Kant and the Politics of Racism: Towards Kant’s racialised form of cosmopolitan right 3030691004, 9783030691004

Citation preview

Kant and the Politics of Racism Towards Kant’s racialised form of cosmopolitan right Jimmy Yab

Kant and the Politics of Racism

Jimmy Yab

Kant and the Politics of Racism Towards Kant’s racialised form of cosmopolitan right

Jimmy Yab Politics and International Relations University of Southampton Southampton, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-69100-4    ISBN 978-3-030-69101-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69101-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To my children: Myriam Joyce Yab Jimmy Kamga Yab Diamond Maryana Yab Madison Kamga Yab

Preface: The Dominant Narrative Does Not Always Reveal Truth!

The Mandinka are the very most desirable among all Negroes up to the Gambia River, because they are the most hardworking ones. These are the ones that one prefers to seek for slaves, because these can tolerate labour in the greatest heat that no human being can endure. Each year 20,000 of this Negro nation have to be bought to replace the decline of them in America, where they are used to work on the spice trees and in general on the entire établissement. One gets the Negros by having them catch each other, and one has to seize them with force. (Immanuel Kant, 1782 Doenhoff lectures on physical geography)

Before entering a research programme in politics at the University of Southampton in the UK, I read philosophy at the University of Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon in Central Africa. I am from 80% of the Cameroonian population that has been colonised by the French. Cameroon has the historical particularity to have had three colonial powers: the Germans from 1884 to 1914–1916, the French and the British who administrated two Cameroons from 1916 to 1961. After the independence of French Cameroon in 1960 and British Cameroon in 1961, although both parts decided to reunite into one single country, they kept two disunited systems of education for elementary and secondary schools. At higher education level, the French system overshadowed its English counterpart. The teaching methodology too vii

viii 

Preface: The Dominant Narrative Does Not Always Reveal Truth!

was dominated by the French curriculum. In addition to the fact that libraries and the Internet were almost non-existent, it was incredibly challenging to find analyses other than the one students heard in lectures. When I started my research programme at the University of Southampton, I knew the dominant narrative about Kant, because the work I had done before taught me his Universalist—egalitarian principles, so I got to read his practical philosophy and French scholars that defended his universalism. However, I was not prepared for the wave that was about to hit my face when discovering Charles Mills’ article “Kant’s Untermenschen” which details his account of Kant’s racial thinking. My early readings on Kant’s racial comments made me apprehensive about Kant’s scholars for their lack of a historical trajectory of his racial thinking. This was particularly true for both sides of the spectrum, his defenders and his accusers. The two narratives were so apologetic that Kant’s earlier writings were almost disregarded. Although I have to admit that neither narrative reduced Kant’s philosophy to his racial comments. Nevertheless, it was stunning to see how much passion Kant’s racial comments brought into the debate. One harmony I found between the two narratives was the uncomfortable reaction that such comments have provoked not only among Kant’s scholars but also in the whole Western intellectual sphere. It is undeniably one of the most challenging dilemmas in the history of political tradition. How to reconcile a thought that claims fundamental freedom and morality for all human beings while defending the incapacity of/for morality to some, and hence denying them basic freedoms on the grounds of the colour of their skin? This brings me back to my country, Cameroon, that has experienced since independence two official neo-colonial cultures from France and England, but where the dominant narrative (French) has portrayed its truth as universal. The reality is that the dominant narrative does not always reveal truth! Sometimes it is imperative to go back to the beginning and follow the facts wherever they lead without fear or apprehension in order to reconcile the past, the present and the future. In recent years, Cameroon has been dealing with violent conflicts due to the unreconcilability of two narratives about the Frenchness and/or Englishness of the state. One of the goals of the dominant narrative is to

  Preface: The Dominant Narrative Does Not Always Reveal Truth! 

ix

confuse the truth. In Cameroon, the governing French narrative has been in place for so long that even intellectuals confuse the facts. It is crucial at this stage as Kant argues to call for the natural history that designates a science that involves historical movements that have taken place over time, which includes the cause of things. As with Kant’s derogative comments on race, the answer to the question of Cameroon’s Frenchness or Englishness lies within the historical examination of the different narratives. By attending to the historicity, we turn away from the abstraction of subjective opinions towards a more productive and adequate position based on textual shreds of evidence. This book is meant to deliver just that. Now let me explain the way in which the book is presented. This is a philosophical argument about facts that have been usurped by the dominant narrative. For centuries, Kant has been presented in a way that does not do justice to his entire intellectual work. It remains too challenging to say otherwise. This is why I have to rely on Kant’s writings to oppose the dominant narrative. Thus, throughout the book, the reader will come across lengthy citations. I do not think that citing Kant’s writings is enough to convince since the book is about a philosophical argument and in philosophy the idea of the proof is complex. Philosophical arguments can never be definitively demonstrated because there are always opposing arguments that could claim the contrary. However, this does not mean that philosophical arguments cannot be rationally settled. In other words, if philosophical arguments are not scientifically demonstrable like physics or mathematics, this does not mean that they cannot be conclusive. Accordingly, although citations are not a guarantee of the truth, they will serve as guiding principles. I am thankful to the many colleagues who have assisted me to sail across the struggle of the academic debates that surround all the topics covered in this book. As Kant is an extraordinarily complex and difficult thinker, one great scholar helped me to navigate through this complexity. Professor David Owen from the University of Southampton has been with me along my academic road, acting as an enlightened guide. I thank him for that. Southampton, UK

Jimmy Yab

Contents

1 Introduction: Towards a Heterodox Reading of Kant’s Theory of Race  1 The “Charakteristik” as the Study of the Character of the Human Species   5 In the Coming Chapters    7 Part I Problematising the “Orthodox” Reading  17 2 Kant on Race: The Current Debate 19 The “Orthodox Reading” of Kant’s Theory of Race   20 Emmanuel Eze’s Wakeup Call   20 Racialism Believers  22 Universalism’s Defenders  24 Inconsistent Universalism  26 What about the Orthodox Reading Narratives?   27 3 Critique of the Orthodox Reading 31 The Completeness of the Character of the White Race   32 The Dispossession of the Character of Human Dignity of the Negro Race   36 xi

xii Contents

Objections to the Orthodox Reading: Kant’s Universalism Versus Kant’s Racialism Debate   42 First Objection: The Delineation of Kant’s Thought into Central and Peripheral Claims Is Inadequate and Senseless   43 Second Objection: Kant’s Change of Mind Argument Is Inaccurate  51 Looking Ahead  57 Part II Reconstructing Kant’s Theory of Race  63 4 Kant, Race and Natural History 65 The Epistemic Status of Natural History   68 Buffon’s “Abstract” and “Physical” Truths in Natural History  69 Kant’s Dismissal of Mechanical Law in Natural History   71 Linnaeus’ and Buffon’s Accounts of the Human Species   73 “Of the Different Races of Human Beings”   75 Definition of the Human Species   76 Division of the Human Species into Different Races   80 The Causes of the Character of Racial Differences   82 Germs, Predispositions and the Completeness of the Character of the White Race   87 5 Kant, Race and Teleology 95 From a Posteriori to a Priori Conception of the “Charakteristik” of the Human Species   98 Missed Opportunities  101 Kant’s First Missed Opportunity  101 Kant’s Self-appropriation of the Theory of Race  107 Kant’s Second Missed Opportunity  118 The Teleology of Racial Diversity  119

 Contents 

xiii

Part III Kant’s Theory of Race and Cosmopolitanism 133 6 Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View135 Some Preliminaries about Kant’s Racial Theory of the 1790s  138 What is Pragmatic “Charakteristik”?  140 The “Charakteristik” as Natural Predispositions  142 Kant’s Natural Predispositions of the 1770s  144 Kant’s Natural Predispositions of the 1780s  146 Kant’s Natural Predispositions of the 1790s  148 The “Anthropological Charakteristik” of 1798 and Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime of 1764  151 The Character of Persons  152 Kant’s Pragmatic Physiognomy  162 The Character of Races  166 The Character of Species  170 Different Types of Natural Predispositions  171 Development of Natural Predispositions in the White Race  174 7 Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism189 Kant’s Cosmopolitan Right as an Exclusive Form of Right  189 Kant’s Cosmopolitanism: The “Orthodox Reading”  191 Problematising the “Orthodox Reading” of Kant’s Cosmopolitanism 198 The “Heterodox Reading” of Kant’s Cosmopolitanism  214 Kant’s Development of Natural Predispositions  214 Kant’s Cosmopolitanism Addressees  219 Kant’s Cosmopolitan Content  225 8 Concluding Remarks237 Bibliography247 Index267

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 White European characters of the feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature Fig. 3.2 Kant’s lectures

38 44

xv

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Upper nationalities character Table 3.2 Lower nationalities character

34 34

xvii

1 Introduction: Towards a Heterodox Reading of Kant’s Theory of Race

What is the impact of Kant’s racial theory on his philosophy and political thought? Is Kant a consistent egalitarian or a partisan Universalist thinker? Is he the symbol of racist prejudices of his time? What is the influence of his racial hierarchy on his cosmopolitan right? Or more simply, is Kant a racist thinker? These are some of the questions that will guide this book. Charles Mills in Kant’s Untermenschen argues that “Kant, as one of the most important philosophers of the modern period…if racist ideas were in turn central to his thought, then this implies a radical rethinking of our conventional narratives of the history and content of Western philosophy.”1,2 He posits that Kant’s racial views affect the core argument of his philosophy, including his moral philosophy. He claims that for Kant, because of their racial characteristics, not all biological humans are fully humanoid, that is, humans with an equal moral status that meet the condition for full personhood. In his view, Kant’s anthropology distinguishes full persons (White race), who are human beings possessing all the characteristics of full moral status, from “sub-persons” [Untermenschen]3 (Negro race), a kind of human who lacks the requisite for morality. Regarding Mills’ account, this therefore reveals a genuine contradiction

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Yab, Kant and the Politics of Racism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69101-1_1

1

2 

J. Yab

between Kant’s anthropology and the orthodox interpretation of his moral and political claims. Mills is undoubtedly right about Kant’s centrality to modern Western philosophy. Kant’s influence on philosophy is often perceived in the same way as Newton’s impact on science.4 What is essential to know about the two thinkers is that after Newton and Kant, the entire approach in the sciences and philosophy changed. If, on the one hand, Newton developed differential calculus without which the modern scientific revolution could never have occurred, Kant, on the other, presented a new way of thinking about the relation of the human cognitive apparatus to the objective world, and established an authoritative system of ethical reasoning. Kant transformed the whole intellectual Western world by proposing an original approach of thinking about how human nature relates to the world, including politics and international relations. However, Kant, who is seen as the inventor of the modern concept of human autonomy,5 is also the inventor of the modern idea of race.6 Mills is also right to claim that if Kant’s theory of race is racist, this may impact the Western Universalist—egalitarian’s narrative. It is therefore essential to look analytically into the significance of his theory. This is my first motivation for authoring this book. My second motivation comes from the thought that if Mills is right about the significance of Kant’s racial comments, his concept of “sub-­ person,” however, is smuggled from outside Kant’s canon and has only a cosmetic effect in making Kant’s perspective either palatable or detestable to the wider audience. It is in my view unhelpful for the understanding of Kant’s race thinking. An appropriate analysis which takes into account not only racial comments but also the historical development of the concept, as well as its implications, is imperative. Moreover, my incentive in choosing this thematic arises from the conviction that there is indeed something seemingly inconsistent about Kant’s racial theory, which is a source of embarrassment. First, derogative comments about non-White races reveal some racialism in his thought. Second, Kant’s interest in human races persists well beyond the critical turn which is the moment for the elaboration and publication of his three Critiques, namely: The Critique of Pure Reason7 in 1781, the Critique of Practical Reason8 in 1788 and the Critique of Judgment9 in 1790. However, his theory of race

1  Introduction: Towards a Heterodox Reading of Kant’s Theory… 

3

remained untouched by that turn. Lastly, it seems uncertain to many how Kant’s anthropological writings and his conception of race fit with his universal egalitarian claims. As Brian Jacobs and Patrick Kain put it: “the anthropology and the course on which it was based contain a number of considerable tensions with other aspects of Kant’s thought, tensions that have left even sympathetic readers understandably puzzled about the status and place of anthropology in Kant’s system and the relation of this to his other works.”10 As a result, some scholars have taken it to be a confusion of inconsistencies and eccentricities “which lack much of the refinement of his previously published works, leading some initial commentators to suggest that it betrays the age of its author.”11 Others have dismissed it altogether in attempting to extract it from Kant’s overall system. So far, these efforts have added more confusion than clarity to the meaning and role of Kant’s theory of race within his philosophical system because, instead of taking the whole theory as the object of the study, these analyses have focused only on Kant’s racially derogative comments, which are significant but do not determine the theory. This approach has led to the failure to notice that the idea that determines his theory of race is his conception of the “Charakteristik”12 of the human species. Determined by human natural predispositions, the “Charakteristik is the feature that simultaneously underlines Kant’s theory and unifies his political and moral system. Kant’s dismissive statements on non-White races which denote racial hierarchy are essential, especially when put together with his categorical imperative, which says to treat all persons as ends in themselves, and his cosmopolitan right, which is supposed to give the right to all human beings to visit foreign territories without fear of prosecution. However, if we read them as detached from the theory of race, from its content and historical background, we are missing not only the genuine problematic but also the coherence and implications attached to it. This book is a scrutiny of Kant’s theory of race, emphasising its historical development. It pays careful attention to the notion of the “Charakteristik,” which encompasses Kant’s idea of human “natural predispositions” responsible for racial diversity. It also interprets the implications for his cosmopolitanism since the latter is grounded in the view that the development of all-natural predispositions is the final end of history. Therefore, I propose a new reading of Kant’s philosophy in general, and

4 

J. Yab

of his theory of race in particular, which I call the “heterodox reading.” This innovative reading is developed against the “orthodox reading,” which, I argue, obscures the real nature of Kant’s philosophy because of its apologetics approach. The “orthodox reading” of Kant’s philosophy is the conventional narrative which understands Kant from the viewpoint of his apparent “Egalitarian Universalism” and therefore holds the claim that Kant’s thought and writings are divided into essential ideas, which are mainly the three Critiques, and marginal ideas, which encompass his earlier writings including his anthropology. It is a shared feature of the “orthodox reading” to dismiss Kant’s texts which are not in line with their preferred arguments or to overstate others in order to support their unilateral analysis. The scholars from the “orthodox reading” of Kant include the defence side as well as critics of his universalism since both sides acknowledge in one way or another that Kant’s philosophy is divided into central and peripheral claims. However, there are typical features of that reading that may not be shared by the whole spectrum, such as the importance or non-importance of Kant’s derogative comments on race or, as we will see later, the view that Kant’s final end of history is the legal and political order. Nevertheless, it is an essential feature of that reading to suggest that evidence drawn from the three Critiques is transcendental regardless of its relevance to the context. One method of the apologetics used by the “orthodox reading” is to regard Kant’s racial comments as if they were detached from his philosophy. It includes considering these comments in the light of the question as to whether Kant’s racial views impacted his philosophy or the central claims of his philosophy. This line of questioning is misleading because it implies a division of Kant’s philosophy into central and peripheral ideas. The second method of the apologetics is the search for a typical argument for Kant’s racial comments. The argument concludes that derogative comments (1) do not have any implications for his philosophy at all13 or (2) they do not affect his central claims14 or (3) they did impact his basic claims; however, he changed his mind at some point.15 The use of these apologetics does not help. It is much more constructive, I think, to examine Kant’s overall theory, not only his racial comments but also their motivations and purpose. My ultimate aim, therefore, is to bring the development of the theory to light, and to expose

1  Introduction: Towards a Heterodox Reading of Kant’s Theory… 

5

the fundamental concepts which constitute its basis, as well as the way in which these concepts determine the complex structure of Kant’s political thought. Furthermore, my approach claims the advantage of offering a new reading, the “heterodox reading,” which primarily rejects the “orthodox reading’s” division of Kant’s philosophy. To me, a division into central/peripheral ideas leads to the neglect of Kant’s anthropology, and it is disproportionate to Kant’s conception of his system. Second, the “heterodox reading” offers a reading which accommodates Kant’s whole theory of race (not only his racial comments), as an integral part of his philosophy. Finally, this global and historical approach offers the benefit of discovering the fundamental concept of the theory, the notion of the “Charakteristik” and the problems attached to it. I distinguish: (1) the completeness character of the White race with its subsequent problem, the incompleteness character of the race of the natives of America and (2) the dispossession of the character of the beautiful and human dignity of the Negro race. Because of the global approach which sees anthropology as an integral part of Kant’s philosophy, the “heterodox reading” is also more consistent with Kant’s understanding of his anthropology than the “orthodox reading,” since Kant, in condensing the three most important questions of his philosophy (1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?)16 into the question of “What is Man?”, was confirming that anthropology is the standpoint from which his philosophy should be understood. This is why the study of Kant’s theory of race, which is the study of human nature (What is Man?), is crucial to the overall understanding of his thought in general and his political and moral philosophy in particular.

 he “Charakteristik” as the Study T of the Character of the Human Species Kant defines the “Charakteristik” in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View as the “way of cognising the interior of the human being from the exterior.”17 With that notion, Kant puts into a single idea the unity and the differences of the human species.18 As we will see later, Kant argues

6 

J. Yab

that all human beings belong to one common species. Human beings not only have a single origin but also a common final end. However, mere nature has placed within the common phylum some potentialities called “natural predispositions”19 to be responsible for their inner and outer features. The relationship of the inner and outer features is what forms the notion of the “Charakteristik.” In Kant’s view, the exterior of the human species is differentiated by skin colour, but it also signals the difference in moral character. Skin colour is, therefore, the visible expression of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. That means the race is the manifestation of the inner and outer character of the types that compose the human species. The outer character of race is the physical attributes, the inner character is the moral aptitudes, and both determine whether human beings can achieve their end. The “Charakteristik” is thus the study of the characters of the human species, which are, as I demonstrate later, a set of natural predispositions for which the achievement of cosmopolitan conditions preconditions their full development. A human being as an individual cannot achieve that full potential because it takes a succession of generations to reach perfection, and very few natural predispositions can be developed within the individual’s life cycle. Thus, Kant’s cosmopolitanism and theory of race appear to be interrelated. My approach to Kant’s theory is distinctive from previous analyses in the sense that my goal is not to defend or condemn but to enquire about the meaning of the theory. In other words, my objective is to question the sense of Kant’s conception of race. In doing so, I not only tackle all three aforementioned sources of embarrassment, but I also provide an analysis of Kant’s theory that renders it consistent because it delivers the complete historical picture of the development of the theory. This book does not purport to be an explanation of Kant’s racialism but rather a theoretical enquiry into a methodological variable of Kant’s theory as a systematic understanding of the notion of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. This means suspending judgement concerning the metaphysical probity of Kant’s racial theory, to take up the genealogy, content, import and function of Kant’s race thinking. It implies analysing Kant’s methodological approach to human diversity and enquiring about the question of Kant’s objective in theorising the concept of race, and from there

1  Introduction: Towards a Heterodox Reading of Kant’s Theory… 

7

drawing the consequences for his cosmopolitan project. Assaying Kant’s thinking on race from the beginning to the end of his career with the notion of the “Charakteristik” as the underlying issue shows that Kant’s primary concern with race was not peripheral, that he never changed his mind on race or human hierarchy, that his theory determines his cosmopolitan project and, finally, that he was a racist thinker. The evaluation of Kant’s racial theory within this context is also an examination of his anthropology. Now, I want to take the opportunity at the end of this introduction to briefly show how I am going to enquire about Kant’s theory in this book in order to reach the objective of providing an alternative reading that will be a fruitful resource for explaining Kant’s political philosophy.

In the Coming Chapters I have now offered an indication of what is to come in the remaining chapters by briefly explaining why I take the “orthodox reading” of Kant to be misleading. As I argue in the sections that follow, once we come to read Kant within the scope of the heterodox analysis, we will discover how his anthropology is connected with the rest of his philosophy and how it impacts his political thought. The last thing I do in this introduction is to offer a map of the sections that follow. Thus, in addition to this introduction, the book is divided into three parts and each part contains two chapters. The first part of the book problematizes the orthodox reading. The second part is the reconstruction of Kant’s theory of race from the “heterodox reading’s” narrative and the third part examines the impact on his cosmopolitanism. In the first chapter in Part I, my subject is that of how to correctly understand Kant’s theory of race, in terms of both how to go about forming a better interpretation of his approach and exactly how to interpret the argument itself. I begin by situating Kant’s approach to the contemporary debate. I display the dominant interpretations of the “orthodox reading” and in the process also uncover the assumptions that underline these interpretations. I argue that although Kleingeld’s interpretation is classy because it gives Kant an intellectual rebirth certification as it allows

8 

J. Yab

him to change his mind on race, still she has fallen short in providing factual evidence of Kant’s rebirth since her analysis misses the notion of the “Charakteristik.” Having done that, I expose the real problems of Kant’s theory. I argue that Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime20 is the foundational text of his theory. This is because the book not only introduces the content and form of the “Charakteristik,” the notion he will systematize later, but also exposes the two problems at the heart of the debate, namely (1) the completeness of the character of the White race and (2) the dispossession of the character of the beauty and dignity of the Negro race. Then I demonstrate that the “orthodox reading” has failed because it has adopted an apologetic approach. This approach, I argue, is misrepresentative in some significant respects. It ultimately led to the failure to notice that the notion of the “Charakteristik” which is predetermined by Kant’s conception of natural predispositions is the cornerstone of the theory. The objective of this chapter is to show that the purpose of the “orthodox reading,” which is either to defend or to accuse Kant, is of little value when coming to an understanding and interpretation of his theory of race in particular and his anthropology as a whole. This is why at the end of the chapter I suggest an alternative approach that I call the “heterodox reading.” This approach offers a global contextual and historical analysis and sees Kant’s theory of race as a cohesive component of his philosophy, since his notion of the “Charakteristik” through his account of natural predispositions functions as the unifying link for all the parts of his anthropological thought and has a considerable significance for his system as a whole. The second chapter in Part I is the beginning of the exegetical work since I address Kant’s theory as a scientific understanding of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. I confirm that Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime in 1764 is the foundational book of Kant’s theory because it constitutes the genesis of his “Charakteristik” thinking. Following that book, Kant wrote his first scientific essay on race in 1775 entitled “Of the Different Races of Human Beings,” which he revised in 1777. The essay is based on a scientific observation. Kant defends the unity of the “Charakteristik” of the human species, which is predetermined by natural predispositions and is manifested through different skin colours, which in turn signals four different races. Skin colour

1  Introduction: Towards a Heterodox Reading of Kant’s Theory… 

9

is the distinctive mark of the character of the specific types of human beings (White, Yellow, Red and Black). Thus, we talk about the “Charakteristik” of the human species and the character of the human being. The characters of human beings are passed on unfailingly within a given race, and when mixed with another race this results in “half breeding.” Kant claims that there are two origins of the character of the human being: germs and natural predispositions. These are purposively placed in the first phylum by mere nature to make human beings fit for all climates. However, not all races possess them all or develop them correctly. He claimed that the natives of America for example, have them incomplete, which is why they lack a drive towards activity, and that only the White race possesses them all and perfectly. In this chapter, I also show how Kant’s moral claims developed in Chap. 1 are attached to his scientific notion of the “Charakteristik.” Part II reconstructs Kant’s racial theory and begins with Chap. 4, which is the philosophical dismantling of the notion of the “Charakteristik.” The chapter picks up from where it left off in the first essay on race. In the 1780s Kant published two further essays on race. “Determination of the Concept of Race”21 was issued in the period in which Kant had already laid the foundations of his critical philosophy, his philosophy of history and his ethics. After the first essay that based his theory on observation, Kant’s primary objective in his second essay is to affirm that observation alone is not sufficient to justify such a vital concept as race. He states that it is crucial to be led by an initial goal that will direct our research. Kant here is responding to his former student, Johann Gottfried Herder, who has rejected his concept of race. Kant now affirms that the idea of race is based on the necessity of the transmission of the racial character. The chapter will show how Kant develops his theory from a scientific to philosophical understanding of the “Charakteristik.” It is only the purposiveness of germs and “predispositions” that can account for that necessity. Kant’s emphasis on theory over facts provokes another critique, this time from a young anthropologist, Georg Forster. Kant then published the third essay in 1788, “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy” mainly in response to this critique. The essay appears right after the publication of the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant responds to Georg Forster’s accusation of being dogmatic and

