- 1 See e.g. Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen (GSE) (2: 229); and Anthropologie (...)
1In recent years, much has been written and discussed about Kant’s works that are more or less openly devoted to the theme of racial distinction, as well as attempts to understand and contextualize the role of certain racist expressions in his writings on anthropology.1 Scholars have been faced with a seemingly irreconcilable contradiction: How can the philosopher of Menschheit and Würde dedicate no fewer than three works to racial difference, or even express himself in openly racist and discriminatory terms?
- 2 For a non-exhaustive but nevertheless pointed picture of that, see Ferrini 2022: 6-7.
- 3 We will deal with this in more detail in the first paragraph.
2Discussion of racism in Kant intensified after the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and other parts of the world.2 The question continues to be raised among scholars. Should Kant’s philosophy, despite its defense of cosmopolitanism, be considered fundamentally discriminatory and racist? Or should one rather distinguish between the philosopher’s private and “less enlightened” statements and the main theses of his transcendental idealism, as Robert Louden (2000) has suggested? To answer these questions exhaustively in a single article is an immensely complex, if not impossible, task. Therefore, we will only attempt to measure the “resilience” of a thesis that has become widely accepted in recent years, especially in the Anglophone literature. It is the thesis that Kant provides a scientific foundation for racism. This is due to the use of the teleological principle. This thesis is based on the hardly controversial fact that Kant, especially in texts such as Von den verschiedenen Racen der Menschen (1775), Bestimmung des Begriffs einer Menschenrace (1785), and Über den Gebrauch teleologischer Principien in der Philosophie (1788), used this principle to formulate his theory of race.3 However, from our point of view, the idea that the teleological principle provided Kant with the key to a true “science of races” seems to be at least highly questionable.
- 4 See: Arendt 1992; Lyotard 1988.
3After the Second World War, the Critique of Judgment was interpreted by many European philosophers as a political tool because of its reflective and non-determinative value of teleology.4 For Lyotard for example teleology as a reflective principle could build Übergänge between not similar languages especially to express and understand the pain of the victims of Auschwitz. By contrast, in recent years, authors such as Robert Bernasconi have claimed that Kant founded a “science of races” by leveraging the teleological principle. But is Bernasconi’s thesis correct from a theoretical point of view? We think that such interpretations underestimate the reflective value that the teleological principle has in the Kantian system.
4For these reasons, we wish to dwell on the epistemological status of teleology as the basis of the hierarchy of races. It seems to us that, in the background of such a hypothesis, there is an unclear and insufficient problematization of the purely reflective and non-determinative value associated with this principle. This is not to diminish the seriousness of Kant’s assertions about the existence of a certain hierarchical order of races and the close link between physiognomic and behavioral traits that would influence one’s capacity to cultivate oneself. Rather, this study aims to problematize the following questions: Does the teleological principle have a foundational value, in the scientific sense, concerning Kant’s theses on racial difference? Can this principle provide the basis for a strictly scientific consideration of racism?
5In this paper, we will first examine the views of those authors who have argued for the teleological principle as the basis for scientific racism in Kant. We will then analyze Kant’s theses on racial distinctions in detail to show how the teleological principle was applied. Our goal is to show how the epistemic merit of this principle can be discovered in race-related writings through the use of reflective and non-determinative reasoning. Finally, in the last part of the essay we aim to strike a political and ethical balance, where teleology seems to play a genuinely discriminatory role.
6There are two tendencies among scholars who have dealt with racism in Kant’s works: the first concerns the definition of his critical philosophy as a racist philosophy tout court; the second examines the role of Kant’s racism in later periods, as well as his refusal to emancipate himself from the broader cultural context of the time.
7A key scholar in the debate on Kant’s scientific racism is the aforementioned Bernasconi. He affirms that Kant can rightly be considered the father of a “scientific” concept of race based on the theses in the Critique of Judgment because of the teleological principle (see Bernasconi 2002: 145-166; 146-147). According to Bernasconi, Kant’s contribution to racism is not limited to this: his considerations on race permeate the whole system of his critical philosophy, becoming an integral part of the discussion of teleology in the Critique of Judgment. It seems, however, that Bernasconi never provides an in-depth discussion of his thesis. Instead, he chooses to accept it as a fact on which Kant’s racist statements on the political and practical levels are based (2002: 141-142).
- 5 This will be the subject of the next section. One of our aims is precisely to show how in the texts (...)
