 2012, 32-33. According to Stark (2011), the Physical Geography passage (PG, 9: 316) is from 1775 and was changed by Rink to include the students’ notes. Moreover, “perfection” can only mean best adapted to climatic conditions. This also demonstrates the importance of paying attention to philological details when considering the lectures on Physical Geography and Anthropology.

6 Kant distinguishes four races, “1) the race of the whites, 2) the Negro race, 3) the Hunnish (Mongolian or Kalmuckian) race, 4) the Hindu or Hindustani race” (VvRM, 2: 432). As Lu-Adler (2023, 81) points out, one should be careful not to lump the black and the red races together.

7 VvRM, 2: 438; ÜGTP, 8: 174; VvRM, 2: 438.

8 GSE, 2: 255; see also V-Anth/Collins, 25: 233; V-PG/Hesse, 26/2: 116; 290. However, Kant also claims: “the negroes [are] very teachable and cultivable” (die Neger [sind] sehr gelehrig und cultiwirbar, V-PG/Dönhoff, 26/2: 901 from 1782: Of course, one could assume that Kant changed his views between 1770 and 1782 and then again in 1788. But perhaps the contradictory statements are also an indication that Kant did not particularly care about it, but he referred to one or the other depending on the underlying material; in the end, as we will see in the following, this is also a philosophically systematic irrelevant fact and merely empirically contingent).

9 GSE, 2: 253. Kant there refers to Hume’s description of the national character.

10 V-Anth/Mensch, 25: 1187; Refl 15: 878. Considered by Kant to be incapable of all culture are the Firelanders (ÜGTP, 08.175 f.).

11 Refl 1520, 15: 877.

12 VvRM, 02: 438; V-PG/Dönhoff, 26/2.891: 36-37; BBM, 08: 103.

13 See Mills 2017: 91.

14 On the increasing international interest in this topic, see Lu-Adler 2023, 1-2.

15 See Mills 2017: 91. See also Eze 1997, who does not use the term “sub-person” but maintains that Kant attributes different forms of human dignity to different groups of people.

16 However, a closer look reveals that although Kant does not grant women the same rights, he does grant them the same moral status as persons. See Ramsauer 2023: 14, who points to MS, 6: 314-315.

17 In current research, the alternative to choose from is formulated as follows: “either Kant was an inconsistent egalitarian or he was a consistent inegalitarian” (Ramsauer 2023: 2).

18 This view is famously argued by Kleingeld 2007. Variants of this thesis are represented by Allais (2016) and Eberl (2019), with reference to older secondary literature.

19 Or better, why does Kant in his later works (see, for example, Anthropology from 1798) refer to Christoph Girtanner’s Concerning the Kantian Principle in Natural History (1796), in which Girtanner adopted Kant’s earlier ideas on race. For a more detailed refutation of Kleingeld’s thesis, see Boxill 2017: 46-47.

20 Mills is aware of this exegetical problem, of course, but this does not, in his view, argue against the claim that Kant must have assumed something like these “sub-persons” in order to hold on to his universal moral theory.

21 On the systematic status and nature of Kant’s Anthroplogy, see, for example, the introduction to Brandt’s commentary (1999: 7): “Das Werk provoziert keine Stellungnahme; es ist ein Sachbuch, das informieren will, es bringt keine Theorie, die sich militant gegen andere Theorien oder gar die Metaphysik wendet […] sie verzichtet sogar konsequent, wenn unsere Überlieferung nicht trügt, auf die Eingliederung in die Philosophie – von seiner pragmatischen Anthropologie scheint Kant nicht als einer philosophischen Disziplin gesprochen zu haben. Die pragmatische Anthropologie ist eine Enzyklopädie der Kantischen Philosophie auf empirischer Ebene; sie ist nicht in das (wechselnd konzipierte) System der Transzendentalphilosophie oder kritischen Philosophie integriert, sondern stellt sich neben die eigentliche Philosophie […].” See also Kant’s own assessment of the systematic significance of his two lectures on Anthropology and Physical Geography, which he sets out in a letter to Marcus Herz: “My aim is to disclose by it the sources of all […] practical things. So I am looking more for phenomena and their laws than for the first reasons of the possibility of modification of human nature in general. […] I am constantly observing, even in common life, in such a way that my audience, from the first beginning to the end, never has a dry but […] always an entertaining occupation. In the meantime, I am working on making this, in my eyes, very pleasant observational teaching a preliminary exercise in the skill of prudence and even wisdom for the academic youth, which, along with physical geography, is distinguished from all other instruction and can be called the knowledge of the world.” (Br, 10: 145f., taken from Geismann 2022, my translation) Given the rather limited impact of the two lectures and also the rather provincial status of Königsberg University, I am rather disinclined to agree with Lu-Adler’s (2023: 94, 98-99) assessment that ascribes to these lectures a fundamental status for the conceptualization and formation of philosophical discourse in the succession of Kant.