10 

J. Yab

anti-­empiricist. Forster had objected to the primacy of the theory over observation and the exclusive focus by Kant on skin colour as the sole determinant of race. I demonstrate in Chap. 4 that Kant’s response to Forster insists on the importance of the conceptual analysis in the scientific approach, and he states that without directorial principles, description is no more than investigation in the dark. Races may not be perceived as a real object in the world, but they exist in our mind, and the character of race recommends itself when reason thinks to unite the diversity of the generation with the common phylum. Kant will reaffirm that the main “Charakteristik” of the human species, the racial character which is signalled by skin colour, is a necessity, and therefore it is a priori because it allows difference of character to adjust to different climates through germs and natural predispositions and at the same time hinders migrations of characters from hot climates to cold. Kant also reiterates his claims about the Native American race, which lacks a drive towards activity, and that, because all their germs and predispositions have stopped developing, they will never transcend their inapt condition, barring them from moral achievement, whereas the White race will continue to build their moral predispositions. Chapter 4 displays how Kant develops his theory from a philosophical to a teleological understanding of the “Charakteristik,” while providing a teleological grounding to the two moral claims exposed in Chap. 3. In the third and final part of the book, which is about the impact of Kant’s racial thinking on his central political claim, I demonstrate in Chap. 6 how Kant’s theory of race switches to the pragmatic understanding of the notion of the “Charakteristik.” The “orthodox reading” has always argued that Kant wrote three essays on race (1775, 1785 and 1788). It is my argument in this book that, apart from these essays, it is worth taking into account two more writings: the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime in 1764, which is the foundational book of the theory, and the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View in 1798, which is the completion of his theory. As we will have already demonstrated why Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime is the foundational writing of the theory, in this chapter I show why Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View is the completion of his theory. Kant, on the one hand, asserts the unity of human nature and, on the

1  Introduction: Towards a Heterodox Reading of Kant’s Theory… 

11

other he insists on the inner and outer of the “Charakteristik” of the human species (person, gender, nationality and race). In the second part of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, titled “Anthropological ‘Charakteristik,’” he re-affirms the role that the “character” plays in human destiny, a role he had already defined in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime in 1764. He reconfirms that the definite and efficient meaning of the concept of race is reflected in both the empirical and moral character through its natural predispositions. It is precisely in the circumstance of natural predispositions that Kant sustains his theory of race with his racial hierarchy. I display, through a historical investigation of Kant’s account of natural predispositions, that Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798) completes Kant’s theory and also offers a definitive answer as to whether Kant changed his mind on race. To prove my point, I come back to Kleingeld’s claims that affirm that Kant (1) “makes no mention of a racial hierarchy anywhere in his published writings of the 1790s” and that (2) “The oft-defended thesis that Kant’s racism remained constant thus needs correction, and one should not use evidence from the 1780s in support of claims about his views in the 1790s.”22 I refute these claims, and demonstrate first with regard to claim (1) that the “Anthropological Charakteristik” in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View encompasses racial hierarchy through Kant’s consideration of human natural predispositions, which remained unchanged throughout his writings and therefore expresses Kant’s two moral problems described in Chap. 3. Second, if the precedent is true, no corrections should be made regarding claim (2) and, more importantly, I use evidence from the 1790s as requested by Kleingeld to support Kant’s view of the 1780s. My fundamental assertion is that, because Kant’s natural predispositions are these potentialities which are responsible for both the inner and outer features of the “Charakteristik” of the human species including racial hierarchy, in order to claim that Kant changed his mind on race and hence on racial hierarchy, it is of primary necessity to prove that he changed his mind on his account of natural predispositions. Kleingeld did not prove that point because she failed primarily to note the role of the “Charakteristik” in Kant’s theory, and furthermore she even admitted that his conception of natural predispositions did not

12 

J. Yab

change in the 1790s. Therefore, I argue that her claim about Kant’s change of mind on race and racial hierarchy is demonstrably inaccurate. Whereas Chap. 6 has now set the scene for the final demonstration of the book, the seventh and closing chapter, before some concluding remarks on the legacy of Kant’s theory of race and perspectives, examines the extent to which his approach impacts his cosmopolitan project. I conclude that Kant’s cosmopolitan right is a de facto exclusive form of right (i.e. non-universalist) because of the addressees and content of his cosmopolitanism. The investigation on his account of natural predispositions would have already led us to find that in Kant’s view only the White race is included in his pragmatic project because it is the only race which possesses all natural predispositions for moral development. From that standpoint, I first posit in this chapter the link between Kant’s racial theory and his cosmopolitanism. Second, I demonstrate that the “orthodox reading” of Kant’s cosmopolitanism is inconsistent with his account of the development of his natural predispositions and subsequently with his account of human history. To this end, I utilize the viewpoint of James Tully, who is one the few critics to elaborate a global contextual analysis of Kant’s cosmopolitanism which takes into account not only Towards Perpetual Peace23 but also Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim24 as reflecting Kant’s view. Through this I show that the “orthodox reading’s” narrative which sees Kant’s cosmopolitanism as an expression of the egalitarian racial theory and anti-colonialism is far removed from Kant’s contextual reality. Two scholars from the “orthodox reading” will serve as examples to prove my point. The first is Pauline Kleingeld. In terms of her narrative on race in which Kant changed his mind around 1795, even if she apprehended correctly that Kant’s final end of history is the full development of human natural predispositions, she failed in identifying the link between Kant’s conception of race through the development of natural predispositions and his cosmopolitan project. In other words, Kleingeld fails to see that Kant’s account of natural predispositions determines his cosmopolitanism. The second scholar is Lea Ypi, whose essay “Commerce and Colonialism in Kant’s Philosophy” published in Kant and Colonialism25 is in line with Kleingeld and argues that Kant changed his mind on his account of germs and predispositions in the 1790s. For Ypi, Kant not only changed the meaning of his natural

1  Introduction: Towards a Heterodox Reading of Kant’s Theory… 

13

predispositions but also abandoned the notion of germs, which was responsible for the development of the moral and physical features of race. However, she failed to provide evidence to support her claim. I reject this assumption because it is founded upon misleading abstraction. I provide evidence which supports my argument not only that Kant did not even once consider changing his account of natural predispositions, but also that he continues to elaborate and rely on it well after the period of his presupposed changed of mind. Therefore, I concluded that the “orthodox reading” of Kant’s cosmopolitanism is inadequate and misleading. That is why I ultimately expose the “heterodox reading” which posit that Kant’s cosmopolitan right because it relies on his account of natural predispositions, its addressees and content make it, in fact, a de facto exclusive (i.e. non-universal) form of right. Finally, having reached the end of my demonstration, the concluding remarks of this book establish that because (1) Kant’s theory of race denotes, in fact, the way he perceives human nature(s) (What is man?); (2) Kant himself on multiple occasions defended that “What is human being?” must be the fundamental question of philosophy and (3) both the “orthodox” and “heterodox” reading agree that the question of human nature is the most pervasive question in Kant’s philosophy, and it is fully answered in Kant’s anthropology, it can be concluded that anthropology is the foundation of Kant’s political and philosophical thought. As the moral problems of Kant’s racial theory, namely (1) the completeness character of the white race and (2) the dispossession of the character of the beautiful and human dignity of the Negro race, remain active in his anthropological thinking even beyond his critical turn, and because these are the two issues that demonstrate Kant’s systematic racism, it is therefore conclusive to say that Kant is a systematic racist thinker. Contrary to the “orthodox reading,” the “heterodox reading” has clearly demonstrated a methodological racism in Kant’s political and philosophical thought. Beyond the “orthodox reading,” it is a new era that I wish to open in interpreting Kant. An era that will empower political theory with an alternative reading of Kant’s political thought and that will enable the political and philosophical community to read Kant’s moral claims and his theory of race as two faces of the same coin.

14 

J. Yab

Notes 1. MILL, J. S. 2008. Utilitarianism, in On Liberty and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 135. 2. MILLS, C. W. 2005. Kant’s Untermenschen. In: VALLS, A. (ed.) Race and racism in modern philosophy. Cornell: Cornell University Press, pp. 169–93. 3. MILLS, C. W. Ibid. Kant’s Untermenschen In: VALLS, A. (ed.). Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press; [Bristol: University Presses Marketing distributor], pp. 169–94. 4. For the influence of Newton’s on science and philosophy see COHEN, I.  B. & SMITH, G.  E. 2002. The Cambridge companion to Newton, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.; LEFEVRE, W. 2001. Between Leibniz, Newton, and Kant: philosophy and science in the eighteenth century, Dordrecht; London, Kluwer Academic Publishers.; BECHLER, Z. 1991. Newton’s physics and the conceptual structure of the scientific revolution, Dordrecht; London, Kluwer Academic.; TIMMONS, T. 2012. Makers of western science: the works and words of 24 visionaries from Copernicus to Watson and Crick, Jefferson, N.C., McFarland & Co. 5. For Kant and human autonomy see SENSEN, O. 2012. Kant on moral autonomy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.; SHELL, S. M. 2009. Kant and the limits of autonomy, Cambridge, Mass.; London, Harvard University Press.; REATH, A. 2006. Agency and autonomy in Kant’s moral theory, Oxford, Clarendon Press. 6. BERNASCONI, R. 2001. Who Invented the Concept of Race? Kant’s Role in the Enlightenment Construction of Race. In: BERNASCONI, R. (ed.) Race. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, p. 14.; FIGAL, S. E. & LARRIMORE, M. J. 2006. The German invention of race, Albany, NY, State University of New  York Press.; LARRIMORE, M. 2008. Antinomies of race: diversity and destiny in Kant. Patters of Prejudice [Online], 42. 7. KANT, I., GUYER, P. & WOOD, A. W. 1998. Critique of pure reason, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 8. KANT, I. & GREGOR, M. 1997. Critique of practical reason, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 9. KANT, I. & GUYER, P. 2000. Critique of the power of judgement, New York, Cambridge University Press.

1  Introduction: Towards a Heterodox Reading of Kant’s Theory… 

15

10. JACOBS, B. & KAIN, P. 2003. Essays on Kant’s anthropology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 1., p. 4. See also KANT, I. & KUEHN, M. 2006. Introduction. In: LOUDEN, R. B. (ed.) Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. Cambridge, UK; New  York: Cambridge University Press, p. xi. 11. JACOBS, B. & KAIN, P. 2003. Essays on Kant’s anthropology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 1., p. 4. 12. I use the German word “charakteristik” from KANT, I. 2007. Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 107–20. Which means in English “characteristic” to keep the concept meaningful because of its multiple components. 13. WOOD, A.  W. 1999. Kant’s ethical thought, Cambridge; New  York, Cambridge University Press, p. 3; LOUDEN, R. B. 2000. Kant’s impure ethics: from rational beings to human beings, New York; Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 105. 14. See BERNASCONI, R. 2001. Who Invented the Concept of Race? Kant’s Role in the Enlightenment Construction of Race. In: BERNASCONI, R. (ed.) Race. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, p.  14.; BERNASCONI, R. 2002. Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Racism. In: WARD, J. K. & LOTT, T. L. (eds.) Philosophers on race: critical essays. Oxford: Blackwell, p. 157.; EZE, E. C. 1997. The Color of Reason: The Idea of ‘Race’ in Kant’s Anthropology. In: EZE, E. C. (ed.) Postcolonial African philosophy: a critical reader. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, pp. 117–18. 15. See KLEINGELD, P. 2007. Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race. The philosophical Quarterly, 57: 229, 573–92.; KLEINGELD, P. 2014. Kant’s second thoughts on colonialism. In: FLIKSCHUH, K. & YPI, L. (eds.) Kant and Colonialism: Historical and Critical perspectives. first ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 43–67. 16. KANT, I. & YOUNG, J.  M. 1992. Lectures on logic, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 538. 17. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 238.

16 

J. Yab

18. For the importance of the charakteristik in Kant’s Anthropology, see RÖLLI, M. 2010. Person and Character in Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: PALMQUIST, S. (ed.) Cultivating ­personhood: Kant and Asian philosophy. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, pp. 447–54. 19. I deal with the notion of natural predispositions more extensively in Chap. 6. Kant’s account of natural predispositions is spread throughout his writings on race including his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. However, he also develops this notion in other writings such as Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Critique of the Power of Judgement and Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. I argue that this notion plays a significant role in Kant’s philosophy and has direct consequences on his cosmopolitanism. 20. KANT, I. 2007. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 32. 21. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the Concept of Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R.  B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 145. 22. KLEINGELD, P. 2007. Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race. The philosophical Quarterly, 57: 229, p. 588. 23. KANT, I., KLEINGELD, P., WALDRON, J., DOYLE, M.  W. & WOOD, A. W. 2006. Toward perpetual peace and other writings on politics, peace, and history, New Haven, Yale University Press, pp. 87–88. 24. KANT, I. 2007. Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New  York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 107–20. 25. YPI, L. 2014. Commerce and colonialism in Kant’s philosophy. In: FLIKSCHUH, K. & YPI, L. (eds.) Kant and Colonialism: Historical and Critical perspectives. first ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 99–126.

Part I Problematising the “Orthodox” Reading

2 Kant on Race: The Current Debate

If we compare the cast of mind of human beings in so far as one of these species of feeling (sublime, beautiful and magnificent sublime) dominates in them and determines their moral character, we find that each of them stands in closer kinship with one of the temperaments as they are usually divided. —Kant, I. (2007). Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education, p. 32. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press.

In 1764, at the beginning of his career, in his book Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime Kant introduces his doctrine of the “Charakteristik” through the four temperaments, which constitutes the moral character of an individual according to its possession and dispossession of the more unusual feeling of the beautiful and sublime. The “Charakteristik” is the distinguishing feature of the human species. Moreover, at the end of his life, in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View in 1798, in a chapter called “Anthropological ‘Charakteristik,’” Kant will continue to discuss the significance of the “Charakteristik” through the same doctrine of the four temperaments, which are melancholic, sanguine, choleric and phlegmatic. It is from this notion that © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Yab, Kant and the Politics of Racism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69101-1_2

19

20 

J. Yab

Kant defines his theory of race, and he came back to it from time to time only to respond to his critiques and to make it fit the historical development of his thought. In this chapter, I will show that the orthodox reading failed to identify the moral problems of Kant’s theory of race because of the use of the apologetics approach that defines the theory only over its dismissive comments on non-White races. This prevented that reading from acknowledging that the notion of “Charakteristik” translated by a doctrine of the four temperaments grounded in Kant’s natural predispositions is the unique feature that defines the theory persistently and permanently. To make my claim clear, I first display the different analyses of the orthodox reading. Second, I consider what I perceive as the central problems in Kant’s theory; this will give me sufficient ground to reject the orthodox narrative. Moreover, I shall finally suggest several steps towards an alternative reading of Kant’s theory of race (heterodox reading).

 he “Orthodox Reading” of Kant’s T Theory of Race Emmanuel Eze’s Wakeup Call In 1987 Emmanuel Eze published an essay, “The Colour of Reason: The idea of “Race” in Kant’s Anthropology,”1 in which he argues that Kant made racist comments and formulated a transcendental theory of race that claims White superiority. His essay put Kant’s pre-critical writings in the spotlight. Before Eze’s publication, Kant’s pre-critical writings were dismissed from his curriculum. Previous attempts to analyse Kant’s racial comments by Ronald Judy in Kant and the Negro,2 and to a lesser degree Christian Neugebauer in The racism of Kant and Hegel,3 did not have the wakeup call impact that Eze’s essay delivered to Kant’s scholarship. Eze’s essay was widespread mainly because he examines how Kant’s racial comments fit together with Kant’s critical philosophy. In his view, Kant’s racial comments, at the very minimum:

2  Kant on Race: The Current Debate 

21

Belong in an intimate way to his transcendental philosophy, or at least cannot be understood without the acknowledgement of the transcendental grounding that Kant explicitly provides them.4

To defend his case, Eze claims that Kant uses his transcendental philosophy to formulate his racial theory. In his view, Kant assumes his racial hierarchy a priori grounded, meaning that it is founded on the idea of being “inevitably inherited by nature.”5 It implies that racial classification is the necessary truth. From Kant’s critique of Buffon, who affirms that “the geographical distribution of races is a fact, but the differences among races are permanent and fixed, and transcend climatic or any other environmental factors,”6 and from his critique of Linnaeus for whom the classificatory system is artificial and “a mere synthetic aggregate rather than an analytically, logically grounded system,”7 Eze concluded that Kant rejected both classifications because they were transcendentally ungrounded, since in his view “scientific knowledge has to have a transcendental grounding, for it is such a foundation that confers upon scientific knowledge the status of universality, permanence, and fixity.”8 This transcendental grounding calls for constitutive and regulative principles. Constitutive principles are principles that determine how in general the object of experience must be; these are principles of the possibility of the object of experience, and regulative principles are principles on how we ought to think about an object of experience. For example, Kant appeals to the monogenesis over polygenesis as an explanation of the origin of the human species under the principle of the systematic unity of nature and the idea that causes must not be multiplied unnecessarily. As Eze saw things, people have been grievously misinterpreting Kant by reading his theory of race and his anthropology as if they were peripheral to his overall thought. To him, unless we pull together all principles in which Kant’s theory of race is attached, we will not comprehend it. Therefore, we should recognise Kant’s talk of the theory of race as referring to the “struggle over the meaning of man or the project defining what it means to become human”9 because as he points out elsewhere: When he (Kant) classified the field of philosophy into four categories, 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope? and 4. What is man? Kant observed that the first interrogation fits with metaphysics, the second

22 

J. Yab

with morality, the third with religion, but all could be considered to fit the fourth, anthropology, since “at end the first three interrogations convey to the latest.”10 This is why Kant’s theory of race is inherently part of his philosophical system and derived from a priori principles. As a result of Eze’s works, studies of Kant’s theory of race began to flourish. An overview of readings in Kant’s racial theory shows that the question commentators try to answer is whether Kant’s racial comments affect his philosophy. Thus, there is no denial of Kant’s racialism but a disagreement concerning its impact on his philosophy as a whole, with commentators limiting their goal either to defending or at the end to denying Eze’s claims. It has created a dynamic debate in which two distinct positions confront each other. Encapsulating Ron Mallon’s definition of racialism as “the idea that humans can be divided into natural groups whose members have characteristics … including physical, psychological, and characterological properties, and anti-racialism is the denial of this view,”11 we can distinguish, on the one hand, commentators such as Eze, Mills and Bernasconi12 who assert that Kant’s racial comments are to be taken seriously. Kant’s peripheral and central ideas are connected in multiple ways, and therefore his racial comments damage his moral claims considerably. On the other hand, Kant’s egalitarianism defenders acknowledge Kant’s racialism as an issue but argue that whatever the prejudices posed by these comments, Kant’s moral claims are beyond the prejudices.13 Therefore, we can quickly isolate these comments because they are peripheral to Kant’s central claims.

Racialism Believers Bernasconi believes that Kant is the inventor of the concept of race since he “gave the concept sufficient definition for subsequent users to believe that they were addressing something whose scientific status could at least be debated.”14 Drawing on several of Kant’s writings and using unpublished manuscript notes, Bernasconi explains that, for Kant, Whites “contain all the impulses of nature in affects and passions, all talents, all dispositions to culture and civilisation and can as readily obey as govern. They are the only ones who always advance to perfection.”15 Moreover,

2  Kant on Race: The Current Debate 

23

because he nowhere condemns slavery this leads Bernasconi to argue that, for Kant, the Negros and the natives of America were not equal to the White race. It is also the position shared by Mills but in a more extreme way. Charles Mills argues that Negros in Kant’s conception are not persons but sub-persons because they lack a drive to activity, and therefore lack the mental aptitudes to be self-capable and effective in northern climates. He believes it is misrepresenting Kant’s philosophy to understand the term “race” as if it were race-neutral because it is closely related to the notion of personhood. Moreover, the notion of personhood is raced in Kant’s philosophy. He defends the position that Kant’s notion of personhood is related to the conception “sub-person (Untermenschen).”16 He considers a person to be a moral agent “whose attainment requires more than humanity.”17 Humanity is a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition to be a person. A person is a human being who possesses the moral characteristic to choose and perform his ends. Hence, a person is a rational agent capable of moral-self-determination. However, because Negroes and natives of America are not able to govern themselves because of their lack of moral character, they are not persons with full moral status but sub-persons that Mills defines as: “humanoid entities who, because of deficiencies linked with race, lack the moral status requisite for enjoyment of the bundle of rights and freedom appropriate for persons.”18 It means that Kant’s universal law and humanity formulations of the categorical imperative are not universal since they do not involve all human beings and include only White persons. According to Mills, if maxims that qualify as universal laws of reason are understood as principles of action for a specific category of human beings only, then it immediately follows that these maxims are not universal. For Mills, race determines membership in the kingdom of ends. Hence Kant’s portrayal as a moral Universalist-egalitarian philosopher is not adequate. It is the conclusion that Kant’s defenders completely deny.

24 

J. Yab

Universalism’s Defenders Allan Wood posits in defence of Kant that it is essential to study the history of ethics in order “to improve our understanding of ethical issues so that we may justify, criticise and correct our opinions about them.”19 Wood picks up the value of individual rights, the equality of all human beings and cosmopolitan right as the crowning achievement of Kant’s ethics. He argues that: Kant’s views about gender and race offend us not merely because we now see them as false, but rather because we see them as demeaning to the human dignity of women and non-Whites.20

We also need to respect the unity of his thought since this means “distinguishing the teachings that are central to it from those that are peripheral and separating the conclusions that follow from his principles from the conclusions he may have drawn but do not follow.”21,22 For Wood, this respect is unsuited to the views that treat Kant’s racialism as some “hidden key to the real meaning of his principle that all beings are possessed of equal dignity.”23 Similarly, Louden affirms that there is a separation between Kant’s ethics and his racial comments. He argues that the challenging tension, or even the paradox between the contents of Kant anthropology which ranks people and races, and thereby restrains the possibility of evolution and moral maturity to a small group of Europeans, and the fundamental arguments of the ‘pure part’ of moral philosophy expressed by critical as well as sympathetic interpreters of Kant, is a result of insufficient knowledge of Kantian writings on one hand and the misinterpretation of their special theoretical status on the other. Louden argues that: Kant’s writings do exhibit many private prejudices and contradictory tendencies…. However, Kant’s theory is, fortunately, stronger than his prejudices, and it is the theory on which philosophers should focus.24

Louden considers that Kant’s core theory is egalitarian, and his racist views are peripheral and should be distinguished as such. The positions

2  Kant on Race: The Current Debate 

25

advanced by Wood and Louden are extreme in the sense that they affirm that Kant’s racial comments have no impact at all in his philosophy. This position is distinct from a more moderate view expressed by Boxill and Hill. Both Boxill and Hill recognise that Kant articulated opinions that can be called racist and that he fails to dismiss these opinions, but they deny Eze’s conclusion that Kant’s critical moral philosophy is tainted with racism. Instead, they claim that: The moral theory can serve as a reasonable framework for addressing contemporary racial problems, provided it is suitably supplemented with realistic awareness of the facts about racism and purged from association with certain false empirical beliefs and inessential derivative theses.25

In other words, Boxill and Hill consider that we can understand the Kantian view of the categorical imperatives of practical reason as a conceptual ground from which we can conclusively affirm that every human being is an end in itself and that the preservation and full realisation of our humanity is the constitutive aim of fully autonomous human beings. Furthermore, Boxill and Hill suggest that we can also use the categorical imperative to dismiss Kant’s inadequate empirical views on race. For Boxill and Hill, even if we concede to Eze that Kant’s racial views were essential to Kant, and that he used his a priori methodology to derive his theory from it, it does not follow that Kant’s racial theory is racist just because it implies a juxtaposition of races. A theory is racist “if and only if it relies on the culpable neglect of evidence that could have disproved or expresses or encourages contempt or disregard for people because of the race they alleged to belong to.”26 In other words because Kant seems not to be aware of the evidence that could have disproved his theory, that fact make him free from racism intentions. Whether they defend or accuse Kant, both sides acknowledge that the unity of Kant’s thought is compatible with the division according to which some teachings are central and some are peripheral in Kant’s philosophy. Hence the question is how to separate the conclusions that follow from his principles from the conclusions that he may have drawn but does not follow (Boxill and Hill). The third type of view is represented by

26 

J. Yab

Pauline Kleingeld, who considers that there is no need to engage in this enterprise because Kant changed his mind on race, and that what matters is the fact that Kant had second thoughts on race and that he abandoned his views on racial hierarchy.