8More detailed is, in our opinion, Sally H. Gray’s thesis. In Kant’s Race Theory, Forster’s Counter, and the Metaphysics of Color, she describes more precisely the link between scientific racism and the theoretical positions expressed by Kant in the third Critique regarding teleological judgment. For Gray, Kant’s attempt in his early texts on race plays a central role in the third Critique. According to Gray, in The Philosophical Use of the Teleological Principle, Kant assumed the unfoundedness of Forster’s polygenic theory to demonstrate the derivation of the differences found among human beings from a single genus. At the core of this idea is the belief that nature has its purpose, but Kant does not fully set out the importance of this belief in this text, unlike in the third Critique.5 For Gray, Kant’s categories in this first work on race are not merely reflective but have a determinative value. With these essays, Kant attempts to establish a “natural system for the understanding” (Gray 2012: 400) consisting of necessary laws, such as Buffon’s. These laws reflect genuine Natureinteilungen rather than simply Schuleinteilungen and are not modifiable. This means that Kant attempts to classify plants and animals using categories that reflect the internal structure of nature (Gray 2012: 400). The importance of the Natureinteilungen is even more evident in the essay On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy. Gray explains that Kant here criticizes Forster’s attempt to prove the polygenetic thesis through an empirical method, since the latter is “incapable of reaching the basic assumptions for natural science” (Gray 2012: 400). By contrast, Kant’s method makes it possible to identify permanent categories which do not change with the acquisition of new empirical data, and which therefore demonstrate the real existence of a rational order in nature (Gray 2012: 400).
9On the basis of these assumptions, Gray concludes that Kant later wrote the Critique of Judgment to defend race theory against Forster’s attacks, bringing it under the general framework of critical philosophy (2012: 407). Gray highlights how the racial division that Kant mentions in the Critique of Judgment corresponds to “unausbleibliche Eigenschaften,” that is, features that are not based solely on empirical evidence. Rather, they are divisions that “come about through the employment of practical propositions of natural science. These propositions are caused by the things in themselves and are made by the scientist according to the general laws of nature. In other words, here [Kant] is creating a scientific theory capable of countering Forster’s empiricism” (Gray 2012: 408). According to Gray, these are the reasons why Kant’s teleology of nature is a real “substantiation of the race theory, which is a goal of the work as a whole” (Gray 2012: 410).
- 6 M. Mateo Martínez and H. Stubenrauch in this regard write: “Ebenso wie Kant von ‘klimatischen Bedin (...)
10A few years ago, Marina Martínez Mateo and Heiko Stubenrauch showed how the concept of race, for Kant, is not merely the result of private interest but has a philosophical function: the concept of race has according to the two authors a fundamental function for the teleological representation of nature (Martínez Mateo, Stubenrauch 2022: 625). Unlike Gray and Bernasconi, Martínez Mateo and Stubenrauch strongly problematize the hypothetical character of reflective judgments, but at the same time, they affirm that cognition, and indeed the transition from the theoretical to the practical level, is unattainable without them (2022: 628). Furthermore, they note that Kant does not overtly discuss race in the third Critique; rather, they argue that his theory of race may have been legitimized in this text through the teleological understanding of nature (2022: 631). They also observe how Kant outlines three different levels of “purposes (Zwecken)” within the Critique of Judgment: 1) self-preservation, 2) culture; and 3) the realization of moral freedom. External influences, such as the climate, would then play a crucial role in the realization of what Kant calls “Kultievierung,” which also means that only some human beings can concretely realize it.6 According to Mateo Martínez and Stubenrauch, this is why the Critique of Judgment ends up supporting Kant’s race theory.
- 7 See Kleingeld 2007; and Louden 2000: 102.
- 8 According to Marcus Willaschek, one can defend Kant’s universalism only if one “clearly articulates (...)
- 9 According to Nina Jablonski, slavery found its theoretical legitimization precisely in Kant’s writi (...)