22 Kant often, but not exclusively, used travel reports, which he was also highly skeptical of, which is why he warned against them. He nevertheless used them frequently. See McCarthy 2009: 49 and Eberl 2019: 401. For an example of Kant’s critical assessment, see RezHerder, 8: 62.

23 One exception is Eberl (2019: 391) who points out: “Kant presented these lectures [Physical Geography; A. H.] annually, from 1757 until the end of his teaching career in 1796. The published version was by no means written by Kant […]) and contains statements from all periods of the development of this theory: climate theory, the skin and its colour, as well as elements that became less important over time and on which Kant changed his position. As an example, consider the passage on the development of skin colour. On one and the same page, it claims that skin colour results from exposure to heat, and that it results from nutrition, exposure to air and from education (PG, 9: 314). These claims directly contradict one another, and Kant ultimately maintained only the former. The drastic formulations in his lectures are often read as a confirmation of Kant’s racism but are indeed only conventional judgments from travel reports from a time when Kant accepted their claims largely uncritically.”

24 Lu-Adler 2023 and Ramsauer 2023 argue similarly, interpreting the relationship between the moral law and biological beings endowed with individual physical properties not in terms of the distinction between noumenal and phenomenal beings, but in categories of the abstract and the concrete. The moral law thus abstracts from all individual properties and considers only the human being as a generic being. In my view, the difference between the human being as a person and as a generic being is a qualitative and not a quantitative one. Both interpretations, however, come to the same conclusion when one considers the supposed contradiction between moral universalism and pejorative judgments about individuals of different biological races. Only, from Ramsauer’s point of view, this result turns out to be the weak point of Kant’s theory, insofar as, renewing Hegel’s reproach, it is too formalistic and thus in need of supplementation.

25 See, for example, Kant’s definition of Person: RL, 6: 239: “In the doctrine of duties man can and should be represented in terms of the property of his capacity for freedom, which is wholly supersensible, and so too merely in terms of his humanity, his personality independent of physical attributes (homo noumenon), as distinguished from the same subject represented as affected by physical attributes, man (homo phaenomenon).” See also MS, 6: 223: “A person is a subject whose actions can be imputed to him. Moral personality is therefore nothing other than the freedom of a rational being under moral laws (whereas psychological personality is merely the capacity for being conscious of one’s identity in different conditions of one’s existence).”; TL, 6: 435; 392; RL 6: 237; GMS, 4: 408; 410; 412 etc. This point is clearly made by Geismann 2022, who also cites the relevant passages in Kant. This is also why Stiening can claim (2012: 36): “Kants Rassebegriff ist gegenüber Fragen der praktischen Vernunft indifferent.”

26 See, for example, TP, 8: 286. For the same reason, Kant also refers to the moral competence of children MS, 6: 480-481. For a comprehensive discussion of how Kant conceives of person and personhood, see Baum 2020.