Inconsistent Universalism If Eze is the one who certainly brought to the public attention the relevance of Kant’s theory of race, Pauline Kleingeld’s essay “Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race”27 has shifted the debate from the question of how Kant’s racial views affect his philosophy to the question of Kant’s redemption. The new question is: Did Kant defend his racial views beyond the critical turn and at the end of his life? Kleingeld believes that even if Kant’s principles are race-neutral in their formulation, his racism still influences the articulation of “intermediate principles and the selection of central problems to be addressed.”28 Kleingeld’s overall argument is that Kant had second thoughts on race in late 1792 and that he abandoned his racial hierarchy to embrace a universal principle of human nature. (A similar position has also been advocated by Susan Shell and by Sankar Muthu.29) The evidence for this, according to Kleingeld, is Kant’s formulation of cosmopolitanism and his criticism of the slave trade and colonialism that he formulated in Toward Perpetual Peace written in 1794–1795. She states that in the mid-1790s Kant introduces a new distinction between “international right” and “cosmopolitan right.” The first concerns states and regulates their interaction; the second concerns individuals as “citizens of the world”30 and regulates the interaction between states and foreign individuals. Kleingeld claims that cosmopolitan right applies to humans on all continents, and is explicitly incompatible with slavery and colonialism. For Kleingeld, Kant’s cosmopolitanism is a remedy to his racism. It is a way for Kant to address the injustices of European colonialism and to set a new egalitarian path for future relations between citizens of the world.

2  Kant on Race: The Current Debate 

27

What about the Orthodox Reading Narratives? Those interpretations suffer from a similar defect: they make Kant either displeasing or palatable, but only at the expense of accuracy. None of these interpretations has made Kant’s theory of race the object of their analysis. Racial comments have always been their goal. Even if they have often started their analysis with an overview of the content of Kant’s theory, this content was always subordinated to a focus on Kant’s racial comments. This is what I mean when I claim that the “orthodox reading” took an apologetic methodology. It has the consequence of overlooking the development and the consistency of the theory of race and its place in Kant’s thought. By contrast, I will argue that Kant’s theory of race has its foundations in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime in 1764 and its completion in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View in 1798. This wide view would be difficult to notice if I were to analyse Kant’s racial comments. When Eze talks about the implications of his theory of race, for example, what he means is the implications of Kant’s racial comments for his philosophy. He analyses whether Kant’s dismissive comments are compatible with the categorical imperative. This has the consequence of forcing concepts such as sub-person into Kant’s philosophy. The analysis of comments isolated from their real content is the source of inconsistent borrowing, such as the notion of “sub-person” that Mills uses to support his claim. Kant’s critics and defenders have progressed from the starting point of Eze’s claims, which restricted the scope of their study. Furthermore, they also proceeded from the inaccurate assumption that Kant’s philosophy is divided into central and peripheral claims. I argue that this assumption is not aligned with Kant’s view of his system. Consequently, the “orthodox reading” failed to notice the notion of “Charakteristik,” which constitutes the cornerstone of his theory and unites all parts of his philosophy. As I have pointed out the key features of the “orthodox readings,” I now explain what is wrong with these approaches. However, first I want to convey why Kant’s theory of race must have looked so unappealing to many for so long and the problems it reveals.

28 

J. Yab

Notes 1. EZE, E. C. 1997. The Color of Reason: The Idea of ‘Race’ in Kant’s Anthropology. In: EZE, E. C. (ed.) Postcolonial African philosophy: a critical reader. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, pp. 117–18. 2. JUDY, R. 1991. Kant and the Negro. Surfaces [Online], 1.8. 3. ORUKA, H. O. E. 1990. The racism of Kant and Hegel. In: ORUKA, H. O. E. (ed.) Sage philosophy: indigenous thinkers and modern debate on African philosophy. Brill, pp. 259–74. 4. EZE, E. C. 1997. The Color of Reason: The Idea of ‘Race’ in Kant Anthropology. In: EZE, E. C. (ed.) Postcolonial African philosophy: a critical reader. Cambridge, Mass.; Oxford: Blackwell, p. 130. 5. Ibid., p. 120. 6. Ibid., p. 119. 7. Ibid., p. 120. 8. Ibid. 9. EZE, E. C. 1997. The Color of Reason: The Idea of ‘Race’ in Kant’s Anthropology. In: EZE, E. C. (ed.) Postcolonial African philosophy: a critical reader. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, pp. 117–18. 10. EZE, E. C. 2001. Achieving our humanity: the idea of the post racial future, London, Routledge. 11. MALLON, R. 2010. Sources of Racialism. Journal of Social Philosophy, 41, pp. 272–92. 12. See MILLS, C. W. 1997. The racial contract, Ithaca, N.Y.; London, Cornell University.; MILLS, C. W. 1998. Blackness visible: essays on philosophy and race, Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press.; BERNASCONI, R. 2001. Who Invented the Concept of Race? Kant’s Role in the Enlightenment Construction of Race. In: BERNASCONI, R. (ed.) Race. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, p.14.; BERNASCONI, R. 2003. Race and anthropology, Bristol, Thoemmes.; BERNASCONI, R. & LOTT, T. L. 2000. The idea of race, Indianapolis, Hackett Pub. Co, MILLS, C. W. 2005. Kant’s Untermenschen. in: VALLS, A. (ed.) Race and racism in modern philosophy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press; [Bristol: University Presses Marketing distributor], pp. 169–94.; EZE, E. C. 1997. The color of reason: The Idea of race in Kant’s philosophy. In: EZE, E. C. (ed.) Postcolonial African philosophy: a critical reader. Cambridge, Mass.; Oxford: Blackwell, p. 119.; EZE, E. C. 1997. Race and the Enlightenment: a reader, Cambridge, Mass., Blackwell.

2  Kant on Race: The Current Debate 

29

13. See BOXILL, B. R. & HILL, T. E. 2001. Kant and Race. In: BOXILL, B. R. (ed.) Race and racism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 448–72.; LOUDEN, R. B. 2000. Kant’s impure ethics: from rational beings to human beings, New York; Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 105.; WOOD, A. W. 1999. Kant’s ethical thought, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 3.; MUTHU, S. 2003. Enlightenment against empire, Princeton, Princeton University Press.; KLEINGELD, P. 2007. Kant’s second thoughts on race. Philosophical Quarterly, 57, 573–92. 14. BERNASCONI, R. 2001. Who Invented the Concept of Race? Kant’s Role in the Enlightenment Construction of Race. In: BERNASCONI, R. (ed.) Race. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, p.14. 15. BERNASCONI, R. 2002. Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Racism. In: WARD, J. K. & LOTT, T. L. (eds.) Philosophers on race: critical essays. Oxford: Blackwell, p. 157. 16. MILLS, C. W. 2005. Kant’s Untermenschen. in: VALLS, A. (ed.) Race and racism in modern philosophy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press; [Bristol: University Presses Marketing distributor], pp. 169–94. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. WOOD, A. W. 1999. Kant’s ethical thought, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 3. 20. Ibid.,p. 5. 21. Ibid., p. 4. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. LOUDEN, R. B. 2000. Kant’s impure ethics: from rational beings to human beings, New York; Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 105. 25. BOXILL, B. R. & HILL, T. E. 2001. Kant and Race. In: BOXILL, B. R. (ed.) Race and racism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 448–72. 26. Ibid. 27. KLEINGELD, P. 2007. Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race. The Philosophical Quarterly, 57:229, 573–92. 28. Ibid., p. 584. 29. MUTHU, S. 2003. Enlightenment against empire, Princeton, Princeton University Press, SHELL, S. M. 1996. The embodiment of reason: Kant on spirit, generation, and community, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. 30. KLEINGELD, P. 2007. Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race. The Philosophical Quarterly, 57:229, 573–92.

3 Critique of the Orthodox Reading

Even if Kant’s racial theory receives more attention and is often severely criticised both by those who sympathise with Kant and those who do not, Kant’s racial theory is not, I believe, well understood within contemporary political theory, mainly because Kant’s texts are tricky texts and sometimes the translations do not help. However, Kant’s racial theory not being well understood also has to do with how Kant scholars perceive him. For a long time, Kant has been portrayed as a pure moral philosopher. After all, his universal law and humanity formulations of the categorical imperative which says respectively that, act on the basis of a maxim that could hold as a universal law and act that you treat the humanity in your person, as well as in every other person, always at the same time as an end, and never as a means only, these formulations prove that Kant is the most influential thinker of the egalitarian tradition. Thus, for Kant’s readers, it is hard to believe that at the same time he made racial comments that undermine the beauty and dignity of human nature for which he was known as an advocate. That is why although in the previous paragraphs I have described various positions regarding Kant’s racial comments within the current debate, in this section I would like to problematize these claims within their context. That is, I want to expose © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Yab, Kant and the Politics of Racism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69101-1_3

31

32 

J. Yab

the problems posed by his comments in their philosophical context. Before going into detail about Kant’s claims, let me first explain the textual context of this book. It is well known that Kant wrote only three essays on race, namely: “On the Different Races of Human Beings” of 1775, “Determination of the Concept of a Human Race” of 1785 and “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy” of 1788. I argue that in addition to Kant’s lectures in anthropology and physical geography, two writings deserve our full attention: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime of 1764 and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View of 1798. My claim is that the former laid down the foundation of Kant’s theory of race and the latter indicates its completion. Both texts appear only sporadically within the literature that discusses Kant’s racial theory. As we will see in this section, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime is fundamental to Kant’s conception of race in the sense that it introduces systematically the conception of “Charakteristik” from which Kant’s theory of race and subsequently his anthropology and moral philosophy is based. Moreover, it is in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime that the problems of Kant’s theory of race have been precisely formulated. These are: (1) the completeness of the character of the White race with its subsequent issue, the incompleteness of the character of the race of the natives of America and (2) the dispossession of the character of the beauty and human dignity of the Negro race. The other essays are only the development of this formulation.

 he Completeness of the Character T of the White Race The completeness of the character of the White race is Kant’s ontological argument within the “Charakteristik” narrative, which asserts that the White race possesses a natural character that is absolute, in the sense that it has all the necessary ingredients for moral action. This claim exists

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

33

already in his lectures on physical geography1 in which he affirms that “Humanity is at its greatest perfection in the race of the Whites”2 because the “White race contains all incentives and talents.”3 These affirmations occur in a chapter in which Kant describes the natural moral character of different races from different parts of the globe. Kant here draws an inferential relation between the White race and their perfection. The completeness derives from the inherent natural talents and natural predispositions which the White race appears to possess exclusively. The White race is therefore superior, and it is the only non-deficient race, which is why “they have over the history always educated and dominated other races with their weapons.” The reason why I include these quotations is that in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, published in 1764, Kant has already presented a systematic conception of “the completeness of the character of the White race” in which he classifies the moral character of different nationalities according to the possession or dispossession of the feeling of the beautiful and sublime. He then determines a typology of national characters and racial differences and their implication in the arts and sciences. From the juxtaposition of national characters, it follows that the White race occupies the upper category and non-White races the lower category, as indicated in Tables 3.1 and 3.2. In the opening of section 4 of Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime Kant states that: Among the peoples of our part of the world the Italians and the French are, in my opinion, those who most distinguish themselves in the feeling of the beautiful, but Germans, the English, and the Spaniard those who are most distinguished from all other in the feeling of the sublime.4

The phrase “peoples of our part of the world”5 shows that Kant refers to Europeans, but it also demonstrates that Europeans are the referential category. For example, “Persians are the Frenchman of Asia,”6 that is, they are good poets, and they have fine taste. The “Japanese can be regarded as it were the Englishman”7 of this part of the world. With the claim

34 

J. Yab

Table 3.1  Upper nationalities character Nationa- Feeling lities Beautiful German Yes but not dominant

English

Yes but not dominant

Spaniard Yes but not dominant French

Laughing Charming

Italian

Enchanting Touching

Dutch

Little

Sublime

Character

Magnificent Feeling which mixes English and French Happy mixture of beautiful and sublime Noble Understanding, resolute and steadfast. Great services Terrifying Serious, taciturn and truthful. Great actions Yes but not Refined, dominant courteous and complaisant

Arts & Sciences

Religion

Wit charming and nobler

Honourable origin

Tragedy Epic Poetry

Honourable Origin

Little feeling in Honourable fine arts and origin sciences Music—Painting Honourable Architecture— origin Poetry Rhetoric Yes but not Feeling which Music—Painting Honourable dominant mixes Sculpture— origin Spaniard and Architecture French Little Orderly Painstaking and Honourable Industrious decorousness origin

Table 3.2  Lower nationalities character Feeling Nationalities Beautiful

Sublime

Arab (Spaniard Degenerated Degenerated of the adventurous adventurous Orient) Fine taste Fine taste Persian (French of Asia) Japanese Few marks Few marks (English of Asia) Indian (Native of America) Chinese Negro

No

No

Character Art & Sciences

Religion

Hospitable Unnatural Generous Distorted images Courtly Good poet

Great adventure Not strict observer of Islam

Stead fastness Grotes queries

Stupid

Grotesqueries

Grotesqueries

Grotesque painting No talent

Grotesqueries Grotesqueries

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

35

regarding the completeness of the character of the White race, Kant’s theory of race appears to be a systematic theoretical conception of the negation of other races. As Marc Larrimore suggests: “Kant in fact referred to Whites using all the terms against which he had defined race”8 and therefore, “By tucking into his theory of race an idea of Whites distinguished by a completeness no other race could attain, Kant invented ‘Whiteness’ at the same time and by means of his theory of race.”9 This problem is better understood when examining it in contrast with the incompleteness of the character of the Native American race. Kant affirms that because the ancestors of Native American migrated too fast, this prevented the completion of the process of character formation that we find in the White race. The incomplete development of their temperament could explain their congenital weakness. This is the only reason which according to Kant can explain their weakness. Their lack of drive to activity is tantamount to natural predispositions that mere nature placed in the original phylum. However, why is the completeness of the character of the White race the issue here? Because in affirming both the inherent strength of the character of the White race and the congenital weakness of the character of the Native American race, Kant argues that the ontological difference between races is their moral character. Furthermore, Kant establishes the character of the White race as the reference point for the character of all races. Non-White races are judged according to the race standard, which is White. The completeness of the character of the White race is an issue that Kant never overcame. He is committed to this idea from the beginning to the end of his career. The completeness of the character of the White race has not gathered enough attention in Kant’s scholarship because it is overshadowed by the second problem of his theory: “the dispossession of the character of beauty and human dignity of the Negro race.” I would like to highlight that these are two different issues. Treating them separately is essential in the understanding of claims such as the one that Kant had second thoughts on race (Kleingeld).

36 

J. Yab

 he Dispossession of the Character of Human T Dignity of the Negro Race In Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, in which Kant discusses the form of differences between beautiful and sublime, Kant makes two distinctive assertions that undermine the moral and intellectual capacity of the Negro to enjoy the feeling of the beautiful and sublime. The first quotation occurs at the beginning of section 4. Kant claims that: Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the ridiculous. Mr. Hume challenges anyone to adduce a single example where a Negro 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. So essential is the difference between these two humankinds, and it seems to be just as great with regard to the capacities of mind as it is with respect to the colour.10

The second assertion follows in the same section and as a support to the first quotation when Kant recalls reports from one Father Labat: Indeed, Father Labat reports that a Negro carpenter, whom he reproached for haughty treatment of his wives, replied: ‘You White are real fools, for first, you concede so much to your wives, and then you complain when they drive you crazy.’ There might be something here worth considering, except for the fact that this scoundrel was completely black from head to foot, a distinct proof that what he said was stupid.11

These assertions appear at the end of Kant’s book as a sort of conclusion of the essay after a demonstration in which he has just laid down the foundation of what he would call later Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View.”12 The first quotation concerns the Negro’s capacity for feeling and the second quotation deals with the relation between black colour and moral capacities. The claim of “the dispossession of human dignity of the Negro race” can be summarised as follows:

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

37

A. The feeling of the beautiful and sublime is a necessary condition of the feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature. B. The Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling of the beautiful and sublime. C. Given A and B it follows that: D. The Negroes of Africa have no feeling of the beauty and the dignity of human nature. Moreover, C is consistent with Kant’s original claim in quotation (1). The issue of “the dispossession of the character of the beauty and human dignity of the negro race” asserts that the Negro race is inferior because they have no excellent feeling of the beautiful and sublime. To understand the importance of the finer feeling let us recall what Kant was trying to achieve in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. In this book, Kant outlines the geographical and psychological “Charakteristik” of the human species towards the study of the feeling of the beautiful and sublime, which signifies for him the higher realms of the aesthetic experience. He describes the character of the feeling as a “sentiment of gratification or vexation…intrinsic to every person, of being touched …with pleasure or displeasure.”13 According to Kant, while almost every human being is capable of feeling the “vulgar sensuality”14 that does not necessitate moral and intellectual character, only a cultivated character is capable of experiencing both the feeling of the beautiful, which he defines as pleasure in an object that is “joyful and smiling,”15 and the feeling of the sublime, which is a satisfaction in an object but with “awe.” Among those with the cultivated character, people from Western Europe occupy the top of the hierarchy. The Indians and the Chinese have an ascendant taste for “grotesqueries,”16 and as such they are capable of a limited or distorted sense of the beautiful and sublime, but the Negroes in contrast have no capacity for the beautiful and sublime, and hence they occupy the lowest rank. Kant offers here an empirical analysis of the feeling through reflection on examples. He claims that different nations have different aesthetic and moral characters. As shown in Fig. 3.1, the interest of Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime lies therefore not in how he defines the character of the sublime and beautiful but in how nature distributes these characters to different races.

38 

J. Yab White European

Providence Character of the Feeling

Sublime

Beautiful

Magnificent Sublime

Lack finer of feeling

Sympathy and complaisance

Honour and shame

Deprived of incentives

No virtue

Terrfying Noble Motivation

Principles

Attitude

True virtue

Adopted virtue

Simulacrum of virtue

Mind

Noble heart

Good heart

Artificial

Cruder

Melancholic

Sanguine

Choleric

Phlegmatic

Person

Understanding. wit, boldness, cunning, caution, truthfulness, honesty, jocularity, flattery, civility, refinement, courtliness, esteem love, honesty, steadiness, seriousness, friendship, cleverness, admiration, tenderness. Vices and moral fallings: Wrath, brazen revenge, resolute audacity are sublime. Cunningly conceived scheme, wanton inclination are beautiful.

Art

religion

Sciences

Fig. 3.1  White European characters of the feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature

Kant classifies the German at the top because “he has a happy mixture in the feeling of the sublime as well as the beautiful…he surpasses them both [Englishman and Frenchman] insofar [as] he combines them.”17 Negroes, as stated earlier, have no sense of the beautiful or sublime beyond the trifling, and consequently they occupy the lowest rank (Fig. 3.1).

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

39

What is at stake here is how this character of the feeling is distributed among human beings. It is clear from this that only White Europeans are capable of moral character. As far as they are concerned, the critical claim in what appears to be Kant’s germinating moral theory is that while behaving from the character of the feeling of love and sympathy towards others is beautiful, behaving from the character of respect for principles is sublime. Kant states that though dispositions such as love and sympathy are vital if they are balanced with virtue, they cannot direct any moral action unless higher principles set bounds for them. Kant means that it is ultimately a matter of contingency if these dispositions guide the agent towards morality. In other words, if the moral agent acts only out of the character of love and sympathy, there is no guarantee that her action will be moral. Only actions performed under general principles are moral actions. True virtue, he says, “can only be supported by principles which, the more general they are, the more sublime and noble they become.”18 The real question is what the sources of these principles are. Kant is not yet affirming that these general principles have their origin in pure practical reason, and instead he specifies that: These principles are not speculative rules, but the consciousness of a feeling that lives in every human breast and that extends much further than to the special grounds of sympathy and complaisance. I believe that I can bring all this together if I say that it is the feeling of the beauty and the dignity of human nature.19

Here Kant is laying down the foundation of his categorical imperative. However, the character of the principles is not theoretical but anthropological. To understand Kant’s affirmation, we need to specify that for Kant, reason is the faculty of principles, and its role is to regulate the interest of the powers of the mind. Kant therefore distinguishes the interest of speculative employment of reason from the interest of practical employment of reason. He considers that the interest of speculative employment of reason involves a priori understanding of the character of an object, whereas the importance of the practical use of reason consists in the determination of free will in respect to the final end. In suggesting that the rules that imply the beautiful character of action is not

40 

J. Yab

speculative, he means that the character of these principles is not a priori. Moreover, a priori principles are principles that are not justified by experience. In other words, the knowledge we derive from principles that implies that the character of the feeling of beauty is an empirical knowledge because it derives not from reason itself but from the sentiment of pleasure or displeasure that Providence has placed in the human breast. Hence, another formulation of “the dispossession of the character of beauty and dignity of human nature of the Negro race” is as follows: A1. The feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature lives in every human breast. B1. The Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling of the beautiful and sublime. Given A1 and B1 it follows that: C1. The Negroes of Africa do not get a human breast. Although A1 and B1 justify C1, C1 is not Kant’s conclusion because this could imply that the Negros are not human beings. However, Kant effectively considers Negros as human. Instead, he holds that: C. The Negroes of Africa have no feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature. Let us remember that, for Kant, the feeling of beauty is the ground of “universal affection”20 and the dignity of human nature is the ground of “universal respect.”21 We can observe the anticipation that Kant is making here about his claim in Groundwork that the foundation of morality and the ground of the categorical imperative is the dignity of the human being as an end in itself.22 The problem of “the dispossession of the character of the dignity of human nature of the Negro race” is therefore one of the fundamental problems of Kant’s theory of race. If, according to Kant, the Negro race has no feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature, this implies that they lack the ground of a possible relation to the categorical imperative. Thus, they cannot act morally: they are incapable of moral autonomy. Practically, this means that the diagram of the feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature of the Negro is empty. Providence has placed no finer feeling in their breast; consequently, they

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

41

cannot motivate themselves to act according to principles. I think it is worth stating here that in the doctrine of the four temperaments (melancholic, sanguine, choleric and phlegmatic) described by Kant, the Negro does not possess any of these temperaments. It has been mistakenly argued that Kant describes the Negro as phlegmatic.23 However, a close reading of the doctrine of the four temperaments suggests that the phlegmatic is someone who lacks moral feeling. However, in contrast, Negroes by nature “have no feeling beyond the ridiculous.” Both statements may appear similar, but they are fundamentally different. The first difference is that Kant thinks that nature is the provider of all character of feelings. It is just purposively that nature chooses not to place the feeling of the beautiful and the sublime in the Negro race. Meanwhile, nature placed these feelings in the White race. As we will see later when I discuss the four temperaments in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, the character of the phlegmatic is a temperament that belongs to the soul just as do the other three temperaments. It is divided into two parts: the weak and the strong phlegmatic,24 and only the weak lacks moral feeling. The weak phlegm is someone with “the propensity to inactivity”25 who lacks “strong incentives,” whereas the strong phlegm is someone who “moves slowly but persistently…. He does not easily fly into a rage but reflects first whether he should become angry.”26 Thus, the phlegmatic can still become virtuous if nature places in his breath the strongest part. It is in line with Kant’s thinking when he says: “among the White, there are always those who rise from the lowest rabble and through extraordinary gifts earn respect in the world.”27 If the Negroes are phlegmatic as Larrimore suggests, then, there is an inevitable contradiction in Kant’s thought. However, for Kant—and this is the second difference between the two statements mentioned above—the Negro cannot rise. Moreover, to confirm this, Kant cites Mr. Hume, who challenges anyone to adduce a single example where a Negro 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.28

42 

J. Yab

It is evident in Kant’s mind that the Negro cannot become virtuous because virtue entails a character motivated by principles. Principles and the relation in which one stands to them are the product of the finer feeling. Without that feeling, it is not possible to accomplish anything in arts or sciences. As shown in the White European character of the feeling figure, it is only from the four temperaments that great actions are produced. If the Negroes are inept in sciences and arts, it is because they do not fall under the doctrine of the four temperaments, which is determined by human natural predispositions. Confronted with this depiction, it is no wonder that most Kant scholars would rather ignore his theory of race. It appears to be a flurry of confusions, contradictions and eccentricities. Having now offered a glimpse of Kant’s moral issues within his theory, I shall now turn to the objections to what I call the “orthodox reading” of Kant’s theory of race, that is, the reading that sees Kant either as an inconsistent Universalist or a consistent inegalitarian.

 bjections to the Orthodox Reading: Kant’s O Universalism Versus Kant’s Racialism Debate The “orthodox reading” of Kant takes for granted that his philosophy is divided into two parts and that these parts are qualitatively different. This reading states that the critical writings have predominance over Kant’s pre-critical writings because they contain what is considered to be Kant’s main philosophical claims. My contention in this section is to argue against this reading because, as I show below, it is not only a misleading approach, it is also inaccurate. This approach is misleading because it promotes the idea that Kant’s pre-critical writings are not of vital importance. It has the consequence of deterring Kant scholars and the general public from reading these texts. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why we have had decades of neglect of Kant’s anthropology, geography, history and education. The “orthodox reading” of Kant is inaccurate because it is not in line with the content of Kant’s anthropology; either it removes Kant’s theory of race from his philosophy or it affirms that it is peripheral. In doing so, the “orthodox reading” promotes its agenda over Kant’s

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

43

understanding of the place of the theory of race in his philosophical system. Furthermore, because it focuses attention on Kant’s racial comments over a systematic analysis of the theory itself, it generates a polarised debate that leaves unaddressed the critical question of why Kant took his philosophical system to require a theory of race in the first place. I consider two objections against the “orthodox reading.” These are objections intended to illustrate that the debate concerning Kant on race has taken an obstructive approach. I also turn the discussion on its head by suggesting an alternative reading. My ultimate aim in this section is to raise doubts about the soundness of various features of the “orthodox reading” that invite the objections we will examine.