11Lu-Adler has recently undertaken a thorough study of the topic of racism in Kant, which also proves to be a valuable guide on how to approach Kant’s theses from a didactic point of view. She criticizes authors such as Kleingeld and Louden7, for whom racist expressions in Kant’s works contradict the universalism8 of the categorical imperative and should be put down to personal prejudice. She argues, on the contrary, that racism is such an integral part of Kant’s philosophy that it calls into question his cosmopolitan vision. Referring to the race theory, Lu-Adler claims that “Kant’s privileging of the White race and his conviction that racial differences are permanently created unresolved tensions for his cosmopolitanism, particularly given his opposition to race mixing” (Lu-Adler 2023: 161). According to Lu-Adler, teleology has not only a heuristic value in Kant’s theory of race: rather, through teleology, Kant would have been interested in understanding the laws that govern nature, i.e. not only the laws that govern plants or metals, but also those that are responsible for the differences between human beings (2023: 141). In other words, Kant would presuppose “a certain order within nature itself, which allows them to sort things into a system of genera and species and to bring the diverse laws for various species under a more general law for the shared genus” (2023: 141). The teleological principle is what allows us to recognize this order. Lu-Adler notes that, in Kant’s view, human reason cannot know the laws that govern nature in a strict sense, but only in a broader sense. For this reason, she speaks of the indirect objectivity of the teleological principle and maintains the “gnoseological uncertainty” of this principle in her commentary on KrV A665-66/ B693-94 (2023: 147). Last but not least, Lu-Adler writes that it is unclear whether Kant was fully aware of the racial consequences of his theories. She argues that in On the Use of the Teleological Principle in Philosophy (1788), Kant was simply responding to Forster’s charges against his monogenetic position. She emphasizes that Kant avoids morally charged issues altogether (2023: 159), such as the enslavement of African peoples.9
12To sum up, two tendencies can be observed in the critical literature: first, the Critique of Judgment is used to reinforce, if not to justify, Kant’s racist theses; second, there is no full distinction between the purely heuristic and the full cognitive layers, but this is necessary to describe the cognitive properties of teleological judgment. This is not to diminish the racist character or significance of Kant’s remarks but rather to highlight their importance in his understanding of humans’ capacities to develop moral feelings.
13Let us now take a closer look at Kant’s thesis on the distinction of races. We will consider the reflective scope that he associates with it in the third Critique, particularly in the section devoted to the analytic of teleological judgment. We want to analyze an element that has often been left in the background because it has been considered of little relevance on a strictly philosophical level, namely how Kant presents the status of his claims in his works devoted to the distinction of races.
14In Bestimmung des Begriffs einer Menschenrace, referring to the paper Von den verschiedenen Racen der Menschen (1775), Kant argues that this was only an “accessory” work. This remark is entirely consistent with the exergue of the 1775 text. Here, Kant presents his essay as merely “a useful entertainment than a laborious business” (2: 429). It is, he adds, a study that is indeed addressed to the intellect, but more “like a game […] than a deep inquiry” (2: 429). The case is quite different from the 1785 text. Indeed, the aim of this essay seems to have a much greater philosophical significance for Kant. He emphasizes that the main task here is to define more precisely the “concept” of the human race. That is, to make clearer and more distinct the notion introduced in the 1775 text. So, let us see how Kant defines this concept. He writes that the notion of race denotes “the classificatory difference of the animals of the same phylum in so far as this difference is unfailingly hereditary” (8: 100). He also adds that this concept
contains first the concept of a common phylum, second necessarily hereditary characters of the classificatory difference among the latter’s descendants. Through the latter, reliable grounds of distinction are established according to which we can divide the species into classes, which then, because of the first point, namely the unity of the phylum, may only be called races and by no means kinds (8: 99).
- 10 Marcus Willaschek advances a “hypothetical” reading of the regulative use of ideas, according to wh (...)
15Kant introduces the concept of race here as a key element in the philosophical investigation of the origin of the different varieties found in the human species. More specifically, this concept is introduced to support a monogenetic view on the origin of the differences in the human species. This is a view that, like Forster’s polygenic theory, represents a possible order of explanation if one intends to write not a mere “description of nature (Naturbeschreibung)” but a “history of nature (Naturgeschichte)” (8: 161). It is no coincidence that in the 1788 essay entitled Über den Gebrauch teleologischer Principien in der Philosophie Kant once again calls into question this distinction. Here he tries to emphasize that we are dealing with a model of explanation of the origin of the differences in the human species which is opposed to the polygenetic model. Kant here more or less explicitly suggests that both models can only offer “fragments” or at best mere “hypotheses.” More precisely, these are two very general assumptions and it is not known whether they are true or false. In this sense, both would belong among those representations which, for Willaschek,10 have a purely regulative value for Kant. These two theories – the monogenetic and the polygenetic – are indeed equally plausible hypotheses if one wishes to draw up a “history of nature.” For this purpose, as Kant himself remarks, “One may assume whatever system one wants” (8: 105) because what is at stake is not the speculative reach of the theory. The monogenetic theory, then, is just Kant’s way of responding to Forster’s “play with hypotheses with one that is at least equally plausible” (8: 105).