27 The fact that someone is a moral person is thus revealed not by the degree of his external civilization or education, but by his awareness of the moral law as the only fact of reason itself. It is precisely through this fact that man is elevated above all non-rational creatures and thus made an inhabitant of the noumenal realm of practical reason. On this basis, he must be regarded as a person, and it makes no difference in this respect whether he is prevented from exercising or fully developing his capacity for reason by external circumstances or by natural impairments (KpV, 5: 5-7, 31, 66).

28 Sutter 1989 has already pointed out the close relationship between Kant’s philosophy of history and his alleged racism. Similarly, Hill and Boxill 2001 discuss the special role of Kant’s philosophy of history. However, although they suggest that “the problem goes deeper than suggested so far” (p. 460), they ultimately conclude that even these findings cannot touch upon the systematic core of Kant’s critical philosophy. Another notable exception is Boxill (2017), who claims that Kant’s thoughts on race follow his account of history and the teleological view set forth there. Although there are clearly similarities between the teleological theory at work in Kant’s theory of race and his philosophy of history, I am not sure that Kant’s account of race is essentially related to his conception of human history (for an alternative assessment, see Mateo, Stubenrauch 2022). It has been pointed out that Kant wanted to establish a natural history that is not merely a description of nature. The common theme of natural history and human history, however, is the presupposed systematic unity that reason demands. From this unity, however, immediately follows the teleological approach, as we will see more clearly below.

29 There is controversy in the secondary literature as to how exactly cultural, legal, and moral progress relate to each other in Kant’s writings on history. For a comprehensive discussion of this topic, see Hahmann, Systematicity in Kant’s Philosophy of History (forthcoming).

30 The origin of Kant’s philosophy of history goes back to the lectures on Anthropology from the mid-1770s. Although Kant discusses questions of the philosophy of history for the first time in connection with the character of the human species, the philosophy of history ultimately occupies a completely different place in Kant’s overall system, as it deals with the so-called transition from nature to freedom.

31 In Guyer’s and Matthews’ translation, it says: “Or the mosquitoes and other stinging insects that make the wilds of America so trying for the savages are so many goads to spur these primitive people to drain the swamps and let light into the thick, airless forests and thereby as well as by the cultivation of the soil to make their abode more salubrious.” (KU, 5: 379) “Angehende” is not properly translated as simply primitive, but the German also suggests that it is not yet human, but something else that has yet to become fully human. See also KU, 5: 378.

32 See also GMS, 4: 422-423; IaG, 8: 21; KU, 5: 378-379; RGV, 6: 32-33.

33 Of particular importance is Spalding’s short essay Über die Bestimmung des Menschen. On the history of the text and its influence on philosophical debate in the second half of the 18th century in Germany, see Hinske 1999: 3-6; D’Alessandro 1999; and Kuehn 2009.

34 On the systematic relevance of this claim, see Kuehn 2009: 83.

35 Cf. also the programmatic remarks of the Göttingen historian August Ludwig Schlözer: Vorstellung seiner Universal-Historie, Göttingen, Gotha 1772. Schlözer emphasizes in this text that the systematic and thus scientific account requires the linking of events to a higher end or purpose. The end thus provides the criterion for the arrangement of the events (see § 8, p. 14).

36 A famous example of a non-discriminatory account of history in eighteenth-century Enlightenment Germany comes from Herder.

37 See Rohbeck 2006: 90: “Zu dieser Bewertung bedarf es eines allgemeinen Maßstabes, anhand dessen die einzelnen Phänomene beurteilt werden können. In diesem Sinn repräsentiert die Fortschrittsidee in erster Linie einen Bewertungsmaßstab. Das behauptete Geschichts-Telos stellt die Norm dar, an der vergangene und künftige Ereignisse gemessen werden.”

38 Refl 1440, 15: 629; Refl 1443, AA 15: 630. See also Schlözer, Universalgeschichte, § 1, p. 3; §7, p. 13.

39 As mentioned above, Kant believes that technical-political development conditions moral development.

40 As Allison (2009: 34-36) notes, Kant does not justify the alleged necessity of this transition from internal to external expediency.