First Objection: The Delineation of Kant’s Thought into Central and Peripheral Claims Is Inadequate and Senseless It is idiosyncratic to claim that the categorical imperative or Kant’s transcendental idealism, or Kant’s critical writings, in general, is more critical in Kant’s thought than his theory of race or the pre-critical writings, since there is no evidence to demonstrate that Kant’s philosophy is divided as such. Kant’s philosophy is a set of interrelated and interdependent arguments that form an architectonic system in such a way that if one argument is removed, it falls apart. The consequences of such a division are damaging to the overall comprehension of Kant’s philosophy because they bias our understanding of Kant’s system. There are three reasons for this objection: a) the preponderance of Kant’s teaching, b) Kant’s view concerning his philosophical system and c) the content of Kant’s philosophical system.

The Preponderance of Kant’s Teaching The arithmetic reason is straightforward and stipulates that if we look at Kant’s career as a lecturer at the University of Konigsberg and make some arithmetic calculations about the number of lectures he gave; we will

44 

J. Yab

notice that he spent more time preparing and teaching physical geography and anthropology than on any other subject. It is well known that Kant totalled 82 semesters in his 41 years of his teaching career. Beginning with the 1755/56 winter semester and ending in the summer semester in 1796, he delivered an estimated 284 lectures. Out of this number, he gave 73 courses in anthropology and physical geography, 56  in logic, 53 in metaphysics, 28 in morals, 21 in Physics, 15 in mathematics, 12 in Law, 10 in the Encyclopaedia, 4 in theology, 4 in pedagogy, 2 in mechanics and 1 in mineralogy. He taught anthropology and physical geography from the second semester of his teaching career in 1756 until he retired in 1796. From these lectures, I have generated Fig. 3.2: As shown in Fig. 3.2, Kant spent 26% of his time teaching anthropology and physical geography, compared to 20% on logic and 19% on mathematics. The percentage of his time spent lecturing on anthropology and physical geography is higher than for any other subject. From these

Kant's lectures Theology 2%

Encyclopaedia 4% Law 4% Mathematics 5%

Mechanics 1%

Pedagogy 1%

Mineralogy 0% Anthropology & Physical Geography 26%

Physics 8% Moral 10% Metaphysics 19% Fig. 3.2  Kant’s lectures

Logic 20%

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

45

numbers, it is hard to believe that anthropology and physical geography, from which arose Kant’s theory of race, were not at the heart of his preoccupations. Moreover, as Wilson reminds us: “Kant never once taught his Critique of Pure Reason, but he taught what later his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View became.”29 The fact that Kant chose to teach his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View from the beginning to the end of his life demonstrates conclusively that anthropology was at the centre of his preoccupations. It is also worth noting that the book was not only the last he published but also the most successful in terms of sales.30 However, anthropology was critical not only for the considerable number of lectures but because Kant thought that it was essential.

Kant’s Own View Concerning His Philosophical System The second reason for the first objection is what Kant tells us about his philosophy. He assigns to anthropology the foundational role of his entire system. We must always remember that Kant articulated his theory of race within his writings on anthropology. Hence, if anthropology plays a foundational role in Kant’s thought, so too does his racial theory have prima facie claim to be seen as non-marginal. In his introduction to Lectures in Logic, Kant reminds us of the vital place that anthropology occupies within his philosophical system. He argues: The field of philosophy … may be reduced to the following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope? 4. What is man? The first question is answered by Metaphysics, the second by Morals, the third by Religion, and the fourth by Anthropology. In reality, however, all these might be reckoned under anthropology, since the first three questions refer to the last.31

In suggesting that anthropology encompasses all the questions addressed by metaphysics, morals and religion, Kant is clearly stating that the object of investigation of these different branches of his philosophy is the same, but that anthropology is the organising domain for achieving the complete picture. To get the real impact of this quotation, let us pause for a moment to recall what Kant is pursuing in these various parts of his philosophy.

46 

J. Yab

What is Kant’s metaphysics about? It is a theory of knowledge. Rather than imagining that our cognition conforms to objects of experience, he asks whether an object of experience can conform to our cognition. That is, what if the mind’s cognitive apparatus has no innate ideas and has a means of handling experience which intrinsically and implicitly structures our experience? In other words, what if there is a way that the human mind knows things? This is Kant’s Copernican revolution. It is the claim that human experience is not merely the outcome of the mind’s passive reception of senses; instead, the mind actively regulates our experience. These experiences come from specific objects with different attributes. Kant argues that we impose order in the world, applying categories that are universally valid. Since we actively shape experience, the object of experience conforms to the knowing subject, rather than the other way around. Thus, we can know nothing of the things as they are in themselves. Human beings experience only appearances, not things in themselves; space and time are subjective forms of human intuition that would not subsist in themselves if one were to abstract them from all subjective conditions of human intuition. Kant calls this thesis “transcendental idealism.” With this central thesis, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason sought to answer the question of how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible. He defeated Hume’s scepticism regarding the sciences by making synthetic a priori knowledge possible, that is, a priori knowledge about real things, not just about concepts, but on the other hand he has to distinguish the world as it appears from things in themselves, and things in themselves are outside the bounds of experience. This is what we can know, but what about what we ought to do? In the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant’s objective is to try to find out and establish the highest principle of morality. It would be the most general principle governing the decision-making of goodwill. The principle is the universal law formula of the categorical imperative, which he formulates in Groundwork as follows: “act only on that maxim that you could at the same time will that it was a universal law.” This is indeed the foundational law of pure practical reason. Moreover, in The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant claims that we can derive both all external rights that human beings have within a state and all inner ends of human virtue from the formulation he uses there: “act on the basis of a maxim

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

47

that can at the same time hold as a universal law.” This is for Kant the basis of rational behaviour. Now, what can we hope in acting according to the universal law? In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant succinctly expresses both his critical and his constructive attitude to religion, stating that he denies knowledge to make the possibility for faith. God appears not like the donor of the moral law, but as a postulate to fulfil a fundamental requirement of the moral law, namely, that a virtuous man is worthy of happiness. This is what we may hope. True religion is therefore ethical religion in which the kingdom of God is nothing other than the ethical commonwealth.32 After this brief description of Kant’s interests in metaphysics, morals and religion, let us now turn to the question of their relevance for anthropology. Why did Kant think that the questions of knowledge, moral law and happiness are derivations of the question of “What is man” which is addressed by Anthropology? The answer is straightforward. All of these three branches of philosophy are concerned with the question of “What is man.” In other words, it is not knowledge, moral law and happiness that metaphysics, morals and religion are concerned with, but the development of “human nature.” Moreover, the question of “What is man,” that is, “What is a human being,” is the fundamental concern of anthropology. This places us now in a position to enquire about the content of Kant’s anthropology.

The Content of Kant’s Philosophical System Kant’s anthropology is the answer to the question “what is a human being,” and Kant affirmed several times that this is the most important question of philosophy.33 If the central question of Kant’s philosophical preoccupations is to enquire about the human being and anthropology provides the full answer to this enquiry, since metaphysics, morals and religion only offer partial answers, how can Kant scholars argue that anthropology is peripheral to Kant’s philosophy? The content of anthropology is the real counter-argument against the defenders of the “orthodox reading.”

48 

J. Yab

Holly Wilson in her book Kant’s Pragmatic Anthropology has demonstrated that the “orthodox reading” of Kant that emphasises the primacy of Kant’s critical writings over the pre-critical is inadequate. She states: The common place and seemingly obvious distinction between rational and empirical made it impossible for me to see that Kant’s philosophy does not break along those lines of distinction. It is simply not the case that Kant’s critical and moral philosophy are rational philosophy, and his philosophies of anthropology, education, geography, history and religion are empirical philosophy, and that the rational philosophy is superior to empirical philosophy.34

This citation from the introduction of Kant’s Pragmatic Anthropology denotes one of the principal reasons for the misinterpretation of Kant’s theory of race and indeed of his entire anthropology, which is the scholastic delineation of Kant’s thought between central and peripheral claims or essential and non-important parts of his thought. To prove her point, Wilson has investigated the sources, the significance and more importantly the connection between anthropology and Kant’s moral philosophy. Wilson succeeded in demonstrating that Kant’s anthropology is philosophical anthropology because it ultimately encompasses his theory of human nature, which, according to Wilson, is the conception that the human being is “the animal capable of becoming rational”35 by developing its natural predispositions from “animality” to morality. This is, first, cultivating the predispositions first to animality through discipline. Second, it is developing technical predispositions through technical skills. Third, it is also cultivating prudence to reach pragmatic predispositions, and finally, it is developing the wisdom to actualise moral predispositions. From there, Wilson also succeeds in establishing that there is no stance in Kant’s thought that draws a line to separate his anthropology from the rest of his philosophy. She argues that since teleological judgements are embedded in Kant’s anthropology, that is, the skill “of being able to choose the appropriate means to contingent and necessary ends,”36 this means that Kant’s anthropology is philosophical. The purposiveness of the teleological judgements in Kant’s anthropology shows that “there are certain a priori principles necessary in order to judge natural organic

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

49

beings in their purposiveness.”37 For Wilson, if teleological judgements and a priori principles are embedded in Kant’s anthropology, this also demonstrates that his anthropology is critical since the underlying ambitions that animate the Critique of Judgment and in the Critique of Teleological Judgment can also be found in his anthropology. Wilson asserts that “it is for the sake of judgment”38 not for anything else that Kant writes these texts. It is therefore trivial to ascribe, for example, more importance to the Critique of Judgment while neglecting Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View because the purposiveness of the teleological judgements grounded in the former is the same as in the latter. Although Wilson succeeded in demonstrating the centrality of Kant’s philosophical anthropology for his systematic ends, she failed to mention Kant’s theory of race. When reading Wilson’s book, it seems like Kant never elaborated about race. While Wilson’s principal argument is to prove that Kant’s anthropology is about the philosophical conception of human nature, she brilliantly manages to extract Kant’s theory with his racial comments from his conception of human nature. In doing so, Wilson biases the comprehension of Kant’s theory of human nature. Even if she succeeds in showing that anthropology is central in Kant’s thought, she just pushes further back the question of the importance of Kant’s theory of race by subtracting his racial comments from his theory of human nature. This demonstrates how embarrassed Kant scholars are when dealing with his theory of race. Wilson extracts Kant’s racial views to make his theory of human nature seem palatable. Although Wilson does not offer an ‘“orthodox reading”’ of Kant, she falls into the trap of eliding the question of the place of Kant’s theory of race in his philosophical system. Eze, in trying to prove that Kant derives his theory of race from his general philosophical principles, accepts implicitly the “orthodox reading,” which presupposes that there are central and peripheral ideas in Kant’s system, and that peripheral ideas is worthwhile only if they are derived from the central ones. This is why he states, for instance, that Kant’s “racial differences and racial classifications are based a priori on the reason of the natural scientist.”39 Mills also proceeds from the definite conviction that Kant’s core argument, namely the categorical imperative, is tainted with racism. This makes him the candidate of the “orthodox

50 

J. Yab

reading” par excellence. Even if he notices that there are no principles from which we can decide what argument is central or not in Kant’s thought, and that such principles, if they did exist, would never get the consent of the majority, he nevertheless builds his accusation from the basis of the existence of the division between central and peripheral ideas in Kant’s system. Louden, Wood, Boxill and Hill, as demonstrated in the previous sections, promote the idea that Kant philosophy remains Universalist because we can detach his racist comments from his principal claims. Like the accusation side, Kant’s defenders have taken for granted that his philosophy is divided between the pre-critique and the critique writings, and that the critical writings encompass the core arguments of Kant’s philosophical system. Before closing this objection, it is perhaps necessary to look again at what Kant says about the relationship between practical philosophy and his anthropology to understand how flawed the “orthodox reading” is. Kant says in his Lectures on Logic: Practical philosophy (that is, the science of how human beings ought to behave) and anthropology (that is, the science of human actual behaviour) are closely connected, and the former cannot subsist without the latter: for we cannot tell whether the subject to which our consideration applies is capable of what is demanded of them unless we have knowledge of that subject.40

Kant makes it univocally clear here that practical philosophy cannot stand on its own because it is closely related to anthropology, which provides the foundational experience without which the science of “how humans ought to behave” would remain merely speculative. Moreover, knowledge for the sake of knowledge is not Kant’s objective. Kant’s goal is the usefulness of the knowledge in the world. Having demonstrated from the first objection that the “orthodox reading” that splits Kant’s ideas into main and marginal claims is inconsistent with Kant’s thought, I turn now to my second objection that criticises the most innovative idea of the “orthodox reading”: the argument put forward by Kleingeld according to which Kant changed his mind about his racial theory.

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

51

 econd Objection: Kant’s Change of Mind Argument S Is Inaccurate Kleingeld’s response to Kant’s racial debate is original because she does not explicitly claim that Kant’s philosophy is divided into essential and non-essential parts. However, by insisting that the critical turn marks the moment of Kant’s second thoughts on race, she implicitly acknowledges that we could delineate two moments in Kant’s philosophy: before (pre-­ critique) and after the critical turn (post-critique). She clearly emphasises Kant’s racial comments over the meaning of the theory itself, and, more importantly, she overlooks the role and the importance of the “Charakteristik.” Furthermore, the way she responds to Mills’ argument according to which non-Whites are “sub-persons” seems to suggest that she implicitly shares the overall argument of Kant’s central/peripheral division of his philosophy. She describes Mills’ interpretation as “erroneous”41 because Kant defines personhood as rational beings as an “end in themselves” not because they belong to the human species as a “biological group” but because of “the nature of humans as rational beings.”42 Hence, I consider her position to belong to the “orthodox reading.” I object to her argument according to which Kant changed his mind in the 1790s. There are two reasons to support this objection: the misinterpretation of Kant’s controversial moral claims and the failure to note the role of the “Charakteristik.”

The Misinterpretation of Kant’s Controversial Moral Claims I shall argue here that Kleingeld missed the fundamental problems of Kant’s theory of race. However, before going into detail let us recall her claims. Kleingeld introduced a new dynamic element into Kant’s race debate, which is that Kant had second thoughts on race. This seems to suggest that no matter the representational division of Kant’s philosophy that one may defend, no matter which side of the debate one argues for, it seems that Kant has changed his mind on race. In other words, according to Kleingeld, if Kant was a consistent inegalitarian or inconsistent Universalist when he wrote Toward Perpetual Peace in 1795, he ultimately

52 

J. Yab

became a Universalist egalitarian. He introduced a new category of “public right”43 within his moral philosophy, namely the “cosmopolitan right,” and he not only condemned the slave trade and colonialism with their practices, but also recognised Native Americans, Asians and Africans as capable of signing contracts. Hence, Kleingeld confirms that Kant changed his mind even if he did not tell us why. However, he did not explicitly at any time revert his controversial statements, and she argues: “in order to eradicate racism from a theory, often more is needed than merely deleting explicitly racist statements, because the aim will often require introducing additional positive changes as well.”44 In response to Kleingeld, Bernasconi published “Kant’s Third Thoughts on Race”45 in which he argues that cosmopolitanism is not a remedy for Kant’s racism. He defends the claim that Kant’s cosmopolitanism, in fact, works well with his racism because “Kant did not think that cosmopolitanism was about giving equal weight to all people. He understood it to mean moving outwards from one’s own circle to embrace others by degrees.”46 Bernasconi defends the view that Kant confirmed this when discussing the notion of “love for everybody” in The Metaphysics of Morals where he identifies “patriotism and cosmopolitanism as two forms of love of others resting on common descent, but as the first is local, the second is directed to our common world ancestry.”47 In Kant’s conception, as Bernasconi believes, one would not be a good cosmopolite without being at the same time a good patriot and vice versa, since patriotism is based on the love of a particular group (common descent) and cosmopolitanism is based on the love beyond the particular group (common ancestry). Bernasconi considers that Kant’s focus on “common inheritance”48 places this debate in the “context of human species and race.” Even if Kant thinks that the love of a particular group is not in itself a dreadful thing, its intensity may, however, be a “detriment to the general love of mankind.”49 Equally, Kant warns that the love of humanity may result in the love of no one in particular. Thus, it seems that for Kant, as Bernasconi reads it: “cosmopolitanism was not a correction of nationalism but an extension of it”50 because the good cosmopolite is the person “who in fealty to his country must incline to promote the well-being of the entire world.”51 Bernasconi believes that it is perfectly arguable that Kant sees his cosmopolitanism and racism in the same light as his cosmopolitanism

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

53

and patriotism, that is, as part of the development of “extending one’s love outward.”52 Bernasconi considers that as we may see an opposition between patriotism and cosmopolitanism, however, this opposition in Kant’s conception is just appearance because the former cannot indeed exist without the latter in the sense that cosmopolitanism protects patriotism from the kind of love that will exclude people that are not members of our community. Cosmopolitanism starts with the love of one’s country and extends to the love of other countries. Using the same analogy, Bernasconi believes that Kant’s cosmopolitanism has survived with his racism because they are mutually dependent. I have introduced Bernasconi’s contra argument about Kant’s second thoughts on race because he gave a substantive response to Kleingeld’s claims. However, neither Bernasconi nor Kleingeld solve the problem that they try to address because, and this is my objection, they misread the issue at stake in Kant’s theory of race. I must highlight that Kleingeld misreads this issue more than Bernasconi as the latter was responding to the former. They misread the problem(s) because, in fixing only Kant’s derogative comments, they began their analysis with misleading questions, that is, as to whether Kant’s comments affect his central philosophy or whether he has changed his mind. It is essential to ask these questions but not at the expense of an in-depth analysis of Kant’s theory itself, for the reason that only an analysis detached from presuppositions and focused on Kant’s methodology can reveal the true problem(s) of his theory. This is why in my view the fundamental root of the problem posed by Kant’s racial theory is not Kant’s claim about the hierarchy of races but rather his claims as to (1) the completeness of the character of the White race and (2) the dispossession of the character of beauty and human dignity of the Negro race. Even if we agree with Kleingeld that Kant given up his hierarchy of races, the problems above remain unsolved. Kant may have abandoned his juxtaposition of race and still believed that the White race is the complete race, and that the Negro race has no human dignity. The hierarchy of races is the consequence of the two problems stated above, not their cause. It is because Kant thinks that the White race possesses all the talents and that they are qualitatively different that he subsequently believes they must be ranked as the first race. It is equally

54 

J. Yab

because he believed the Negro race never demonstrated any talent in the arts and sciences that they appear at the bottom of the list. My claim is that Kleingeld confused the consequences and the causes. I develop this viewpoint further in Chap. 5 when analysing Kant’s account of natural predispositions. Another suggestion is that Kant stopped highlighting the hierarchy of races perhaps because he realised that it did not make any sense to insist on a category that was self-evident within the society. Eighteenth-century European society was mainly hierarchical. For example, within the family, a husband had authority over his wife. Kant himself says women have “weakness” and this is why “the wife, whatever her age, is declared to be a minor in civil matters, and the husband is her natural custodian.”53 Within civil society the hierarchy was the norm; the aristocratic elite set the benchmark of European society. The aristocracy controlled an extensive variety of hereditary lawful privileges and was at the top of the social hierarchy. An urban labour force, and rural peasantry, subject to both high taxes and feudal dues, was under an aristocracy in society. The Catholic and Protestant churches also had authority over their subjects, not to mention the relationship between a master and slave. Thus, it was almost senseless for Kant to insist on something self-evident and considered as the standard way of life. My point here is to insist that Kant may have appeared to stop arguing about the hierarchy of races for many reasons, and this did not solve the real problem because the issue is not the fact that he ranked races but why he ranked races. The first issue in Kant’s theory of race is the problem of the completeness of the character of the White race. That is, Kant’s consideration that nature has provided the White race with the natural character, which is of the feeling of the beautiful and sublime, making them physically perfect and morally capable of significant accomplishments in art, science and religion. This is why they constitute the racial reference point based on which other races should be compared. Consequently, they occupy the top of the hierarchy and nature has willed them to rule other races. Their character is qualitatively different from other races. From there Kant can observe that the Native American race is not a complete race because their natural character was not formed to maturation when they moved into their region. Consequently, their weak character undermines their

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

55

ability to self-govern. If the White race is a complete race because of the character of the beauty and dignity of human nature and the natives of America an incomplete race because its character did not reach completion, the Negro race, in Kant’s view, has no character of the beauty and dignity of human nature. Kleingeld’s argument also missed this second issue. The dispossession of the character of the beauty and human dignity of the Negro race results, according to Kant, from the fact that nature purposively chooses not to place natural predispositions responsible for the development of the feeling of the beautiful and sublime in the Negro’s breast. Accordingly, they are deprived of the feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature. The particularity of this character resides in the very fact that its natural predispositions are responsible for the development of human nature. In the White race, for example, he who has the predispositions of the character of sublime is motivated by principles and his attitude expresses true virtue, his heart is noble, and he is called a melancholic person because he is capable of understanding, honesty, jocularity and friendship. The Germans, the English and the Spaniard are illustrious by the dominant character of sublime, whereas the Italians and the French are distinguished by the dominant character of beautiful since they are most motivated by sympathy and complaisance, and their actions reflect adopted virtues. The principles do not motivate them. Nevertheless, they have a good heart, and they are called sanguine persons for their moral sympathy. It is possible to find both characters among Europeans regardless of their nationality. The dominant one is supplemented by the individual one expressed in the four temperaments, that is, the melancholic person motivated by principles, the sanguine driven by sympathy, the choleric moved by honour and the phlegmatic who lacks incentive but who is capable of rising from the bottom to the top and earning respect by means of education. All these four European temperaments are the features of the “Charakteristik” that are responsible for the progress of humanity. The White phlegmatic is different from the Negro in the sense that the Negro cannot be educated but to be a slave, he cannot rise from the bottom to the top, and he has never demonstrated any talents in the sciences and art.