16If it is true that only within the Critique of Judgment does Kant give us a more coherent and complete treatment of the teleological principle, tracing its epistemic justification in the purely “reflective” and non-determinative nature of judgment, it seems to us that the hypothetical use that is made of this principle in the writings dedicated to the concept of human race already goes some way in this direction. A more than plausible hypothesis is that precisely the lack of a clear definition of the reflective nature of teleological judgment in these years led Kant’s contemporaries, including Forster himself, to miss the nature of Kant’s claims on racial differences in the human species. But let us explore the issue in more detail.
17As already noted, Kant claims to have been completely misunderstood regarding his views on the concept and origin of the human race (8: 160-161). He argues that the difficulty:
is grounded in the warrant, which has not yet been sufficiently elucidated, of being allowed to use the teleological principle where sources of theoretical cognition are not sufficient. Yet this use has to be restricted to the extent that the right of precedence of the theoretical-speculative investigation to first try out its entire faculty in the matter is secured, and furthermore that subsequently this freedom shall remain available to it at all times (8: 160).
18The origin of the misunderstanding is seen to reside in the readers, especially Forster: they mistook the reasons that led Kant to appeal to this principle and, consequently, the type of use (Gebrauch) that they made of the principle in those years. The mistake was, first of all, not to realize that the recourse to the teleological principle responds to a real need of human reason. It is a need that reason properly “feels” when it realizes its inability to fully explain the origin of human diversity by following the purely theoretical-speculative path. The need to use the teleological principle, Kant emphasizes, arises only “where theory abandons us” (8: 157). However, the use of this principle in the consideration of nature is not able to remedy the inadequacies that human reason has in its theoretical-speculative use, because:
In all examinations of nature reason rightly calls first for theory and only later for the determination of ends. No teleology or practical purposiveness can compensate for the lack of the former. We always remain ignorant with respect to the efficient causes, no matter how evident we can make the suitability of our presupposition with final causes […]. This complaint seems to be most founded where (as in the case of metaphysics) practical laws even have to precede in order to first indicate the end for the sake of which I venture to determine the concept of a cause – which concept thus seems not at all to concern the nature of the object but seems only to be an occupation with our own goals and needs (8: 160).
19If one considers the reasons that Kant invokes to justify his recourse to a teleological explanation in the consideration of nature, it becomes quite evident that is the use of the teleological principle that Kant made in his writings on the concept of race. It is a true “guiding principle,” (8: 161) namely a principle capable of orienting the naturalist’s observations and research toward a history of nature in a monogenetic key. According to the latter, the idea that nature proceeds according to a teleological order, and not solely and exclusively following the mechanical laws of cause and effect, would thus have a regulative function (Quarfood 2006). This implies that, for Kant, the use of the teleological principle, already in the writings devoted to the racial question, does not have the function of explaining how things are in nature. Rather, Kant uses this principle to formulate a general hypothesis, as plausible as Forster’s polygenetic theory, but “more appropriate to the philosophical mode of explanation” (8: 169) than the latter, regarding the unknown origin of the different characters found in the human species. In other words, for Kant, we need the teleological principle to define a general, i.e. philosophical, order of explanation under which the multiplicity of empirically detectable human characters can be brought. To look at the different characters “as if” they were the expression of the development of primitive final dispositions implanted in a single strain is, for Kant, more in keeping with the philosophical way of explaining things. And it is so not because this way is capable of penetrating the very essence of nature itself by reproducing its real structure, but rather because such a way of “methodically conducted experience” (8: 161) can reflect the essence of human reason itself or, better, how it functions. The use of the teleological principle for the consideration of nature allows us, in this particular case, to bring the (empirically observable) multiplicity of those characters that are necessarily hereditary under the same genus. In other words, this operation reproduces the search for “unconditional unity” that, for Kant, guides human reason in every inquiry.