41 KU, 5: 435-436. On this double function of man, see Geismann 2006.

42 For a further discussion of the historical starting points and systematic relevance of Kant’s philosophy of history, see Hahmann, Systematicity in Kant’s Philosophy of History (forthcoming).

43 This is also highlighted by Lu-Adler 2023: 76. She also mentions Charles Mills’ definition: “racism is minimally the conjunction of three beliefs: (1) that the human race is subdivided into discrete “races”; (2) that these races are hierarchically arranged; and (3) that this hierarchy is grounded in particular racially differentiated traits and tendencies. . . . the “superior” race is seen as more intelligent and generally of better moral character than the “inferior” race.” Accordingly, what renders a hierarchy racist is the additional assertion that subordinate races somehow fail to meet a certain threshold, deemed a minimal requirement for deserving equal treatment. In this view, only Whites are deemed to surpass this threshold, thereby establishing racism as its own normative system. This system elevates whiteness as a prerequisite for full personhood while generally confining nonwhites to a “sub-person” status. However, as discussed earlier, Kant’s concept of moral character is unrelated to cultural hierarchies. Consequently, this conception of racism must fail to be applicable to Kant and hence there is no foundation to call Kant’s approach racist on the basis of this criterion of assessment.

44 See, for example, Kleingeld 2007.

45 Thus, the pejorative judgments Kant makes about non-European cultures in the context of his philosophy of history are of a different kind than those in his lectures on Anthropology or Physical Geography, and even different from those in his writings on race. Thus, Geismann 2022 argues that these statements cannot be racist statements because Kant’s concept of race does not play a role. Schönecker 2021 takes a similar view in his assessment of Kant’s discriminatory statements. Schönecker acknowledges the reprehensible character of Kant’s remarks but refrains from calling them explicitly racist. Instead, he sees them as a form of cultural chauvinism and emphasizes that the term “racism” is inappropriate without a more nuanced distinction. Whether judgments about cultural performance, etc., are racist judgments is controversially disputed in research. Some authors want to identify a paradigm shift (see, e.g., Terkessidis 1998: 99), according to which the problem of racism is increasingly shifting to cultural factors. Rattansi (2007, 95-99) distinguishes this “new racism” at length from earlier forms. On the relationship between classical and culturalist forms of racism, see Barskanmaz 2019: 58. See also Eberl 2019: 387: “A common view today identifies not the hierarchy of races, but a dichotomous form of distinction as the main feature of racism: ‘The category of race is only one reference point of racism, which has appeared in different historical shapes and has drawn upon several dichotomies, constructing monsters, barbarians, inferiors, the impure, the cursed, savages and eventually coloureds’ […]. The issue, then, would be cultural degradation and general stereotypes.”

46 That is, at other points, he also applies this standard to European societies, and they too are accused of being far from the ideal legal state, even though they have made more progress toward it than other peoples of the world.

47 These ideas are often mixed undifferentiatedly with the statements about the different races, e.g. in Eze 1995: 216: “Kant’s theoretical anthropological edifice […] had uncritically assumed that the particularity of European existence is the empirical as well as ideal model of humanity, of universal humanity, so that others are more or less human or civilized […] as they approximate this European ideal.” We have seen above that this idea necessarily follows from the basic systematic assumptions of the critical system and must be counted as part of the core of Kant’s critical philosophy.

48 Ultimately, I think that the question of whether or not Kant’s statements should be called racist is controversial among scholars and can be interpreted in different ways. Moreover, some scholars may still argue that Kant’s remarks contribute to racist thinking, even if they are not consistent with modern notions of racism. This is argued, for example, by Lu-Adler (2023: 95), who focuses on Kant’s contribution to the formation of racist ideology.

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Andree Hahmann, «Universalism and racism in Kant’s critical philosophy»Rivista di estetica, 87 | 2024, 6-27.

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Andree Hahmann, «Universalism and racism in Kant’s critical philosophy»Rivista di estetica [Online], 87 | 2024, online dal 01 mars 2025, consultato il 07 juillet 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/estetica/17867; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/13tuk

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