56 

J. Yab

As demonstrated above, even if we accept Kleingeld’s argument that Kant abandoned his hierarchy in 1792 (something I deny in the next paragraph), the two problems of his racial theory remain unsolved because they are embedded in Kant’s notion of the “Charakteristik,” which is based on his conception of natural predispositions. Moreover, contrary to Kleingeld’s claim, as I shall demonstrate extensively in Chap. 6, Kant argued about the character of race beyond 1792 and more specifically in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View of 1798.

 e Failure to Notice the Role of the Notion Th of “Charakteristik” The failure to notice the role of “Charakteristik” brings us to the central claim of this book: Kant’s theory of race has been misinterpreted because the “orthodox reading” missed the notion of “Charakteristik” that shapes Kant’s racial thinking. This is why Kleingeld has inadequately claimed that Kant has had second thoughts on race. Certainly Kant has had various thoughts on race; however, these thoughts were not meant to refute his racial views but rather to strengthen them. In 1764 Kant laid down the foundations of his theory in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. He identifies the “Charakteristik” of the human species in terms of temperaments that are grounded in natural predispositions and divided along the same lines as the medieval humours (melancholic, sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic). This division is also found in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View of 1798, a book indicating the completion of his theory. Kant also exposes the pragmatic dimension of the “Charakteristik” of the human species in terms of moral character (Chap. 6). Between the two books, Kant published three scientific essays on race. In the first essay, “Of the Different Races of Human Beings” of 1775, Kant exposes a scientific dimension of the “Charakteristik” of the human species (Chap. 3). In the second and third essays, “Determination of the Concept of a Human Race” in 1785 and “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy” of 1788, Kant gives a philosophical justification of the “Charakteristik” regarding natural dispositions (Chap. 5). Hence, by failing to notice the role of the notion of “Charakteristik” in Kant’s theory of race, the “orthodox reading” missed

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

57

the opportunity to see his theory as embedded in his philosophy, not because it derives from the categorical imperatives but because it is foundational to Kant’s notion of human nature. Therefore, it is necessary to seek an alternative reading. Beginning from the incorrect presumption that Kant’s philosophy is divided into central and peripheral claims, the “orthodox reading” has not only failed to identify the two problematic moral claims of Kant’s theory, but has also failed to note that the notion of the “Charakteristik” is the keystone of his theory. As I have shown in objecting to Kleingeld’s argument, comments themselves are not the problem in Kant’s theory, but rather it is Kant’s reasons for making the comments that establish the problematic. This is why I suggest that to comprehend Kant’s racial theory, we need to treat the theory on its own as the object of study. This is what the “heterodox reading” is about. The next chapter will elaborate on how Kant conceives his notion of race as a scientific understanding of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. However, before beginning the chapter, I must explain a few steps that the “heterodox reading” needs to take to analyse Kant’s theory properly.

Looking Ahead Having revised some of the oppositions to the “orthodox reading” and argued that they should lead us to question this narrative, what I do now is suggest a few interpretative steps to take in order to form a better understanding of Kant’s theory.

Step One: The Reading of So-Called Pre-critical Writings To follow the development of his theory from the beginning to the end, I insist on this step because the first time I learned about Kant’s derogative comments, I jumped on Kant’s texts with the objective to find the comments. I assume that most readers will do the same. I am suggesting here to think about the real objective of the analysis. For scholars, the analysis of the theory of race should be the objective, instead of derogative comments. Since we have seen that there is a pressing need to rethink

58 

J. Yab

Kant’s theory of race, the most delicate approach to do so is to ignore the most common ideas and to engage in a systematic developmental reconstruction of Kant’s position.

 tep Two: Find Out What Kant Regards as the Basis for His S Theory of Race It is hard to see what the “orthodox reading” thinks of the basis of Kant’s theory of race. I presuppose that because it acknowledges that the central claim of Kant’s philosophy is the categorical imperative, this could also be its starting point. My position is to suggest instead what I believe to be the original footing of the theory. I show in the next chapters how Kant conceives the development of the core notion of his theory through three transformative stages (scientific, metaphysic and pragmatic).

 tep Three: Take a Close Look at Kant’s Notion S of Natural Predispositions Kant scholars have almost entirely ignored Kant’s notion of natural predispositions. However, this is an essential feature not only of his theory of race but his conception of human nature. As I demonstrate in Chap. 5, Kant’s natural predispositions are those potentialities responsible for the development of the “Charakteristik” of the human species, and it is therefore essential to look at how Kant develops this notion throughout his writings. Having described the three steps, we are now ready to follow the development of Kant’s theory of race through its dissimilar stages.

Notes 1. Kant lectured in physical geography from 1756 to 1796 and the “Lectures on Physical Geography” were published in 1802. I use the French translation of COHEN-HALIMI, M., MARCUZZI, M. & SEROUSSI, V. 1999. Kant Geographie, France, Aubier.

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

59

2. See also EZE, E. C. 1997. The color of reason: The Idea of Race in Kant anthropology. In: EZE, E. C. (ed.) Postcolonial African philosophy: a critical reader. Cambridge, Mass.; Oxford: Blackwell, p. 120. 3. Ibid. 4. KANT, I. 2007. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 32. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. LARRIMORE, M. 2008. Antinomies of race: diversity and destiny in Kant. Patterns of Prejudice, 42, 341–63. 9. Ibid. 10. KANT, I. 2007. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 59. 11. Ibid., p. 61. 12. The anthropological viewpoint of Observations is extended in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, and in particular in Book Two “On the Feeling of Pleasure and Displeasure” which forms the transition from Book One on the “Cognitive Faculty” to Book Three on the “Faculty of Desire.” 13. KANT, I. 2007. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 23. 14. Ibid., p. 32. 15. Ibid., p. 19. 16. Ibid., p. 28. 17. Ibid., p. 56. 18. Ibid., p. 20. 19. Ibid., p. 31. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. KANT, I. 1996. The metaphysics of morals. In: GREGOR, M. J. (ed.) Practical philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 409.

60 

J. Yab

23. Marc Larrimore in Antinomy of race talking about the content of OBS says “the ‘savage’ nations were described in terms resonant again with the temperaments: this is where Kant’s shocking and widely quoted lines about Africans (whom he, unusually, describes as phlegmatic) appear,” p. 349. 24. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the concept of a Human Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 146. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid., p. 388. 27. KANT, I. 2007. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 59. 28. Ibid. 29. WILSON, H. L. 2006. Kant’s pragmatic anthropology: its origin, meaning, and critical significance, Albany, State University of New  York Press, p. 2. 30. KANT, I. & LOUDEN, R. B. 2006. Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view, Cambridge, UK; New York, Cambridge University Press. 31. KANT, I. & YOUNG, J.  M. 1992. Lectures on logic, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 538. 32. KANT, I. 1960. Religion within the limits of reason alone, La Salle, Ill., Open Court Pub. Co. 33. See LOUDEN, R. B. 2011. Kant’s human being: essays on his theory of human nature, New York, Oxford University Press, p. xvii. 34. WILSON, H. L. 2006. Kant’s pragmatic anthropology: its origin, meaning, and critical significance, Albany, State University of New  York Press, p. 2. 35. Ibid., p. 45. 36. Ibid., p. 5. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., p. 4. 39. EZE, E.  C. 1997. Postcolonial African philosophy: a critical reader, Cambridge, MA; Oxford, Blackwell. 40. LOUDEN, R. B. 1992. Morality and moral theory: a reappraisal and reaffirmation, New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 101–02.

3  Critique of the Orthodox Reading 

61

41. KLEINGELD, P. 2007. Kant’s second thoughts on race. Philosophical Quarterly, 57, 573–92. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. 45. BERNASCONI, R. 2011. Kant’s Third Thoughts on Race. In: ELDEN, S. & MENDIETA, E. (eds.) Reading Kant’s Geography. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press; Bristol: University Presses Marketing [distributor], pp. 291–318. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid. 52. Ibid. 53. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 315.

Part II Reconstructing Kant’s Theory of Race

4 Kant, Race and Natural History

We generally take the designations ‘description of nature’ and ‘history of nature’ in a single sense. However, it is clear that knowledge of natural things as they are at present leaves us wishing still for the cognition of how they formerly were, and through what series of changes they have undergone to arrive at their present location in their present circumstances. The history of nature, of which we presently have very little, would teach us about changes in the shape of the earth, and also the changes that the creatures of the earth (plants and animals) have undergone through natural migrations, and thereby about the degenerations from the original form of the stem genus. The history of nature would presumably lead us back from a high mass of apparently different species to races in the same genus and transform the presently overly detailed scholastic system of natural description into a physical system for the understanding. —Kant, I. (2007). Of the different races of human beings. In R. B. Louden & G. Zöller (eds.), Anthropology, history, and education, p. 85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

A fundamental condition for Kant’s account of the human species is that of formal division between descriptive natural history and progressive

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Yab, Kant and the Politics of Racism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69101-1_4

65

66 

J. Yab

history of nature. As indicated in the quotation above, taken from an important footnote in Kant’s first essay on race, Kant argues for natural history, which designates a science that involves historical movements that have taken place over time, including the cause of things. It implies historical changes, and it is also concerned with issues of the origins of the human species. Kant’s account of the human species is therefore concomitant with his wish to differentiate these two methodological approaches. Philip R. Sloan has argued that Kant “developed this distinction initially upon Buffon’s distinctions of ‘abstract’ and ‘physical’ truths and applied these initially in his distinction of ‘varieties’ from ‘races’ in anthropology.”1 This division is primordial in the understanding of Kant’s conception of the human species, and it will drive my analysis throughout this chapter. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to show that Kant’s account of the human species in his first essay on race, which arose within the contextual narrative of the epistemic status of a history of nature, assumes that the “Charakteristik” of the human species is the formative task of the inner and outer character of the human being as a member of a single community. The notion of the “Charakteristik” of the human species suggests Kant’s commitment to the unity of mankind despite its seeming diversity. Kant is attentive to the fact that without an idea about a common origin of humanity, it would be difficult to ground universal claims regarding the human species. Thus, his task in his 1775 essay is also to provide a scientific ground for the claim of monogenesis of racial differences. Kant composed his division of natural history in a context of rising debate over the issue of polygenism. The publication of Lord Kames’ defence of a polygenetic theory in Six Sketches on the History of Man2 in 1774, for example, occasioned a huge debate. Lord Kames gave a constricted explanation of humanity according to which the differences between cultures are so important that human groups around the world can reasonably be regarded as distinct species. Linnaeus, for example, had proposed at least four distinct species within the genus Homo in his System of Nature of 1766. This was a mechanical description of nature in which a general kind, namely natural wholes including living things and beings, is like a complicated machine, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other. The mechanistic conception, in

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

67

contrast to the Aristotelian conception of Nature3 which comprises teleological forces, suggested that Nature was more like a machine than an organism in which the world encompassed discrete, continuous, spatially extended bodies blindly moving either in an inertial position or under the influence of contact with other bodies. However, for Kant, organised beings could not be mechanistically explained because, despite being the product of nature, organisms are purposively oriented. This is why the mechanistic description lacks consistency with natural philosophy’s enquiry. For example, it cannot explicate the permanence of the outer character of the human species (skin colour). This led Kant to suggest an alternative narrative to the established theories of the human species of his time, in which he argues for a philosophy of natural history instead of a description of nature because: The description of nature (condition of nature in the present time) is far from sufficient to indicate the ground for the numerous variations. No matter how much one opposes, and rightly so, the boldness of opinions, one must venture a history of nature, which is a separate science, and which could gradually advance from opinions to insights.4

For Kant, the hereditary “Charakteristik” of the human species in which skin colour expresses racial differences raises the issue of the relationship between contingent mechanical law and the teleological necessity of the finalised structure of the human species. In other words, Kant’s question is as follows: In what way can the relationship between the natural environment and the “Charakteristik” of the human species be systematised? This leads him to develop his theory of the human species, which involves a formal distinction between the Linnaean concept of a “variety”5 and Buffon’s notion of “race.” A “variety” for Kant involves a formal criterion of difference, based on distinguishing morphological properties, and belongs to the description of nature. “Race” involves common phyla and interbreeding and belongs to natural history. The ultimate objective of this chapter is to show, against the background of the debate over the epistemic status of the history of nature, that, for Kant, the idea of mankind as a natural species is based on a dual characteristic. First, there is the biological unity of the human species and second the existence of “germs”

68 

J. Yab

and “natural predispositions,” which may or may not develop (depending on the climate) and which are responsible for the development of the inner and outer character, including moral differences of human beings. To support my claim, I divide this chapter into two parts. The first deals with the occurrence of the debate over an epistemic status of the history of nature, which sees Buffon’s distinctions of “abstract” and “physical” truths as the initiator. In this regard, an analysis of Buffon’s distinction helps us to understand and to trace the origins of the primary features of Kant’s account of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. The second part of this chapter is concerned with the examination of Kant’s first essay on race, “Of the Different Races of Human Beings.” In my investigation, I follow the structure of the essay mostly to highlight the major features of Kant’s account of the “Charakteristik,” but, more importantly, to show how race (skin colour) as a primary marker of the “Charakteristik” of the human species emerges and develops along with the two moral claims invoked in Chap. 2. In the first section of the essay, which is divided into four parts, Kant, in adopting Buffon’s rule which supports monogenesis, is in favour of a philosophy of history which describes race as a sub-category of one single species. While the second section classifies humanity into four races, the third and fourth sections of the essay attribute racial differentiation to germs and natural predispositions, which are also the causes of Kant’s two challenging moral claims: (1) the completeness of the character of the White race and (2) the dispossession of the character of the beauty and human dignity of the Negro race. This is why in the closing section of the chapter I discuss these claims in detail to demonstrate how they meld with Kant’s theory.

The Epistemic Status of Natural History Phillip R. Sloan, as mentioned, argues that Kant developed the distinction between natural and descriptive history initially upon Buffon’s difference concerning “abstract” and “physical” truths, and applied these in his division of “varieties” from “races” in anthropology. The evidence for this claim, he argues, is “Kant’s awareness of Buffon’s works… [which]…

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

69

is documented from his writings of the mid-1750s.”6 He goes on to confirm that: Kant’s earliest major publication, the General Natural History of the Heavens of 1755, makes twice direct reference to ‘that deservedly celebrated philosopher’ who is Buffon, and puts forth a historical cosmogony similar in some respects to that presented by Buffon in the appendix to the Second Discourse of the Natural history on the history and theory of the earth.7

Sloan’s claim makes sense since Kant effectively adopted Buffon’s rule to define the human species. This rule gave birth to his predetermined biological account of the human species. Thus, it is worth looking at Sloan’s claim in detail to see what Buffon wanted to achieve with his two types of truths and, more importantly, how this impacted Kant’s account of the human species.

 uffon’s “Abstract” and “Physical” Truths B in Natural History In the opening discourse of Histoire Naturelle (1749),8 Buffon argues that mathematics, in contrast to the prevailing opinion, cannot reveal “the secrets of nature,” and, consequently, knowledge built on the mechanistic mathematical law was inconsistent. Kant also dismisses mechanical law as a way of accounting for the right interpretation of organic beings. Buffon posits that there are two kinds of truth: abstract and physical truths. Abstract truths belong to mathematical proofs and are a product of human imagination. They are founded upon arbitrary accepted logical principles. For him abstract truths are true by definition; these definitions are non-concrete but straightforward, and any truths coming from mathematical proofs are only an affirmation of their starting point. Therefore, they are not only sterile but the exact repetition of definitions. His conclusion about abstract truths (mathematic truths) is as follows: What is called mathematical truths is thus reduced to identities of ideas and has no reality, we assume we are thinking about our assumptions, we

70 

J. Yab

draw the consequences, we conclude, conclusion or final result is a true proposition related to our assumption, but the truth is no more real than the assumption itself. This is not the environment to dwell on the use of mathematical sciences, nor to dwell either on the abuse that can be made, we just have proved that mathematical truths are truths only by definitions or, different expressions of the same thing, and they are truths in relation to these definitions we have made before ​​and it is for this reason that they have the advantage of being always accurate and demonstrative, but also abstract, intellectual and arbitrary.9

Hence mathematical systems are closed in themselves and provide no evidence about nature. In contrast, physical truths are based on actual occurrence. They are not arbitrary and do not depend upon us. They are based on facts or consecutive similar facts. Natural philosophy according to Buffon was a description and understanding of real things. He argues that In mathematics, one supposes: in the physical sciences one poses a question and establishes truth. The former deals with definitions. One moves from definition to definition in the abstract sciences, and from observation to observation in the real sciences. In the first, one finds self-evidence, in the second certainty.10

According to another philosopher of history, Peter Hanns Reill, Buffon stood late-seventeenth century-mechanistic-mathematical natural philosophy on its head reversing its intellectual priorities… historical description replaced mathematical demonstration in a real natural philosophical explanation.11

Sloan’s claim is significant if we take into account Hanns Reill’s interpretation of Buffon’s impact on natural history. Kant developed in Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens his version of a traditional genetic cosmogony, describing the origins of the planetary system from original chaos by the action of Newtonian laws quite similar to that of Buffon, and, more importantly, declares that mechanical law is unable to explicate human phenomena. This evidence gives more credit to Sloan’s

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

71

claim about the noteworthy influence that Buffon had on Kant’s conception of natural history.

Kant’s Dismissal of Mechanical Law in Natural History Indeed, in his Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens of 1755, Kant aims to: …discover the systematic arrangement linking large parts of creation in its entire infinite extent and to bring out by means of mechanistic principles the development of the cosmic bodies themselves and the cause of their movements from the first state of nature, such insights seem to overstep by a long way the powers of human reason.12

Kant tries to discredit the role of divinity in ordering nature. Kant wishes to demonstrate in this essay that order in the celestial system derives only from properties inherently inscribed in matter. He argues for self-organisation of matter through a coherent structure of attractive and repulsive forces. These forces by themselves are satisfactory to account for the creation of the well-ordered nature. Moreover, the production of this nature does not rely on divine action, or chance or accident, but solely on the mechanical operation of the inorganic nature itself. The natural features of inorganic nature, namely its forces of attraction and repulsion, develop matter and modify motion according to laws in producing stars and planets. At the same time, the repulsive force makes lateral motions in the matter, which, united with those motions created by the attractive forces, cause these bodies to revolve around one another. Accordingly, both the existence of celestial bodies and their motions can account primarily for the forces of matter, without a need to assume any distinctive planning of matter or to make any call to chance or God. However, organisms (plants and animals) are different. Kant argues that mechanistic laws, which are sufficient in explaining the ordering nature of inorganic matter, cannot explain organic nature. As he puts it: “We can say … without presumption, give me matter, I will build a world out of it! That is, give me matter; I will show you how a world must arise

72 

J. Yab

out of it.”13 As he goes on, he asks: “…can we boast of such advantages for the smallest plants or insects? Are we in a position to say, give me the material, and I will show you how a caterpillar could have developed?”14 Like Buffon before him, Kant considers that it is difficult for mechanical laws to explicate organic beings and especially the human species. Similar doubt about the capacity of mechanistic law in explaining organic nature can also be found in The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God of 1763. He reiterates here that order and harmony of the universe require no unique appeal to God, but “they are rather construed as the incidental consequences of more general laws, which subsume under themselves with necessary unity the formation of this product.”15 As in Universal Natural History, he posits that organisms are excluded because “the structure of plants and animals displays a constitution of its kind, and appeal cannot analyse it to the universal and necessary law of nature.”16 Inside the structure of animals, for example, “Its organs of sense perception are connected with the organ of voluntary movement and life and connected in such an ingenious fashion that once one’s attention has been drawn to it, one would have to be an ill-natured disposition (for one could be unreasonable) not to recognise the existence of a Wise Author, who has so excellently ordered the matter of which the animal was constituted.”17 Kant considers that because of the complex purposive characteristic of organic beings we have no choice but to suppose that a wise creator has brought the matter of which they are composed into such an excellent order. While organisms ordered in precise ways can produce themselves, matter as such does not have this capacity. Moreover, while, as we saw in Universal Natural History, these forces suffice to account for the existence of the celestial system, they are not sufficient to account for the existence of plants and animals. Unlike inorganic matter, organisms have a self-­ generating arrangement, which is recognised in their ability to develop, to breed their kind and to regenerate damaged parts. They have a character rather than being made out of the antecedent existing modules; they are composed of parts, which rely on their mutual existence, in the sense that they are responsible for one another’s production, growth and preservation. It is in virtue of this character that organisms resist mechanistic explanation, and hence require an appeal to teleological principles. This critique of the poverty of mechanistic law in explaining organic

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

73

phenomena was already exemplified earlier in Buffon’s critique of the Linnaeus classification of the human species.