20In light of all this, we submit the following: Already in these years, the idea that nature follows a finalistic and not merely mechanical order in its productions finds its epistemic justification precisely in the expressly reflective and by no means determinative character of judgment. In turn, the “concept” of race to which Kant refers here is also affected by the reflective use of the teleological principle for the realization of a history of nature in a monogenetic key. Kant notes that the concept of race is not present in any system of description of nature, and it is therefore to be assumed that “the thing itself” i.e., what such a concept would denote, “is nowhere in nature either” (8: 163). However, the concept of race turns out to be necessary for the history of nature, since it allows us “to view their [i.e. humans’] inherited difference as originally unified in their phylum in mere predispositions and as developed and separated only gradually in procreation” (8: 165). Kant defends this concept because it is an integral part of that “mode of explanation” (8: 168) that is preferable from a philosophical point of view, insofar as it proves to be more capable than others of reflecting the natural needs of human reason.
21According to these considerations, it is unlikely that the concept of race introduced by Kant in these years could have had any “constitutive” function. Equally unlikely, therefore, is the possibility that it could have been framed in the context of a scientific consideration of the varieties of the human species. And this, in our opinion, by subtly guiding the characterization of this concept, was already a critical use of the teleological principle.
22In the Critique of Judgment, Kant explains that “we have no basis at all in the general idea of nature as the sum of the objects of the senses” (5: 359) to affirm that things of nature are teleologically rather than mechanically related. Kant further clarifies that a teleological explanation of nature and any determinative judgment on it can neither be given a priori nor be derived from experience. To assert that nature pursues “ends” is to superimpose the supersensible layer on the sensible one, because nature follows mechanical laws, not those of freedom (5: 359-360). Later, Kant argues that a principle can be considered valid for cognition if it does not just “persuade (überreden)” but also “convince[s] (überzeugen)” (5: 462-463). He also observes that all reflective judgments, in turn, “can never produce conviction” (5: 364) insofar as they do not provide us with a valid basis for cognition. In other words, by resorting to the teleological principle, one is not able to make any objectively valid judgment, because such a principle attempts to explain nature, as well as its necessity, from a supersensible element (5: 364).
23In light of the above, it is not clear what Lu-Adler means when speaking of the regulative use of teleological judgment in the Critique of Pure Reason, she states that this principle “not only licenses but also bids the investigator to seek particular order” (Lu-Adler 2023: 143). This is because such a principle, although it does not in itself have a determinative value as far as our cognition of nature is concerned, nevertheless has a key function and a positive role in organizing our empirical cognition (see Gava 2022). However, this does not change the fact that, for Kant, any judgment about nature that is based on the teleological principle is at least highly problematic. This is very clearly stated in the third Critique (5: 365). Here, Kant also emphasizes once again how such judgments do indeed attempt to “explain” something – in this case, the objects of experience – by appealing to a supersensible principle. This point becomes even clearer when Kant states that, if we introduce God “to make purposiveness in nature explicable […], then there is nothing of substance in either of the sciences” - the science of nature and teleology – “and a deceptive fallacy casts each into uncertainty by letting them cross each other’s borders” (5: 381). Moreover, in the “Doctrine of Method,” Kant explicitly states that teleology is not part of the science of nature; it does not belong to any doctrine, but only to the critique (5: 417). By this, it has only “a negative influence on the procedure in theoretical natural science, and also on the relation that this can have in metaphysics to teleology” (5: 417; see Van den Berg 2018).
24As noted above, the claim that the teleological judgment cannot provide a basis for genuine cognition of human races or a legitimate “racial science” is not meant to deny that certain Kantian statements sound downright racist. Indeed, it seems that Kant wants to crystallize a necessary connection between race and character, and yet he is also aware of the weak value of this connection. We know that Kant does not hesitate to assert that black people stink and are constitutively lazier than white people (2: 438). These are claims for which Kant even offers pseudo-scientific explanations – for example, in the case of black people’s alleged bad smell, he invokes something like a causal link between the warm, humid climate and the presence of iron particles in their blood. But there is more. For Kant, certain climatic conditions, combined with biological elements, could determine the development of more or less “advanced” cultural forms. And even in this case, as we know, Kant’s preference is for white people, especially if they are European (see e.g. 2: 253).
25In light of what we have shown here, however, it seems quite clear that Kant’s theoretical analysis of race has only a hypothetical status and therefore cannot provide the basis for a real “science of races,” as advocated by authors such as Bernasconi. Nevertheless, this does not make Kant’s statements any less racist. In the following section, we will argue that Kant’s use of teleology as a principle to distinguish between human beings and their capacity to develop moral feelings is still racist, but not in a scientific way.
