Kantian Cosmopolitan Politcs

Question: In his essay "Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Purpose" Kant argues that the

greatest problem for the human species is "that of attaining a civil society which can administer justice universally." Discuss how Kant argues for this claim and what his proposal is for achieving it historically You may supplement your answer by briefly outlining one contemporary version of Kant's proposal.. Do you think Kant's proposal has at all been approximated in modernity? (Word count1820 words)

First this article will explore the claims which ground Kant's argument for a universal

history by discussing the main arguments within each proposition in the essay. It will

then discuss the idea for a philosophical account of human history (eighth and ninth

propositions), it will provide a brief explanation of John Rawls' contemporary, Kantian

influenced "Law of Peoples" and will finally briefly observe Kantian influence in

contemporary international politics offering some critique of the Kantian universal notion

of freedom.

Kant begins the essay with an account of nature. The first proposition describes a

determinism in nature "All natural capacities of a creature are destined sooner or later to

be developed completely and in conformity with their end"(Kant, p42). For Kant all

things within nature are causally linked and entail some kind of purpose or destiny. Next

Kant proposes that the key natural endowment of human beings is reason, and that the

full capacity of reason can be reached Ð''only in the species but not in the

individual"(Kant,p42). The claim is that "every individual man would have to live a vast

amount of time if he were to learn how to make complete use of all his natural

capacities"(Kant,43). This focus on nature is important throughout the whole argument

because the Ð''universal history' arises naturally through reason.

In the third proposition Kant describes a kind of historical progress in relation to human

reason. The claim is that reason is something not innate or instinctual but something

eveloped and seemingly boundless, its development a historical process occurring over

many generations, pursuing some natural goal. Kant suggests that it is Ð''natures will' that

humans fully develop their natural capacity of reason. For Kant progress arrives through a

kind of struggle throughout time, human reason in its collective sense progressing

universally as a changing, learning entity. There is already a strong sense of universality

at this stage of the argument.

Kant's fourth proposition explains the construction of social autonomy. The term

"unsocial sociability" (Kant, p44) is the Kantian paradoxical account of the human social

situation in the modern world. It is a kind of dualism between the social self and the

individual self. Kant claims that humans are inclined to live in society yet possess an

egoistic tendency. He argues that there is a kind of antagonism caused by this dualism

which creates a competitive drive within society. "Through the desire for honour, power

or property, it drives him to seek status among his fellows, whom he can not bear yet not

bear to leave."(Kant, p44) The result of this antagonism is the natural progress Kant

suggested in the previous propositions. Further arising from this "unsocial sociability" is

an autonomous social order "Man wishes to live comfortably and pleasantly, but nature

intends that he should abandon idleness and inactive self sufficiency and plunge instead

into labour and hardships, so that he may by his own adroitness find means of liberating

himself from them in turn"(Kant, p45) Autonomy arises as a way of controlling the self

interest of others, a law governed social order is the result. Thus for Kant it is a

reciprocity between the individual and the social which allows for autonomous freedom

to actualise within society.

It is Kant's fifth proposition which states that "The greatest problem for the human

species, the solution of which nature compels him to seek, is that of attaining a civil

society which can administer justice universally"(Kant, p45). Here Kant argues that

human natural capacity (reason) can only be fully realised in society, where there is

antagonism for it to progress. Kant proposes that proof of this seems to arise in

phenomena such as art, culture and law or the "fruits of his unsociability" (Kant, p46)

which are a kind of expression of the antagonism humans experience. He proposes