Linnaeus’ and Buffon’s Accounts of the Human Species Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish naturalist, in his famous Systema Naturae,18 first published in 1735, introduced the modern science of systematic categorisation of all living organisms. Linnaeus included humans in his Systema as simple elements of the natural world that are subject to classification like any other creature. He identified four geographically established human races, which he designated as sub-species. 1. The Homo sapiens americanus (Native Americans) were red, had erect posture, straight and thick black hair, thin beards and flat faces. Their moral character was professed, liberty-loving, ill-tempered and obstinate, and custom governed their social and political life. 2. The Homo sapiens Europeaeus (Europeans) had White skin, long flowing hair and blue eyes. Their moral character was described as severe, sanguine and smart; and formal law administrated their social and political life. 3. The Homo sapiens Asiaticus (Asians) had yellow skin, black hair and dark eyes. According to Linnaeus, their moral character was melancholy, greedy and governed by “opinion.” 4. The Homo sapiens Afer (Africans) were black, with frizzled black hair, silky skin, flat noses and tumid lips. He described their moral character as crafty, impassive, lazy, careless and ruled by caprice.19 Linnaeus’ assumption was that God himself established an underlying hierarchical order in nature and humans must discover it and classify everything that exists from humans to fauna and flora. For Buffon, this was a technical mistake because it imposed abstract logical categories on organisms rather than disclosing their real and physical relations in time and space. In the first volume of Histoire Naturelle20 of 1749, Buffon refuted Linnaeus’ classification, which was for him abstract, arbitrary and sterile.21 In Buffon’s view, it is only when abstract concepts are connected to physical connections that these can complete the level of physical truth. We cannot, for this reason, trust concepts such as “man,” “species,” “space,” “time” or “Homo sapiens” as abstractions apart from the things to which they refer. He writes: “In nature, only

74 

J. Yab

individuals really exist; races, orders and classes only exist in our imagination.”22 For Buffon, Linnaeus classifies organisms according to differences in the form of reproductive apparatus. His system of classification sorts organisms according to degrees of similarity. He believes that there is no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appear. Buffon rejects this conception because species are only abstractions and do not exist in nature. To him, nature is made up of real individuals, not of species. He claims: “Species is an abstract and general word, the thought of which exists only when we look at Nature in its temporal succession”23 According to Buffon, natural history should not be treated as a general system, founded upon consideration of a small number of characteristics within a species; the correct method consists in describing organisms systematically. In this context, the recognition of a species rests upon “the differences and similarities […] not only among a part, but among the whole.”24 Buffon claims that the criterion of resemblance that one gives to build a species, and which makes the categories of kind, distinguishable as a crescent degree of resemblance, this criterion is inadequate. He considers that a species must be an entity closed in itself. As he writes: “it is neither the number nor the collection of these similar individuals which makes the species; it is the constant succession and the uninterrupted renewal of these individuals that constitute it.”25 Therefore, a species is not a division in a table; it is a real relation between individuals, manifested by a product from the interbreeding process. Hence, the possibility of deriving the species from/to each other makes sense. Climate proves to be the fundamental factor influencing the species variation process. For example, the Black race is the White race “degenerated” by the action of the sun. Hence races are born from the species by degeneration, displacement of individuals or changes in climate. It is crucial to recall Buffon’s whole assertion because it is the starting point of Kant’s definition of race. Buffon argues: Upon the whole, every circumstance concurs in proving, that mankind does not include species different from each other; that, on the contrary, there was originally species, have undergone various changes after migrations over the globe and by the influence of climate, food, mode of living, epidemic diseases, and the mixture of dissimilar individuals; that, at first,

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

75

these changes were not so conspicuous, and produced only individual varieties; that these varieties became afterwards specific, because they were rendered more general, more strongly marked, and more permanent by the continual action of the same causes; that they are transmitted from generation to generation as deformities or diseases pass from parent to children; and that, lastly, as they were originally produced by a train of external and accidental causes, and have only been perpetuated by time and the constant operation of these causes, it is probable that they will gradually disappear, or at least that they will differ from what they are at present, if causes which produced them should cease, or if other circumstances and combination should vary their operation.26

The solution Buffon suggests to the problem of taxonomy and organisation in organic nature is that of realising a level of understanding based upon relations, and also relations to one another in time and space through reproduction. This is precisely Kant’s starting point for his account of the human species. In favouring historical observation in search of truth concerning organic beings, Buffon paved the way for Kant in redefining the manner in which a philosopher of history should seek the natural truth. Moreover, “Of the Different Races of Human Beings” offers Kant the opportunity to demonstrate the first step of natural history investigation.

“Of the Different Races of Human Beings” Kant’s first scientific essay on race, “Of the Different Races of Human Beings,” was written in 1775, but he repeatedly returns to this subject in 1785, 1788, in particular to respond to critics, and in 1798 to give a final account of his theory of race with his notion of the “Charakteristik.” These accounts translate only distinct stages of Kant’s thinking on race, not a fundamental reformulation of his theory. Because his racial theory met with virulent reviews from his contemporaries, Kant felt that his 1775 formulation was not explicit enough. Furthermore, the publication of his Critique of Pure Reason in 1788 led him also to accommodate his racial account with his critical philosophy. However, despite the

76 

J. Yab

publication of these different texts, the core argument of his theory remained consistently the same. Only his methodological approach changed, giving the theory a mounting structure that evolves from its descriptive and normative to its pragmatic character. He insisted on a natural history approach in contrast to a descriptive formulation of human phenomena. This is why he considered Buffon’s rule which gives priority to the relationship between human varieties the basis for defining the human species.

Definition of the Human Species From Buffon’s criterion of species, while criticising its interpretation, Kant accepts the specification of human species in hereditary terms. By maintaining a “single phylum” as the origin of the “Charakteristik” of human species, Kant establishes an irreversible history of the human species. However, he goes further than Buffon in attributing some historicity to the “Charakteristik” of the human species. The “single phylum” is then without a precise empirical form: it indicates the invisible foundation of the generative power by which the human species maintains, propagates and adapts to the environment. The relevant assertions of the “Charakteristik” of the human species in the 1775 essay are 1. That all humans belong to one species; 2. Race is the critical determinant in the variation of the “Charakteristik” of the human species; 3. The principle for transmission of the “Charakteristik” of the human species is hereditary; 4. Skin colour is the physical expression of the “Charakteristik” of the human species; 5. That racial character differences are primarily due to germs and natural predispositions that may or not develop according to climate; 6. That any trait that arises at some point in time and afterwards interbreeding must have been contained as in the single phylum; and 7. The intellectual and moral characters are unevenly spread within various human races according to germs and natural predispositions. The 1775 essay differentiated Kant from other thinkers of his time in the sense that he succeeded in observing the human species, transforming their “Charakteristik” from a straightforward method of classification to a theoretical and logical approach to analysing human diversity. He seeks

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

77

to derive from the relationship between human beings and their environment a natural law that can explicate systematically the human species’ “Charakteristik.” Thus, Kant opens his essay with Buffon’s rule of the determination of the human species. He writes: The natural division into species and kinds in the animal kingdom is grounded on the common law of propagation, and the unity of the species is nothing other than the unity of the generative power that is universally valid for a certain manifoldness of animals. For this reason, Buffon’s rule, that animals which produce fertile young with one another (whatever difference in the shape they may be) still belong to the same physical species, must rightly be regarded only as the definition of a natural species of animal in general in contrast to all school species of the latter.27

This initial quote opens for Kant a distinction between two modes of investigation within the analysis of the human species’ “Charakteristik.” The description of nature organises natural phenomena according to similarities, while natural history of nature analyses the whole dimension of the “Charakteristik” of the human species including the inner relations among human beings according to their reconstructed biological history and their ability to propagate. It is necessary for Kant to differentiate a “natural”28 concept of species in the natural division, resulting from the criterion of lineage, from a “scholastic”29 concept of species in the description of nature, which results from the criterion of resemblance. It is for Kant a classification according to a lineage which is legitimate, as it calls for human understanding and formulates laws. The scholastic classification used by Linnaeus and his followers is compared to an unequivocally subjective process without an ontological basis. To this simple description of nature, Kant thinks we should prefer a real history of the natural “Charakteristik” since history reveals unity. If Buffon was opposed to Linnaeus’ classification because it was too artificial, Kant considers that Linnaeus’ taxonomy lacks a unique rule to conceptualise the human species. This absence of a unique rule can bring dangerous consequences if applied to humanity, because one may think of races as different species, while the concept of race itself is not yet defined. Therefore, Kant is mentioning the “understanding”30 in

78 

J. Yab

opposition to the “memory”31 in this section of the essay. Understanding belongs to “natural classification”32 because of the use of concepts, and memory belongs to “scholastic classification”33 because it is an association of images. He says: The school division concerns classes, which divide the animals according to resemblances, the natural division concerns phyla which divide the animals according to relationships in terms of generation. The former provides a school system for memory; the latter provides a natural system for the understanding. The first only aims at bringing creatures under titles; the second aims at bringing them under laws.34

However, then, if scholastic classification is about grouping individuals under titles, and Kant’s classification under natural laws, what are they? Kant thinks that if the appropriate species classification consists of a grouping under natural laws, it is clear that it is the law of monogenesis. From Buffon’s rule of a definition of species, it follows that there is only one human species since all human beings can procreate. The unity of human species “is tantamount to the unity of the generative power that they have in common: namely, that they all belong to a single phylum, from which, notwithstanding their differences, they originated, or at least could have originated.”35 Indeed, there is no proof for the common phylum, but the interbreeding of the human species makes this plausible; therefore, the assumption of multiple creations supported by Lord Kames, Voltaire and others is unfounded. It is important to stress that Kant’s investigation is not merely empirical, as it relates to the principles or maxims of the empirical investigation of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. Therefore, there is already a sense of purposiveness in his first essay. As Kant will argue in his second essay, the choice of a rational maxim always determines the relevant facts because, if not, empirically, there are always facts to oppose to others. Kant does not make an empirical history of the human species; he argues for a rational theory of differentiation of human beings. Kant’s history of races is therefore not a study of the past of human beings, but, as he defended in his third essay on race, a study which

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

79

Would only consist in tracing back, as far as the analogy permits, the connection between certain present-day conditions of the things in nature and their causes in earlier times according to laws of efficient causality, which we do not make up but derive from the powers of nature as it presents itself to us now.36

Kant then proposes to specify the concepts lower than the species which one uses to classify individuals (races, variations, lineage, varieties and strains). As natural classification reveals a monogenetic characteristic of the human species because the practical experience demonstrates that “they consistently beget fertile children with one another,”37 human beings therefore have a common origin unless we say that “they are similar to one another but not related.”38 However, this is for Kant a huge supposition because “many local creations would have to be assumed.”39 That is what Voltaire expressed when he stated, “God, who created the reindeer in Lapland to consume the moss of these cold parts, also created the Laplander there to eat this reindeer.”40 Kant described Voltaire’s approach as poetic and non-scientific because this introduces in nature too much contingency, which requires supernatural interventions. However, Kant notes that to have a scientific understanding of the world, or, more precisely, for our cognitive faculties to think scientifically, we must at least presume that there is a certain kind of legality and regularity in nature, which is partially explained by mechanical laws. This is why Kant considered that Voltaire’s defence of many local creations was a bad idea. It is therefore more reasonable to think of the human species as one “family.”41 To Kant, then, if we decide to call this kinship, species, because they belong to a “single phylum,”42 must be considered the groups that derive from this common phylum, if their differences are hereditary, and not different “species” but rather “subspecies.”43 It follows in the same section of the essay that the critical determinant of variation for the “Charakteristik” of the human species is race, and the criterion of race is thus heredity. Moreover, what attests to the infallibility of the heredity transmission of the character of race is the interbreeding process that generates “half-breeds.” It can be seen that when crossing one sub-species with another, the racial character is preserved. Kant then

80 

J. Yab

proposes some criteria to distinguish between sub-species, but the primary criterion is the degree of degeneration/regeneration. He claims: If the hereditary marks of the phyletic origin agree with their point of origination, then they are called regenerations; however, if the subspecies could no longer provide the original formation of the phylum, then it would be called degeneration.44

Then Kant derives a new vocabulary to distinguish the “Charakteristik” of the human species. In sum, the genetic features of the “Charakteristik” of the human species in conformity with the common phylum are “variations”45; they are called “varieties”46 if they are no longer in conformity with the original phylum. Therefore, races are variations that are preserved despite transplantations, and which, crossed with other variations, always generate half-breeds. Hence, Black and White human beings are not different species, but two distinct sub-species marked by different characters; in contrast, those persistent “varieties” by transplantation which are blond-haired and brown-haired, insofar as each time they do not produce a half-breed but can generate only blonds or brunettes, are “strains”47 of the White race. When finally the nature of the soil and food generates in the human species certain hereditary features which die out with transplantation, one speaks about a “special sort.”48

Division of the Human Species into Different Races If Kant considered that Buffon’s rule was the only one that defines the human species, and that race is the only character that is hereditary, it follows that race is the main feature governing the “Charakteristik” of the human species. From this reasoning, which gives to the concept of race a significant role in natural history, Kant defends the following claim in the second section of his essay: I think one is only compelled to assume four races of the human species in order to be able to derive from these all the easily distinguishable and self-­ perpetuating differences.49

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

81

Kant proposes four human races, according to a diagram remarkably similar to that of Linnaeus in System of Nature: (1) the White race, (2) the Negro race (3) the Hunnish (Mongolian or Kalmuckian) race and (4) the Hindu or Hindustani race.50 As Kant conceives it, race as the main character governing the variation of the human species is both descriptive and normative. It is descriptive because it structures the human species in groups distinguishable by skin colour. It is what unifies human variations about one another and nature. Thus considered, race is the actual operative feature governing the structure of human “Charakteristik” in the sense that it not only classifies human beings according to their physical characters but also puts them into competition according to the completeness of their moral character. Race as the primary determinant of the “Charakteristik” of the human species is also normative in the sense that it is a matter of moral attributes. It entails the possibility of classifying the sub-species of the human species rigorously according to their completeness or incompleteness. In this section, Kant restates his argument about the completeness of the character of individual races. Kant argues with certainty that from the four races he can derive “all remaining ethnic character…either as mixed or incipient races, of which the former originates from the mixing of different races, while the latter has not yet resided long enough in the climate to completely assume the respective character of the race.”51 He then gives existence to the idea of half-races. He says: “Thus the mixing of the Tartaric with the Hunnish blood has produced half-race in the Karakulpacks, the Nagajens and others.”52 It is unclear here what Kant means by half-race at this stage. The first interpretation is that half-race results from an incomplete formation of a character of some human sub-­ species resulting in an intermediary position. However, this hypothesis would assume no final number of races because if there are categories of the human species for which the character is still to be completed, this places on hold the final number of races. However, Kant argues that there is a definitive number of four races; this brings me to the second interpretation of half-race as a “race” for which the character is permanently incomplete. This means that no action either from germs and natural predispositions or the climate can impact on this incompleteness. The incompleteness is therefore purposive and implies a specific end in human

82 

J. Yab

destiny. This is why Kant argues about the precedence of natural history over a description of history because the former involves the human species as an end in itself, whereas the latter sees the human species as a means to an end. The end of the human species is better understood in this essay when Kant continues in sections 3 and 4 to explain the causes of the differences in the human species.

The Causes of the Character of Racial Differences In section 3, Kant names “germs” and “natural predispositions” the potentialities that are involved in the generative power and which are the immediate cause of human species differentiation. An organic body is developed according to some of these “germs” and “natural predispositions,”53 which are transmitted to the body from the original phylum. The “Charakteristik” of the human species is thus according to Kant “preformed”54 in the generative power; otherwise, if the generative power itself were affected by external influences, the species would not be preserved, and at the end, there would be no order in nature. The transmission of the character of the “Charakteristik” of the human species is a complicated issue. Kant posits that germs and natural predispositions are transmitted over generations, as well as their conditions of activation. In this sense, heredity is related not only to a visible character (skin colour), but something hidden in the force of reproduction of bodies. The idea is that latent provisions of the character are part of heritable features. The use of the word “preformed” by Kant, in connection with germs and predispositions, should not especially eliminate the difference between his theory and preformationism theory.55 Kant does not accept the preformationism argument in which it is stipulated that an animal is an entirety preformed in an egg and that an adult pre-exists within the first cell so that their development is a mere unfolding of these preformed germs. Instead, for Kant, germs and natural predispositions are not enough to define the human species or to order its development, since there is a selection of these germs and predispositions according to the climate and environment. Of all the germs and natural predispositions present in the generative power, even if they are transmitted, some do not

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

83

develop. Therefore, the germs and natural predispositions are not the forms of the individual to come, present in the origin; it would rather be the form of possible individuals, or more precisely, of several possible variations of the same species, in contrast to the preformation theory for which the whole individual is contained in the germs as a miniature individual. The action of the environment makes Kant’s conception of human character adaptive because human beings conform to their milieu, since the climate helps them develop the most suitable germs for this environment. The adaptation of species to their milieu was already defended by traditional natural history, which generally agrees with natural theology: God made the species adjusted to the place where he placed them, and nature agrees to maintain the relationship between species and the geographical distributions using natural economy.56 However, Kant means something quite different. If the human species are historical entities, the adaptation of individuals is not initial, but must be a result; it is the outcome of the relation between natural being and the environment. Kant diverges from Buffon’s theory of degeneration because otherwise it is hard to explain why the four colours, of all colours which are transmitted, are the only ones that maintain infallibly. Why out of all colours that exist, due to a half-breeding process, or because of the influence of climate, are only the four colours corresponding to the four human races permanent? If the effect of climate only caused skin colour, as Buffon suggests when he argues that “Man, White in Europe, black in Africa, yellow in Asia, red in America, is everywhere the same man, tinged with the colour of his climate,”57 it is then clear that all skin colours would have had the same complexion concerning their exposure to the environment. This is why Kant considers in section 4 that a theory of the direct influence of the climate lacks boundaries. As we will see in the following chapter, his critique of Herder’s epigenetic thesis, for example, in Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1787) is a reductio ad absurdum critique. In other words, a theory which states that the causes of races in external influences must be supported by a theory which considers original natural predispositions. Otherwise, the conservation of the four colours of skin would be incomprehensible. Kant argues that it is the conservation of species in general which calls for such a theory, because if nothing during the process of reproduction of the species is protected

84 

J. Yab

from external influences, then the species itself will not be preserved. He writes: “For outer things can well be occasioning causes but not producing ones of what is inherited necessarily and regenerates.”58 If the generative power is subject to external influences, and if it does not limit itself, then any variation would be possible, the variations would be unlimited and without order, and the character of the species would be lost. This last principle of the occasional cause is at the centre of Kant’s theory of race because what is necessarily transmitted and propagated must from the start have been present in the generative power of the original phylum. If the genetic modifications appear and are necessarily transmitted, one can perhaps find an external cause in the climate, but this cause did nothing but awake the potentialities which were dozing already in the original phylum, and, because they were there, they can now be transmitted necessarily in the absence of this cause. Kant says: Air, sun, and nutrition can modify the growth of an animal body, but they cannot also provide this change with a generative power that would be capable of reproducing itself even without this cause; rather what is supposed to propagate itself must have laid previously in the generative power as antecedently determined to an occasional unfolding in accordance with the circumstances in which the creature can find itself and in which it is supposed to persistently preserve itself.59

This is why the external influences are only occasional causes of the “Charakteristik” of the species. The human species, according to Kant, adapts to their climate. They adapt, because they develop, in contact with their milieu, the appropriate germs, which will help them to live safely in this environment. This expresses a teleological dimension of the theory because a simple mechanistic causality could not explain why, among all the germs, in a cold climate, for example, the human species activates only germs which protect from cold. This means that Kant’s 1775 essay was already teleologically oriented. There is here an irreducible dimension of the end of humanity. However, and differently from a traditional natural history account, the end is not located in the hands of God and concentrated in the moment of creation, but is to be found in the animal body or plant, and is dispersed along the history of the earth. Moreover,

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

85

precisely, the germs and natural predispositions present in the generative power can adapt. This is what Kant shows with the germs related to skin colour. He says: Nowadays one attributes with good reason the various colours of the plants to the iron that is precipitated by different fluids. Since all animal blood contains iron, nothing prevents us from ascribing the different colour of these human races to the same cause. This way, for example, the saline acidic or the phosphoric acid or the volatile alkaline in the evacuating vessels of the skin would precipitate the iron particles in the reticulum as red or black or yellow.60

Moreover, in his 1788 essay61 he indeed establishes, for example, a connection between black skin colour, the supposed black colour of blood combined with phlogiston, and the high concentration of phlogiston in the air in the areas in which Black people live. This notion supposes that their skin is as such because it can “de-phlogiston”62 blood in greater quantities than the skin of other races; this is useful for these people given the hot areas (high in phlogiston) where they live. Thus, skin colour is an adaptive characteristic for Black people, which Kant then establishes by analogy for the other races. Skin colour is the single visible character of races. The germs and natural predispositions are essentially the possibilities which enable the adaptation of the human species. Having the germs and natural predispositions of black skin colour, for example, men could adapt to the climate of Africa; this may have happened when they migrated. In this sense, the theory of germs and natural predispositions accords with the idea of a single creation of mankind and its dissemination throughout the world. The theory also conforms to the idea of the unity of the human species. If for Kant the criterion of interbreeding implies that all men can come from a single phylum, the theory of germs and natural predispositions implies that all men must come from a single phylum. Why is that? Because a natural possibility of half-­ breeding, that is, the infallibility of the mixture of skin colours when two different races procreate, implies that the primitive germs and predispositions of skin colour can be harmonised. It is not coherent if each germ and natural predisposition belongs to different phylum. Thus, there was

86 

J. Yab

a primitive human phyla which contained all germs and natural predispositions to adapt to all the climates on the planet. When the human species spread to several places around the world, the suitable germs and natural predispositions were then awakened to adapt to the ambient environment, and this process created various permanent human races. Therefore, we meet with another teleological dimension of Kant’s theory of 1775: not only is the relationship between the climate and the waked germs teleological, but also the presence of germs. Before their adaptation to the milieu, human species are pre-adapted in the original phylum. Kant’s teleology is more flexible than the traditional natural economy of Linnaeus and others. Species are not prepared for a designated place where God would put them, but instead are prepared for all regions. They can adapt, however, when a racial character is developed in a specific region; this character becomes permanent and cannot be exchangeable in other regions. The idea of the original phylum is familiar to all those who defended, at the time, the unity of the human species, in particular Blumenbach and Buffon. However, Kant differentiates himself slightly on one specific point: one cannot find the colour of the first phylum, because all the races have been separated from it by developing one of the germs of skin colour. The original race, as far as it is situated to some extent before the development of the germs of skin colour, cannot have a designated skin colour. And since germs, once activated, are transmitted infallibly through hereditary mechanisms, one also cannot, by intersection, erase them and to some extent recreate the original race in experiments. For Buffon, the original race was the Caucasian race, since precisely the action of climate and food had created the other skin colours. Blumenbach also shares this conception of the original race in his Handbook of Natural History of 1779. This is why Blumenbach can consider that the variations of skin colour are continuous, that one passes imperceptibly to another, since they are due to the continued action of the climate on the same White phylum, whereas for Kant they are simply different germs activations. However, the difference between Kant and other proponents of the unity of the human species is a difference by degree. For if Kant defends that one could not reproduce the original phylum, he nevertheless states that the race of “White brunette,” people who must have existed between

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

87

the 31st and 52nd parallels in the old world and who are currently best approximated by the inhabitants of Europe, are those closest to the original phylum. The White race therefore appears to Kant as relatively immune to any action from the environment. This led him to conclude section 3 of the essay with a typology that juxtaposes races according to the degree of their closeness to the original phylum. He states: Thus, we can count the latter at least as an approximation among the actual races, and then they can be brought into the following outline connecting them with the natural causes of their origin: Phyletic Species. Whites of brunette colour. First race High blondes (Northern Europeans) from the humid cold. Second race Copper-reds (Americans) from the dry cold. Third race Blacks (Senegambia) from humid heat. Fourth race Olive-­ yellows (Indians) from dry heat.63

 erms, Predispositions and the Completeness G of the Character of the White Race As demonstrated above, if the theory of natural predispositions lets Kant develop a theory of race, he needs to secure the monogenesis of human races. This also allows him to determine a biological cause for the completeness of the character of the White race and subsequently the incomplete character of the Native American race. If germs and natural predispositions of all races had to be present from the start in the original phylum since their transmission is the only way of securing an inheritance of racial character, Kant’s theory therefore entails that biological heritage can only be produced by natural predispositions present in the original phylum. This means that the completeness of the character of the White race is expressed by its ability to resist any action from the climate and the saline acidic or the phosphoric acidic; the germs of this completeness must have been purposively placed in the original phylum. Kant expresses this completeness in the following terms: In the White, however, this iron that it is dissolved in the fluids would not be precipitated at all and thereby would indicate at once the perfect mixture of the fluids and the strength of this human sort ahead of the others.64

88 

J. Yab

This implies that the potentiality of transmitting any acquired completeness character by inheritance must have been present in the original phylum for the White race, which is why in all climates the White race will always be ahead of others. In contrast with other races in which external circumstances may occasion modifications, the White race appears to be a hyper-race out of the reach of external influences. The preformationist element of Kant’s theory of generation that stresses that there must have been an original single phylum containing the germs and natural predispositions of all human races also legitimates the fact that if certain races like the Native American, for example, are incomplete, this incompleteness character must have also been present in the common phylum. The common phylum, which guarantees that all races belong to the same species, guarantees at the same time the permanence of inequality of moral characters since inheritance preserves the biological lineage. Kant, in observing that skin colour appears to be the only visible character that is invariably inherited, also implies that the same colour carries the inner character. In linking the human species to the four colours, Kant not only demonstrates the unity of the human species, but also provides a biological grounding for the moral differences among races. He defends the claim that different races emerge because some races are mixed and others are early races. Therefore, not all races are entirely raced. He writes, for example, that Native Americans appear to be an incomplete race which has not yet fully adapted. Moreover, this “is quite well confirmed through the suppressed hair growth on all parts of the body except the head, through the reddish rust iron colour in the colder and the darker copper colour in the hotter regions of this part of the world.”65 The incompleteness character of the Native American race is correlative to the completeness of the character of the White race in the sense that the former is always to Kant the referential norm for the latter. The inherent weaknesses of the Natives of America may therefore be explained by their “Hunnish” germ that has not yet fully adapted, in contrast to the White race in whom germs and natural predispositions develop correctly. This makes Kant defend in his lectures on anthropology the position that: If one asks with which of the present races the first human phylum might have had the greatest similarity, one would, though without any prejudice,

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

89

pronounce in favour of the Whites because of the evidently greater perfection of one colour over others.66

By inserting into his theory of race the idea of White superiority, Marc Larrimore argues that Kant invented the concept of “Whiteness.”67 This chapter set out to examine Kant’s scientific conception of race against the backdrop of the epistemic status of the history of nature. Kant thinks against a description of nature that natural history is the way to go in the philosophy of history because it secures the understanding of natural phenomena. In this chapter, I have begun by explaining that mathematic-­mechanistic law, which was the basis of theories in the eighteenth century in explaining human diversity, was dismissed first by Buffon through his distinction of abstract and physical truths. Later this distinction served Kant in defining his cosmogony in which he shared Buffon’s scepticism of mathematical truth in explaining organic beings because he thought that the human species, unlike inorganic matter, has the “Charakteristik” which gives them the capacity to develop, to breed their kind and to regenerate damaged parts of their body. This led him to develop his theory that dismissed Linnaeus’ classification of the human species, but that accepted and extended Buffon’s rule that all human beings belong to the same natural species because they beget fertile children with each other. This is to say that Kant’s conception of natural species is based on a dual character of the biological unity of the human species and of the existence of germs and predispositions, which are potentialities responsible for racial differences. I have suggested that an important part of Kant’s account of race also conceives germs and natural predispositions as responsible for the completeness of the character of the White race. I defend that the completeness character of the White race, which is manifested by its ability to resist the influence of the climate, unlike other races, must have been present from the start in the generative power. That is what justifies its hereditary transmission, which is visible through skin colour. Kant’s account of skin colour as the sole visible racial character is precisely what brings his theory into trouble. Two critiques will force him to revise his theory. The first is from his former student, Johann Gottfried Herder, in Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784–1791).

