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Tue 8 Feb, 2005 11:44 am
Kant's racist view did not affect his philosophy right? I found his view about slavery in his metaphysics of ethics book though, where he says that beings with duty but no right we don't have a duty toward??? I'm wondering why he thought that a slave who definitely has rights if one were to follow his general deontological belief is considered without rights by him just because people treat the slaves like dirt?
Re: Kant's racist/slavery bias
Ray
I think that Kant did use that notion against slavery, not to justify it. If someone is a slave, then, he has no rights. If he head he wouldn't be a slave. But, since Kant sustained that every man is an end in himself in order to act according the moral law, a situation where a man would have no rights would be a situation where he could not make any moral choice. That situation would be, by definition, immoral.
About racism. Kant made some racist remarks, specially when he spoke about africans. But men like Karl Marx, Darwin, even Brecht in the XX century, made also racist remarks (remember the jew Jacob Schmitt in "Mahagonny"). But is that enough to call them racists? The way you talk about Kant's racism seems to me exagerated: we would think he was a KKK member!
Val, thank you for the clarification.
In regards to his racism, I have read an essay stating that he tries to justify his racist view by calling Africans as humans that are only 'pretending to be rational' (which does not make much sense to me logically anyways as I think if a being can do things rationally, the so called pretense to be rational would require the being to know what reason is and to think rationally thus making the being rational anyway). This particular bias of Kant, if he did truly claim that, is ignorant and false.
Ray..
I think you should be able to cite relevant portions of Kant's writings with regard to the problem questioned.
Ray
I think you are referring to Kant's "Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht" (1798) one of his last works. At that time he was old and without the extraordinary lucidy of his first Critic - this one was written when he was 57 years old.
It is frequent that great philosophers - or artists, or scientists - create some crucial masterpieces, among other works without real value, or even absurd. Kant never left Königsberg: it seems absurd that he felt able to discuss about racial and civilizational characteristics of people and regions he ignored. Some people, with the age, become less critical ...
Thanks for the info. I didn't know he wrote that when he was old. You're right that this is his work that is absurd. I feel that the culture in where he grew up in is partly to blame for his ignorant view and since he never left konisberg as you mentioned. Nevertheless his main philosophy works are brilliant.
In this kind of talk, one should, I think, cite the relevant passage in the correct context. Otherwise it is merely a talk of rumor.
(I have ordered a copy of "Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View" at Amazon. It will take a few weeks for me to read it.)
Satt, It's hard to find but here's something from Metaphysics of Morals:
Kant
"3. The juridical relation of man to beings who have only duties and no rights:
Vacat. There is no such relation, for such beings would be men without juridical personality, as slaves of bondsmen.
Quote:
Hmm I'm not sure if he was talking about people being slaves.
Here Kant was merely referring to logical possiblities of forms of the juridical relations among anthropic existence, and here, as you can cleary read, he is rejecting the 3rd form. It does not mean Kant approved slavery at all, probably the contrary would be the case.
Quote:IVISION POSSIBLE ACCORDING TO THE SUBJECTIVE RELATION OF THOSE WHO BIND UNDER OBLIGATIONS, AND THOSE WHO ARE BOUND UNDER OBLIGATIONS
1. The juridical relation of man to beings who have neither right nor duty:
Vacat. There is no such relation, for such beings are irrational, and they neither put us under obligation, nor can we be put under obligation by them.
2. The juridical relation of man to beings who have both rights and duties:
Adest. There is such a relation, for it is the relation of men to men.
3. The juridical relation of man to beings who have only duties and no rights:
Vacat. There is no such relation, for such beings would be men without juridical personality, as slaves of bondsmen.
4 The juridical relation of man to a being who has only rights and no duties (God):
Vacat. There is no such relation in mere philosophy, because such a being is not an object of possible experience.
A real relation between right and duty is therefore found, in this scheme, only in No. 2.
Maybe, maybe.
Are you a kantian Satt?
Glad to hear from a platonist.
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