- 11 See Marcel Quarfood‘s definition of Zweckmäßigkeit in Kant‘s Leixikon (2015). Quarford points out t (...)
26For Kant, to allow a scientific basis for the distinction between races would be to recognize the knowledge of biology as having a necessary and universal value, like that of mathematics and physics. But we know that, according to him, biology cannot have the same degree of scientificity, precisely because it is not based on “objective judgments,” but only on teleological principles that have subjective validity.11 For this reason, we do not believe that Bernasconi as well as the other authors who speak of Kant as the pioneer of scientific racism are correct.
- 12 In GMS Kant writes: “[…] it also follows that this dignity (prerogative) he has over all merely nat (...)
27In Kantian philosophy, however, the teleological principle seems to justify a distinction between the races, even if its use is merely reflective. More specifically, the teleological principle could justify a distinction between races, according to which not all are capable of cultivating themselves in a moral sense. However, this does not mean that Kant’s practical philosophy is racist, but rather that there is a contradiction in it. Herein lies the contradiction: on the one hand, Kant argues that human dignity (6: 462) is a “prerogative (Prärogative)” that depends on the rational nature that characterizes all human beings and cannot be derived from experience.12 On the other hand, however, he also claims that human beings are not equal due to their biological differences and that these differences play an essential role in the cultivation of moral feelings.
28In our view, this arises against the background of Kant’s philosophy of history, in which he seems to emphasize the necessity of some “inequalities” among people for the moral progress of the entire human race. Kant argues that in the civil state, “skill cannot very well be developed in the human race except by means of inequality among people; for the majority provides the necessities of life as it were mechanically, without requiring any special art for that, for the comfort and ease of others, who cultivate the less necessary elements of culture, science and art” (5: 341). Cultivating these elements, on the other hand, requires skills that, according to Kant, not everyone possesses. In the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime we read, for example, the following:
The N*oes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the ridiculous. Mr. Hume challenges anyone to adduce a single example where a N*ro has demonstrated talents, and asserts that among the hundreds of thousands of blacks who have been transported elsewhere from their countries, although very many of them have been set free, nevertheless not a single one has ever been found who has accomplished something great in art or science or shown any other praiseworthy quality, while among the whites there are always those who rise up from the lowest rabble and through extraordinary gifts earn respect in the world. (2: 253; our italics)
- 13 Kant’s argument is similar in that he asserts that women’s virtues are beautiful, not sublime.
- 14 This reference to the civil personality and the capacity to cultivate themselves is really importan (...)
29In this passage, Kant seems to argue that there is a correlation between the faculty of feeling and the potential for individuals to achieve freedom through culture in history. He further suggests that this relationship may differ for people of different races.13 It is particularly noteworthy, then, that the distinction in “feeling” based on biological characters is also associated with a different capacity to cultivate moral faculties (2: 232), which includes the capacity to become free. Kant affirms indeed that the “different characters of the peoples” and, more specifically, “the differences in their taste and ethical feeling” have effects “on the relationships between the sexes, together with some easy explanations from the differences in regions, their freedom or slavery” (2: 230). In this regard, it is necessary to keep in mind that, although in the Doctrine of Right Kant explains that inequality among people in the civil state is “in no way opposed to their freedom and equality as human,” (6: 314) he also points out that women, minors, and also “the blacksmith in India […] lack civil personality (bürgerlichen Persönlichkeit) and their existence is, as it were, only inherence (nur Inhärenz)” (6: 314).14
30In view of these and other remarks on race, gender and geographical origin, which can also be found in the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, as well as in the Anthropology (7: 307ff.), one thing becomes clear: for Kant, not all people have the same capacity to cultivate themselves in a moral sense and thus to realize freedom and humanity in history. Does this mean that Kant’s philosophy is racist in a strict sense? We do not think so. But we think that Kant’s teleology is still at the center of a view of the history of all humanity that contains strongly discriminatory aspects. Racism plays a role in the recognition of rights in Kant’s philosophy, especially the recognition of positive rights. In theory, all human beings have equal dignity. In practice, not everyone can be free in the same way. This means that inequalities still play an important role in the realization of freedom in history through the institution of a civil state.