90 

J. Yab

In the first volume of his Ideen, Herder overrules the word “race” as too improper for human history. In the second volume, which appeared in 1785, he repudiates the existence of races utterly. The second critique comes from the anthropologist Georg Forster, who in his Noch etwas über die Menschenrassen (1786) accuses Kant of being dogmatically anti-­ empiricist. To him, Kant’s deliberate conceptual account of race is founded on an unjustified fascination with skin colour. Forster claims that skin colour cannot count as a valid criterion to define races. These critiques pushed Kant to write two additional essays, respectively, in 1785 and 1788 in which he shifts from a scientific to a philosophical account of race. I should stress that this shift is not a reformulation of his theory, but instead it is its philosophical legitimisation. For Kant, the critiques of his theory proved that his 1770s formulation was not explicit enough. Furthermore, because of his critical philosophy, he considered that his theory should be based on the idea of reason. Therefore, his conception of race shifted from an a posteriori to an a priori justification. This is where the second moral problem of his theory is given its metaphysical validation, namely the dispossession of the dignity of human nature of the Negro race. In the next chapter, I show how Kant shifted from a scientific to a philosophical conception of the “Charakteristik” of the human species while providing metaphysical reasoning for the second moral problem of his theory.

Notes 1. SLOAN, P. R. 2006. Kant on the history of nature: The ambiguous heritage of the critical philosophy for natural history. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 37, p. 627. 2. HOME, H. L. K. 1778. Sketches of the History of Man. Online Library of Liberty. 2007 ed.: Online Library of Liberty. 3. See ARISTOTLE, FINE, G. & IRWIN, T. 1996. Aristotle: introductory readings, Indianapolis, Ind., Hackett Pub.; LEUNISSEN, M. 2010. Explanation and teleology in Aristotle’s science of nature, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.; LANG, H. S. 1998. The order of nature in

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

91

Aristotle’s physics: place and the elements, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 4. KANT, I. 2007. Of the different races of human beings. In: LOUDEN, R.  B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 97. 5. See HOQUET, T. 2014. Biologization of Race and Racialization of the Human: Bernier, Buffon, Linnaeus. In: BANCEL, N., DAVID, T. & THOMAS, D. R. D. (eds.) The invention of race: scientific and popular representations. New York, Routledge, pp. 17–32. 6. SLOAN, P. R. 2006. Kant on the history of nature: The ambiguous heritage of the critical philosophy for natural history. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 37, p. 633. 7. Ibid. 8. I use my own translation from LE CLERC, G.  L. C.  D. B. 1749. L’histoire Naturelle. Buffon et l’histoire naturelle: l’édition en ligne cnrs. 9. “Ce qu’on appelle vérités mathématiques se réduit donc à des identités d’idées et n’a aucune réalité; nous supposons, nous raisonnons sur nos suppositions, nous en tirons des conséquences, nous concluons, la conclusion ou dernière conséquence est une proposition vraie relativement à notre supposition, mais cette vérité n’est pas plus réelle que la supposition elle-même. Ce n’est point ici le lieu de nous étendre sur les usages des sciences mathématiques, non plus que sur l’abus qu’on en peut faire, il nous suffit d’avoir prouvé que les vérités mathématiques ne sont que des vérités de définitions ou, si l’on veut, des expressions différentes de la même chose, et qu’elles ne sont vérités que relativement à ces mêmes définitions que nous avons faites; c’est par cette raison qu’elles ont l’avantage d’être toujours exactes et démonstratives, mais abstraites, intellectuelles et arbitraires.” Tome Premier p. 54. Ibid. 10. “En Mathématique on suppose, en Physique on pose et on établit; là ce sont des définitions, ici ce sont des faits; on va de définitions en définitions dans les Sciences abstraites, on marche d’observations en observations dans les Sciences réelles; dans les premières on arrive à l’évidence, dans les dernières à la certitude.” Ibid. 11. REILL, P.  H. 2005. Vitalizing nature in the Enlightenment, Berkeley, Calif.; London, University of California Press, 40. 12. KANT, I. & JOHNSTON, I. 2008. Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, Arlington, Richer Resources Publications, p. 8.

92 

J. Yab

13. HETHERINGTON, N. S. 1993. Encyclopedia of cosmology: historical, philosophical, and scientific foundations of modern cosmology, New York; London, Garland Pub, p. 338. 14. KANT, I. & JOHNSTON, I. 2008. Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, Arlington, Richer Resources Publications, p. 8. 15. KANT, I. 1992. The only possible argument in support of a demonstration of the existence of God. In: WALFORD, D. & MEERBOTE, R. (eds.) Theoretical philosophy, 1755–1770. Camb. U. P., p. 158., p.156 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid., p. 166. 18. LINNAEUS, C. 1735. Systema naturae. In: LIBRARY, B.  H. (ed.) Biodiversity Heritage Library. 09/11/2007 ed.: Biodiversity Heritage Library. 19. Ibid. 20. LE CLERC, G. L. C. D. B. 1749. L’histoire Naturelle. Buffon et l’histoire naturelle: l’édition en ligne cnrs. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. “L’espèce est un mot abstrait et général, dont la chose n’existe qu’en considérant la Nature dans la succession du temps.” ibid. 24. “les ressemblances & les différences (…) non seulement d’une partie mais du tout ensemble” ibid. 25. FOX, C., PORTER, R. & WOKLER, R. 1995. Inventing human science: eighteenth-century domains, Berkeley, Calif.; London, University of California Press, p. 132. 26. GREGORY, M.  E. 2008. Evolutionism in eighteenth-century French thought, New York; Oxford, Peter Lang, p. 84. 27. KANT, I. 2007. Of the different races of human beings. In: LOUDEN, R.  B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 84. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., p. 85.

4  Kant, Race and Natural History 

93

36. KANT, I. 2007. On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy. In: LOUDEN, R. B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 197. 37. KANT, I. 2007. Of the different races of human beings. In: LOUDEN, R.  B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 85. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid., p. 94. 41. Ibid., p. 85. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid., p.87. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid., p. 87. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid., p. 89. 54. Ibid., p. 90. 55. For discussions about human taxonomy and critique of preformationism see AGUTTER, P. S. & WHEATLEY, D. N. 2008. Thinking about life: the history and philosophy of biology and other sciences, Dordrecht, Springer, p.  129. For discussion about Preformationism versus Epigenetics see MAHNER, M. & BUNGE, M. 1997. Foundations of biophilosophy, Berlin; London, Springer, p. 277. 56. For discussion about a brief history of Natural Teleology see PALEY, W., EDDY, M. & KNIGHT, D. M. 2006. Natural theology: or, evidence of the existence and attributes of the deity, collected from the appearances of nature, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 57. KEEN, B. The Aztec image in western thought, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1971 (1990 [printing]), p. 251. 58. KANT, I. 2007. Of the different races of human beings. In: LOUDEN, R.  B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 90.

94 

J. Yab

59. Ibid. 60. Ibid., p. 94. 61. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the Concept of Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R.  B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 145. 62. Ibid., p. 156. 63. KANT, I. 2007. Of the different races of human beings. In: LOUDEN, R.  B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 95. 64. Ibid., p. 94. 65. Ibid., p. 92. 66. LARRIMORE, M. 2008. Antinomies of race: diversity and destiny in Kant. Patterns of Prejudice, 42, 341–63. 67. Ibid.

5 Kant, Race and Teleology

The Knowledge which the new travels have disseminated about the manifoldness in the human species so far have contributed more to exiting the understanding of this investigation on this point than to satisfy it. It is for great consequence to have previously determined the concept that one wants to elucidate through observation before questioning experience about it; for one finds in experience what one need only if one knows in advance what to look for.1

As demonstrated in the preceding chapter, Kant’s first essay on race divided the unity of the human species and its varieties into sub-species in a relatively detailed scientific and environmental context. However, in his second essay discussed in this section, he focuses on theoretical issues and argues that an idea such as that of the human species cannot be grounded solely in experiment but must be guided by theory. My objective in this chapter is twofold: first, there is a goal of showing Kant’s methodological shift from a posteriori to a priori conception of the human species and demonstrating along the way that the new conception represents a progression rather than a reformulation of his theory. Second, I argue that the fact that Kant twice defended his theory in the 1780s and gave it an a priori justification confirms the complete commitment to his theory. More importantly, and contra to the “orthodox reading,” I claim © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Yab, Kant and the Politics of Racism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69101-1_5

95

96 

J. Yab

that Kant dismissed the opportunities to address the two moral claims of his theory, thereby revealing a clear commitment to racial inequality. The methodological shift from Kant’s earlier account of the natural history of the human species was undoubtedly prompted by the reception of his first essay “Of the Different Races of Human Beings.” However, this shift was also correlative to the development of his critical philosophy. By the time Kant published his second essay on race in 1785, he had established the foundations of his critical philosophy, his philosophy of history and his ethics in publishing, respectively, Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim in 1784 and Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals in 1785. Kant, in his second essay on race, reinforces the central claim of his theory that skin colour, which expresses the main “Charakteristik” of the human species, is called race because it is the only character that is permanently hereditary. Kant goes even further by calling the four colours of the skin, the “character…suited for the division of human species into classes explicitly.”2 Subsequently, “Determination of the Concept of a Human Race” is one of Kant’s most extensive essays on race in which he defines race as the indisputable main character of the human species (a conception he also upholds in his third essay). The publication of his third essay on race, “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy,” which appeared in January and February of 1788, after the publication of Critique of Practical Reason, is again in large part a response to another critic. This is the young anthropologist Georg Forster, who accused Kant of giving precedence to theory over facts and experience, and who also objected to his dogmatic attention to skin colour as the sole criterion of classification. Forster still defends the exclusive influence of climate in the formation of skin colour, and argues for multiple origins of human species. In replying, Kant argues that Forster misunderstands his theory. As in his preceding essay on race, Kant begins by reaffirming the importance of theory in scientific investigation. He argues that: “It is undoubtedly certain that nothing of a purposive nature could ever be found through mere empirical groping without a guiding principle of what to search for: for only methodically conducted experience can be called observing.”3 Moreover, he redefines the concept of race

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

97

as the “characters (of human species) that develop only over generations, hence (are) not different kind but subspecies, yet so determinate and persistent that they justify a distinction regarding classes.”4 As Kant reaffirms that the unfolding of germs and predispositions determines the development of the human species, he retrieves his 1775 argument about the incompleteness of the character of the American race. Furthermore, as he continues to discuss the races, in particular, a typical hierarchical evaluation of the capacities of the races becomes noticeable. The issues of the “dispossession of the character of human dignity of the Negro race” and the “completeness of the character of the White race” re-emerges forcefully with rather an a priori justification. While all races have the “ability to work, the American and Black races are deficient in a drive to activity.” The non-White races will never push themselves to action because all germs and predispositions have stopped developing. However, the White race, which possesses the complete drive to activity, will not lose it even if they migrate to different regions. Therefore, the ultimate goal of this chapter is to show that Kant deliberately dismissed all opportunities to address the two moral claims of his theory and instead used these occasions to confirm his commitment to racial inequality. To prove my claim, I first recall the theoretical reasons that motivated Kant’s methodological shift, including Kant’s writings at that time as well as the writings of his critics, and I show that Herder’s critique constitutes the first of Kant’s missed opportunities to address the two moral problems of his theory. I then move to the analysis of Kant’s second essay to illustrate that his definition of the four races as the only four characters of the human species is based on a philosophical need to ground his theory in a priori justification beyond criticism. Contrary to what Kant expected, the second essay was also subject to Forster’s tirade, and Kant again missed this moment to address the moral problems of his conception. Finally, the analysis of Kant’s third essay on race will provide the opportunity to demonstrate that Kant’s unequivocal commitment to racial inequality was teleologically grounded. Moreover, this is why he never felt uncomfortable with his conception of racial inequality since that inequality is purposive.

98 

J. Yab

F rom a Posteriori to a Priori Conception of the “Charakteristik” of the Human Species The publication of the first critique represents a significant shift in Kant’s way of thinking that will be felt in all of his writings. Kant says the Critique of Pure Reason is: “a critique of the faculty of reason in general, in respect of all the cognitions after which reason might strive independently of all experience, and hence the decision about the possibility or impossibility of a metaphysics in general, and the determination of its sources, as well as its extent and boundaries, all, however, from principles.”5 The Critique is not just criticism, but a critical examination. Kant is not challenging pure reason but is displaying its limits; to a degree, he expects to show its possibility and to promote it above impure knowledge, which arrives to us through the misleading channels of the senses. For pure reason is to mean knowledge that does not come through our senses, but is independent of all sense experience, knowledge belonging to us through the inherent nature and structure of the mind. We have to remember that Kant’s first essay on race was founded on facts collected mainly from travel narratives. In publishing the Critique of Pure Reason, he conceives that not all knowledge is derived from the senses. Complete confidence in knowledge is impossible if all knowledge comes from sensation, from an independent external world, which owes us no promise of the regularity of behaviour. However, what if we have knowledge that is independent of sense experience, knowledge whose truth is sure to us even before experience, and thus a priori? The absolute truth, and absolute science, would become possible because as Kant says: “All our cognition starts from the senses, goes from there to the understanding, and ends with reason, beyond which there is nothing higher to be found in us to work on the matter of intuition and bring it under the highest unity of thinking.”6 This means that absolute truth about the science of the “Charakteristik” of the human species would become conceivable. The Critique is a detailed investigation of this thinking, a scrutiny of the source and development of notions, an investigation of the natural arrangement of the mind. From there the enquiry about the definition of concepts became for Kant a priority. With such a mindset, Kant considered that criticism of his theory of the human species and especially

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

99

Herder’s critique meant that knowledge derived from his theory was not a necessary knowledge, since it was based only on observation of the biological differentiation of the human species over time and space. Kant believed that the philosophical meaning of the concept of race, which defines it as a character that is hereditary within the same and across different sub-species, was neglected. To defy criticism, Kant’s aimed in his second essay, and after the spirit of his first critique, to set an a priori conception of race derived from experience but ending with reason. This reformulation of the “Charakteristik” of the human species is also imposed by Kant’s new consideration of human history developed in his Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim (1784) Kant’s fundamental question in Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim is that of how universal history is possible. Kant wishes to determine the a priori history, the rules by which human history needs to be apprehended to achieve the universal ends of the human species. As in the Critique of Pure Reason, there is a need to posit this idea as a regulative one. Kant posits that the regulative use of ideas of pure reason provides the ground of empirical notions through its assumption of a logical unity that cannot itself change an object of experience. Kant meant to set a history that posits an idea with an ultimate aim towards the progress of human history. That final aim is the development of human natural predispositions through cosmopolitan conditions. Kant states: History, which concerns itself with the narration of these appearances, however deeply concealed their causes may be, nevertheless allows us to hope from it that if it considers the play of the freedom of the human will in the large, it can discover within it a regular course; and that in this way what meets the eye in individual subjects as confused and irregular yet in the whole species can be recognized as a steadily progressing through slow development of its original predispositions.7

We must bear in mind that Kant, in his first essay on race, defended the view that the purpose of racial differences is to enable the population of the entire globe. In his first essay, this purpose is justified a posteriori. However, a posteriori justification of human history will not establish a universal history of mankind because:

100 

J. Yab

One cannot resist feeling a certain indignation when one sees their [men] doings and refrainings on the great stage of the world and finds that despite the wisdom appearing now and then in individual cases, everything in the large is woven together out of folly, childish vanity, often also out of childish malice and the rage to destruction; so that in the end one does not know what concept to make of our species, with its smug imaginings about its excellences.8

That is why for the natural history of mankind that Kant already developed in “Of the Different Races of Human Beings” in 1775 to become a universal history, it should be transformed into a philosophy which supplies a kind of general analysis which transforms the human species’ history into certainty revealing natural world history. A universal history of mankind implies not merely the significance of the development of one sub-species but, to a degree, of the entire species in terms of its environment. Indeed, this universal history must designate not only the particular but also the universal. The real history of nature implies an understanding of human relations as not only a product of nature but as an idea of reason, since the particularity of the “Charakteristik” of the human species is to be bound by moral requirements. Moreover, moral requirements are set not by experience but by and from reason. This is why Kant sets out in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals to discover the precise statement of the principle from which all moral judgements of the human species are based. In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) Kant states that: A metaphysics of morals is…indispensably necessary, not merely because of a motive to speculation—for investigating the source of the practical basic principles that lie a priori in our reason—but also because morals themselves remain subject to all sorts of corruption as long as we are without that clue and supreme norm by which to appraise them correctly.9

This requires determining the supreme principle of morality which must be established a priori because once we establish the fundamental principle of morality a priori, now the “descending to popular concepts is certainly very commendable, provided the ascent to the principles of pure reason has first taken place and has been carried through to

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

101

complete satisfaction.”10 Kant insists on an a priori method because he holds that moral questions are to be decided by reason because reason always seeks unity under principles. Let us recall that Kant in his first essay on race insists on the unity of the human species. This unity at that stage was required by nature and was proved by Buffon’s rule of interbreeding. However, as Kant developed his philosophy, he considered that the unity of the human species posited from experience is insufficient to account for the perpetuity of races. This idea follows the development of his overall thought that universal and general principles must be determined a priori. Thus, important questions in moral philosophy must be established a priori because of the nature of moral requirements themselves. Moral requirements imply being necessary for themselves; if not, “how should laws of the determination of our will be taken as laws of the determination of the will of rational beings as such, and for ours only as rational beings, if they were merely empirical and did not have their origin completely a priori in pure but practical reason?”11 Thus, for Kant, it is crucial for moral philosophy to establish itself by using an a priori method. Following the spirit of the three works mentioned above, it is therefore typical to see the same methodological clarification in his second essay on race. As already mentioned, the reception of Kant’s first essay on race prompted him to think about the philosophical issues underlying his conception of the human species. However, one criticism, by Johann Gottfried Herder, affected Kant’s idea of the human species and was undoubtedly one of the main reasons why he published his second essay on race.

Missed Opportunities Kant’s First Missed Opportunity Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) was Kant’s student in Konigsberg between 1762 and 1765. Herder was one of the prominent critics of the enlightenment of the 1770s, and in 1784 he produced the first volume of his most significant work, Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of

102 

J. Yab

Humanity, in which he rejected the word “race” as being improper for human history. In his second volume, he denied the existence of races completely. Both volumes were reviewed by Kant and represented for Kant a genuine opportunity to address critical theoretical issues of his theory. Herder defends a conception of history in which “Time, place, and national characteristic alone, in short, the general cooperation of active powers in their most determinate individuality, govern all the events that happen among mankind.”12 This is why he held that there is no such thing as a pre-arranged universal essence, a sort of core reason that predetermines humanity. He thinks that humanity is everywhere different, and this difference is attributed to culture. Furthermore, each culture, according to Herder, has a uniqueness and valuable character that is attributable to a diversity of existential as opposed to essential factors, which form human communities. Besides, all human communities are the product of a particular natural environment that is determined by geographical, biological and other physical factors. Herder sees a close relationship between human history and natural history, human civilisation and nature. This is what justifies his frequent use of the metaphor of a plant and its roots to draw a similarity between the two. He states: Nature has given the whole Earth to mankind, her children; and allowed everything, that place, time, and power would permit, to spring up thereon. Everything that can exist exists; everything that is possible to be produced will be produced; if not today, yet tomorrow. Nature’s year is long: the blossoms of her plants are as various as the plants themselves and the elements by which they are nourished.13

Herder’s favourite parallel for describing personal and collective identity is the life process of the plant. He writes: As a mineral water derives its component parts, its operative powers, and its flavour, from the soil through which it flows; so, the ancient “Charakteristik” of nations arose from the family features, the climate, the way of life and education, the early actions and employments, that were peculiar to them.14

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

103

Herder shows a definite inclination to pursue genetic explication of a wide range of human phenomena that are imported from organic metaphor because he considers that humans are like plants, and thus to understand specific humans, we should enquire about their identity linked to their common root in a particular community. Herder is of the view that each culture has a distinctive character that was formed through a given series of causes and effects. Its formation is a result of continuing transmission of this character from generation to generation. The formation of cultural tradition in this sense is therefore an ongoing process that is immutable particularly once the given community stays in the same location. Consequently, the understanding of human history implies the consideration of the character of each tradition traced back in its roots or early beginning merely because it was the “manners of the fathers… [which]… took deep root, and became the internal prototype of the race”15 Herder argues that to understand the human species, one must seek to comprehend an individual through their community, which is made by common traditions and memories and from the impact of the environment. This is why to be a member of a community is to act, behave and think in a certain way that is derived from the impact of the environment. Always consistent with his analogy to plants, Herder argues about the human species that as no “two leaves of any one tree are exactly alike in nature: still less two human faces and two human constitutions.”16 However, despite significant transformations, “man is not an independent entity. All elements of nature relate to him. He cannot live without air, without nourishment from the many products of the soil, without other diverse foods, and without a drink.”17 Herder also thinks that a man’s “life is one continuous series of change and its phases read like sagas of transformation.”18 Nevertheless, since the human understanding calls for “unity in diversity, and since its prototype, the divine mind, has everywhere combined the greatest possible multiplicity with unity,”19 Herder states that “despite the vast realm of change and diversity, all mankind is the same species upon earth.”20 Herder argues against the use of the concept of “race” to distinguish between different members of the human species according to “regions of origin or complexion.” He proposes instead to use the concept of “nation.” He argues that every community is a nation because it has its own

104 

J. Yab

tradition, language and character. Even if the climate has an impact on the formation of these traditions, it cannot, however, destroy the national character of a nation. This is why he claims that it is far more profitable to speak of nations for the simple reason that “there are neither four nor five races nor exclusive varieties, on this earth. Complexions run into each other; forms follow the genetic character; and … they are… different shades of the same great picture which extends through all ages and all parts of the earth.”21 Consequently, the philosopher of history must therefore attempt to “see with eyes as impartial as those of the creator of the human species, or the genius of the Earth, and judge altogether uninfluenced by the passions.”22 He must cultivate a “mind wholly free from hypothesis”23 if he is to grasp the meaning of the human species. This could not be more different from Kant’s views; except for Herder’s acceptance of monogenesis, his conception of human history radically diverges from Kant’s universal history. I must highlight that Kant’s second essay on race, “Determination of the Concept of a Human Race,” was only the second of three anti-Herderian essays he published. The first response to Herder was Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim, which, as detailed above, had offered Kant’s view on what human history would have to look like. For Kant, the philosopher-historian’s task is to write a universal history whose topic would address the development of humanity’s perfection as a whole. This includes the historiographical project of universal history in the future, but it also involves the conviction that such a teleological process is already at work. It is therefore the task of the philosopher-historian to make this teleological development explicit because, as he states, Here there is no other way out for the philosopher—who, regarding human beings and their play in the large, cannot at all presuppose any rational aim of theirs—than to try whether he can discover an aim of nature in this nonsensical course of things human; from which aim a history in accordance with a determinate plan of nature might nevertheless be possible even of creatures who do not behave in accordance with their own plan.24

As stated above, Kant’s universal history did not concern itself with actual history at all, in contrast to Herder. For Kant, universal history is

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

105

oriented to the end of the human species and has a definitive purpose, which is the development of natural predispositions through a cosmopolitan society. The conception of Kant’s cosmopolitanism is consecutive to the development of germs and natural predispositions already developed in Kant’s first essay on race. Kant’s cosmopolitanism is therefore concomitant with the role of providence which placed in human races the germs and natural predispositions that are activated according to the climate and environment and which work for the realisation of a universal cosmopolis. This posits the purposiveness of history because its determinate end corresponds with the determinate end of the human species. In contrast to animals, human beings cannot realise their ends individually; only the human species as a whole can reach its end. This is why the establishment of a cosmopolitan community corresponds to and is the accomplishment of the perfection of human predispositions in conformity to the laws of Reason. Without such an a priori formulation, as Kant argues, no history appears to be possible. In critical reviews of the first two volumes of Ideas, Kant critiques Herder’s methodology. First, Kant advocates for a universal history of man based on reason, objecting to Herder’s romanticism.25 For Kant, Herder had written poetry, not philosophy, letting his fancy move freely, not carefully and systematically deducing clear ideas. “His is not a logical precision in the definition of concepts or careful adherence to principles, but rather a fleeting, sweeping view, an adroitness in unearthing analogies in the wielding of which he shows bold imagination.”26 In short, Herder had transgressed the limits of reason, which Kant had so carefully defined three years before in Critique of Pure Reason. Second, by attempting to find human potential realised in every individual, era, tradition and culture, Herder proved incapable of distinguishing human from animal happiness and thus missed the true destiny of man. Kant argues: Does the author mean that, if the happy inhabitants of Tahiti, never visited by more civilized 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? Moreover, 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.27

106 

J. Yab

Here Kant, in reviewing Herder’s Ideas, reaffirms his commitment to the superiority of what he calls “cultured nations” over non-civilized nations. Having formulated his racial hierarchy in his first essay on race, he argues against Herder’s claim that each culture has something essential to contribute to humanity. Kant’s opposition to Herder on this issue is consistent with his earlier positions in physical geography that the world would not lose anything if Tahiti were to be destroyed. Kant’s underlying position in this quotation is that the best thing that could happen to the inhabitants of Tahiti would be for civilised nations to visit them. As already stressed, Kant considers the White race as the referential determinant of racial hierarchy. In opposing Herder with his argument about Tahiti, Kant demonstrates his commitment to the idea that the course of the history of a species that should develop its capacity for perfection mainly concerns the history of the White race, as it is the only race which is complete with all-natural talents. Kant’s disagreement with Herder demonstrated that he was well aware of the prejudice caused by his theory of race. In addition to being acquainted with the earlier developments in anthropology, Kant was an insatiable reader of the travel reports written by various people including explorers, missionaries and traders. Kant claimed that these reports were not consistent but he nevertheless relied on them. Consequently, he repeated the racial terminology of his time. However, what is essential to remember with regard to the Herder controversy is that it separates two moments of Kant’s race thinking. The first is the period in which Kant relied on travel reports to define the human species. The second period is the one that marks Kant’s dismissal of the sufficiency of travel reports since observation alone is not adequate to determine the concept of race. Kant sees Herder’s critique as an opportunity not to deny his theory but to confirm it within the boundaries of his germinating philosophy. However, this was also for Kant a missed opportunity to address the prejudices of his theory of the human species. If Kant’s first essay was mainly dependent on travel reports, his second essay, occasioned both by his philosophical development and by the criticism of his theory, is only based on reason. It is the period in which Kant indeed appropriates the argument for himself.

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

107

Kant’s Self-appropriation of the Theory of Race “Determination of the Concept of a Human Race,” published the same month as Kant’s second Herder review in November of 1785, does not mention Herder explicitly, although, as John Zammito has argued, this and other writings in the 1785–1788 period were aimed at a rejection of Herder’s argument on the human species.28 In this essay, Kant reinforces his theory of the human species in a new philosophical narrative. Kant reaffirms his racial theory in the form of six propositions, each explaining through a different theoretical narrative that race represented by skin colour is the only visible character of the variation within the human species. Kant states in the remark at the end of his essay that The purposive character in an organisation is undoubtedly the general reason for inferring a preparation that is initially placed in the nature of a creature with this intent, and for inferring created germs if this end could only be obtained later on. Now with respect to the peculiarity of race, this purposive character can be demonstrated nowhere so clearly as in the Negro race; yet the example is taken from the latter alone also entitle us at least to conjecture the same of the remaining ones, according to the analogy.29

The purposive character Kant is talking about is that of skin colour. For Kant nature has arranged in the original phylum germs and natural predispositions which are not only transmitted unfailingly to form four distinctive character (four races) but at the same time allow the four different races to populate and to adapt to the local environment. The example Kant gives to confirm the purposiveness of skin colour is the same example we encountered in his previous essay. For Kant, human blood may become black, especially in the Negro race, because it is full of phlogiston. This is proven by the strong smell of the Negro who even if he cleans himself will never get rid of the smell. The smell also proves that the Negro race who lives in an environment in which the concentration of phlogiston is much higher than other regions de-phlogistons their blood through the skin. Therefore, nature purposively placed germs and natural predispositions in the original phylum to help the Negro who is

108 

J. Yab

unable to de-phlogiston blood through the lungs like the White race, to be able to process it through the skin. I started from Kant’s remark which concludes his essay in order to stress, contra the “orthodox reading” (and especially contra Kleingeld), that Determination of the Concept of a Human Race not only confirms Kant’s theory in a new way but also mentions race differences in their moral capacity. In “Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race,” Kleingeld argues that: “In Determination of the Concept of a Human Race, Kant lay out a theory which deals strictly with physical differences among humans and does not mention any race-related differences in moral or cognitive capacities.”30 Larrimore shares a similar opinion in “Antinomies of Race: Diversity and Destiny in Kant.”31 It is my contention here to show that such a reading of Kant’s second essay on race is quite misleading. Indeed, and as stated in Chap. 2, Kant’s theory of the human species did not change with his second essay. “Determination of the Concept of a Human Race” marks only the appropriation of the theory by Kant himself. This means it is no longer from the reading of travel documents that Kant forges his theory, but from the requirement of reason. Let us first discuss the “orthodox reading,” which sees in Kant’s second essay a theory that is exempted from moral considerations. As I have demonstrated in Chap. 2, the problem with Kant’s theory of the human species is not a juxtaposition of races, as Kleingeld seems to believe, but of (1) the completeness of the White race and (2) the dispossession of the character of the beauty and dignity of human nature in the Negro race. Both moral problems emerge in Kant’s second essay on race but in diverse ways; they appear indirectly from Kant’s constant appeal to germs and natural predispositions. Second, the problems emerge directly when Kant talks about the purposiveness of skin colour. With regard to the indirect implication, Kant’s constant appeal in this essay to the purposiveness of germs and natural predispositions reaffirms his commitment to a theory of the human species as defined in 1775. I develop this in detail in the next chapter. Kant’s theory of racial biology holds that the original phylum of human beings was implanted with a set of germs and predispositions, which are the direct cause of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. In different climatic conditions, the germs suitable to that climate are activated, causing some sets of

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

109

predispositions to develop, and others to become permanently dormant. Kant therefore holds that there are four races (White European, Red American, Black African and Yellow Asian Indian). However, if the function of germs and natural predispositions is to ensure the possibility of human life across the globe, they are also responsible for the unequal moral and physical potential of the four human races. For if the germs and natural predispositions of all races had to be present from the beginning in the original phylum, since their transmission is the only way of securing the inheritance of the racial character which includes moral and physical potential, it follows that by continually appealing to these components, Kant implicitly lays out a theory of the human species which implies moral and intellectual differences because germs and predispositions encompass physical and moral elements. With regard to the direct emergence of Kant’s two moral issues in his second essay, as I have demonstrated in Chap. 2, the aspect of the completeness of the character of the White race is exposed by its capacity to resist the influence of environment. Kant stated in his first essay on race that there were reasons to think that skin colour was due to the presence of iron in the blood. Skin colour was the result of iron particles that was precipitated in the reticulum as red, black or yellow by saline acidic or phosphoric acidic. However, in the White race these particles “would not be predicted at all and thereby would indicate at once the perfect mixture of the fluids and the strength of this human sort ahead of the others.”32 Thus, not only is the completeness of the character of the White race manifested in the physical capacity that allows them to dismiss iron in their blood, but this also implies their moral strength that puts them above all other races. Kant in his second essay has a similar schema in mind when explaining the causes of different skin colours. He argues: Now already the strong odour of the Negroes, which cannot be helped through any cleanliness, gives cause for conjecturing that their skin removes much phlogiston from the blood and that nature must have organized this skin so that the blood could de-phlogistize itself in them through the skin in a far greater measure than happens in us, where that is, for the most part, the task of the lungs.33

110 

J. Yab

Kant states here that the task of the lungs is to de-philogistise blood. Furthermore, to him, this happens correctly in the White race. This is implied in the above quotation by “than happens in us.” Kleingeld explained rightly that the essay is written “from a White perspective and for a White audience.”34 However, she failed to note that germs and natural predispositions are always included in the moral and physical components, and more importantly, she missed this reference regarding the causes of the different skin colours that suggests that in the Negro race, the lungs do not function adequately. Hence the Negro’s smell is strong, and this is why nature purposively structured this skin to help blood to de-philogistise. Not only is the completeness of the character of the White race manifested here in their capacity to de-philogistise blood perfectly through their lungs, but also the dispossession of the character of the beauty and dignity of human nature of the Negro race is expressed by their inability to use their lungs correctly and by their strong smell. We must always remember that in Kant’s developmental process of the “Charakteristik,” physical inaptitude is correlated to moral incapacity. Kant’s defence of the purposiveness of skin colour can be observed from the beginning of the essay to the end. In fact, his objective is to redefine the concept of race as the only character of the human species. However, in contrast to his first essay, his second does not proceed from observation since he considers that it is precisely because critics have focused on observing facts that concepts appear undefined, as there are always better facts to contradict facts. This is why Kant changes his approach. From the beginning of the essay, Kant argues for the precedence of the theory. He claims: It is of great consequence to have previously determined the concept that one wants to elucidate through observation before questioning experience about it; for one finds in experience what one needs only if one knows in advance what to look for.35

Kant’s endeavour to clarify his theory of the human species follows the development of his philosophy. In Critique of Pure Reason, for example, Kant argues that if human knowledge begins with experience, since without experience people would not have the fundamental impression of the

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

111

world around them that arouses understanding and imagination, experience is only one element of knowledge. It is what we do with our experience that defines the other element of knowledge, which is understanding. Kant argues that it is understanding in addition to experience that generates the whole of human knowledge: But although all our cognition commences with experience, yet it does not on that account all arise from experience. For it could well be that even our experiential cognition is a composite of that which we receive through impressions and that which our own cognitive faculty (merely prompted by sensible impressions) provides out of itself, which addition we cannot distinguish from that fundamental material until long practice has made us attentive to it and skilled in separating it out.36

The combination of experience through sensory perception and human understanding to generate the entirety of human knowledge is central to Kant’s theory of knowledge. He argues that although experience is the beginning of knowledge, it is understanding that manipulates and completes it. In advocating for a reformulation of a theory of the human species to support his theory of race, Kant is not talking about any theory but the one which is grounded in reason. To do so, Kant elaborates six critical propositions based on the possibility of the differentiation of the species into sub-species with skin colour as the only visible features of the “Charakteristik” of the species. The first proposition reaffirms that only what is necessarily hereditary can account for the classification of the human species. Kant here disqualifies the effect of climate as a direct cause of skin colour. He argues regarding the colour of the Negro that “only a child conceived by such a couple in Europe would reveal without ambiguity skin colour that belongs to them by nature.”37 This is why “we know with certainty of no other hereditary differences of skin colour than those of the Whites, the yellow Indians, the Negros, and the copper-red Americans.”38 Kant now assumes that variation in the “Charakteristik” of the human species can be identified with skin colour. It is important to stress that, in Kant’s previous essay, he did not explicitly associate the word “character” with skin colour because the concept was not yet positively defined in his

112 

J. Yab

mind. However, with the development of his philosophy, it becomes clear what he intended by character. The most formal sense of character is given in Critique of Pure Reason: “every effective cause must have a character, i.e., a law of its causality, without which it would not be a cause at all.”39 The recurrent discussion in this section, which is about the “Possibility of freedom in harmony with the universal law of natural necessity,” explicates that every sensuous object would possess “an empirical character,”40 termed “the character of such a thing in appearance.”41 Also, this sensuous object must, in the second place, possess an “intelligible character,”42 named the “character as thing in itself.”43 Kant argues that the empirical character of the subject is exposed to the laws of nature and in this sense can be apprehended as a phenomenon subordinated to time and place. Whereas the intelligible character of the subject because it not exposed to the law of nature could not be cognised, as it is free from the law of all determination and time. However, we can think of the intelligible character in harmony with the empirical character of the subject because prior empirical conditions determine the former. Therefore, nature and freedom can exist, without contradiction or disagreement. Kant’s development of his notion of character follows the line of what he already started in his lectures on anthropology. As Werner Stark noted in his “Historical Notes and Interpretive Questions about Kant’s Lectures on Anthropology,” “the proper object of anthropology (at least through the mid-1770s) is that of which Kant calls later the ‘empirical character’ of human beings while the domain of ‘intelligible character’ is assigned to moral philosophy. Still, Kant never leaves any doubt about the fact that the two characters he is observing belong to the same human being.”44 Hence, in explicitly defining race regarding character, Kant is confident that his concept of character has partially been explained in his previous lectures in anthropology and wholly clarified in his first critique. This is why he argues in his second proposition in Determination of the Concept of a Human Race that: “It is noteworthy that these characters (White, yellow, Negro and red) appear to be essentially suited for the division of the human species into classes”45 for two distinct reasons. The first reason is that these characters are sufficiently isolated concerning their residence: the White race in Europe, the yellow race in Asia, the Negro race in

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

113

Africa and the red race in America. For Kant, the fact that these assorted colours appear in different parts of the globe provides evidence that they are distinct. The second reason why skin colour is suited to represent a division into classes of the human species is its purposiveness: “the secretion through perspiration must be the most important part of Nature foresight, considering that creature—transplanted in all possible regions, where it is affected very differently by air and sun is supposed to persist in a way that is least needy of art, and that the skin, as the organ of that secretion, carries in itself the trace of this diversity of the natural character which justifies the division of the human species into visibly different classes.”46 Kant then specifies in proposition three that skin colour is the visible sign of the variation in the “Charakteristik” of the human species. Because it is the one character that is unfailingly hereditary, as in the case of mixing with another character through reproduction, as he argues in proposition four, “heredity always occurs on both sides and never unilaterally in the same child.”47 For example, a White man and a Negro woman and vice versa produce a “mulato” because the “White father impresses on it the character of his class and the black mother that of hers.”48 None of the four propositions stated above is innovative. Kant is just repeating what he already developed in his 1775 essay. The innovation comes when in proposition five Kant endeavours to determine the “law of necessary half-breed generation.”49 This means Kant wants to determine first why, among all the attributes of the human species like the flat nose, for example, or illness, skin colour is the only visible character that is necessarily hereditary. Additionally, why among all the colours do only the four mentioned above perpetuate? The real question that Kant wishes to answer is what the causes of the genetic variation of the “Charakteristik” of the human species are. To do so, Kant will change his methodology. In 1775, as Larrimore argues, race was for Kant “a proof that a scientific understanding of human experience in the context of our varied terrestrial existence was possible.”50 He relied mainly on travel documents to define his theory. With the development of his critical philosophy and challenged by Herder, however, Kant thought that he should call on maxims because experience alone cannot provide the necessary truth about knowledge. However, the problem was that the appeal for an a priori principle to

114 

J. Yab

derive something that does not belong to the principle of the species, and to confirm that this something is hereditary, is, Kant believes, an “awkward undertaking.”51 Conscious of this difficulty, Kant defines his methodology as follows: I, for my part, look only at the particular maxim of reason from which each person departs and according to which he generally manages to find facts which favour it; and afterward. I seek out my maxim, making me incredulous of all those explanations even before I manage to make clear-to myself the counterargument.52

As noted at the beginning of this chapter, when Kant published his second essay on race he had already laid down his conception of ethics in which we can find what he means by maxim. Kant defines maxims in Critique of Pure Reason as follows: “practical principles are propositions that comprise a broad-spectrum determination of the will, having under its numerous practical procedures. They are subjective, or maxims, when the subject regards the condition as holding only for his will”53 Also, in Groundwork, he represents maxims as the “subjective principle of acting and must be distinguished from the objective principle, namely the practical law. The former contains the practical rule determined by the reason conformably with the conditions of the subject, and is, therefore, the principle by which the subject acts; but the law is the objective principle valid for every rational being, and the principle by which he ought to act, i.e., an imperative.”54 Kant describes maxims as subjective practical principles or subjective principles of action. They are subjective because a subject prescribes them upon himself55 because they reflect his circumstances and point of view. They are practical because they guide a person’s behaviour. Finally, they are principles because of their generality; maxims apply to situation-­ types. As Kant puts it, maxims are propositions that contain a general determination of the will, under several practical rules. This is why, as he continues to describe his methodology in the Determination of the Concept of a Human race, when he finds his maxim proven, he follows “it without heeding those alleged facts, which borrow their credibility and sufficiency for the assumed hypothesis almost exclusively from that already chosen

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

115

maxim and to which facts one can moreover oppose a hundred other facts without efforts.”56 After clearly defining his methodology, Kant looks at heredity as the starting point of his maxim. The experience of heredity in the human species shows that certain traits are sometimes transmitted generation to generation, but at the end die out like the “plucking beard” or the “flattened nose.” These traits, while being transmitted either by the power of imprinting in pregnant women or the influence of the climate, are not necessarily hereditary traits and therefore cannot constitute essential features of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. Hence, for Kant it is senseless to ground our explanation of hereditary traits in facts against which one will always oppose better facts unless they receive their endorsement from the true maxim of reason which is: “rather venture everything in surmising from given appearances than, [it is rational] to assume a special first power of nature or created predispositions.”57 As Kant continues, he is confronted by another maxim which confines the parameters of the first maxim without losing its essence, namely that “throughout all organic nature in all changes of individual creatures their species is preserved unchanged.”58 From these two maxims which are for the former according to the principle “Principia praetor necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda”59 (principles are not to be multiplied beyond necessity) and for the latter according to the school formula “quaelibet natura est conservatrix sui”60 (nature always preserves itself ), Kant generates his own principle: Not to admit any botching influence of the power of the imagination on nature’s business of generation, and not to admit any human faculty to effect alterations in the ancient original of the species or kinds through external artifice, to bring those alterations into the generative power and to make them hereditary.61

At this point, Kant considers dismissing both the direct effect of the environment and human imagination as influences on the generative power. Otherwise, it would be almost impossible to know at all what the first nature of the human species was or how far modifications could affect the species. From this maxim, Kant concludes that the causes of the

116 

J. Yab

hereditary makeup of the “Charakteristik” of the human species are germs and predispositions that lay in the original phylum and which were vital for the preservation of the species, and for this reason had to occur consistently for consecutive generations. This is why he holds that skin colour is necessarily hereditary and will be permanent in all the regions of the globe: “this character is necessarily attached to the generative power because it was required for the preservation of the kind.”62 Kant also dismisses the polygenesis argument according to which there were different original phyla because it would have created a multiplication of distinct colours of the skin. However, experience shows that among all skin colours there are only four that remain permanent across all climates and all regions. This led Kant to conclude that the argument that multiplies original phyla is a bad argument for the philosopher of history. This echoes what Kant stated in his 1775 essays about Voltaire’s polygenesis argument that he describes as poetic. For Kant, a theory of germs and natural predispositions that lay in the original phylum so that the human species could populate the globe and adapt to different climates is the only plausible conception in explaining the differences of the character in the human species regarding sub-species. Thus, the derivation of the human species from a single phylum which contained all the germs and natural predispositions is the sole explanation for the causes of heredity and hence of skin colour as the visible sign of the variation of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. Kant concludes with his sixth proposition in which he argues that what comes into question for establishing a division of the species into classes are physical character through which human beings (regardless of their sex) differ from one another, more precisely, only those physical characters which are hereditary. Now, these classes are to be called races only if those characters are unfailingly hereditary.63

Kleingeld interprets this passage as evidence that Kant’s second essay is concerned only with physical characters and not with moral considerations. However, again, as I have already argued, this narrative is misrepresentative since Kant himself confirms in the same paragraph that “the concept of race contains first the concept of common phylum, the second

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

117

necessary hereditary character of the classificatory difference.”64 I have demonstrated that germs and predispositions in Kant’s conception are responsible for the moral and physical character and that one cannot exist without the other. I would like to stress that Kant’s second essay on race aims to establish the principle of the causes of the hereditary character of the human species. Germs and natural predispositions are the cause of skin colour, which is the only visible physical, necessarily hereditary, character of the human species. This is why it accounts for species classification. Nevertheless, germs and predispositions are also the cause of talents that are responsible for the development of the human species. Therefore, Kant’s constant appeal to germs and predisposition is evidence that the concept of race always carries reference to both moral and physical characters. Hence it is misleading for Kleingeld and the “orthodox reading” to claim that Kant’s second essay on race is only about physical characters, since there is nothing in this essay that contradicts or corrects Kant’s earlier view that natural predispositions and germs govern moral and physical characters. Even if we concede to the “orthodox reading” that Kant’s second essay is concerned only with physical characters, it would be difficult to explain why just a few years later, following the criticism by the young anthropologist Forster, Kant published his third essay on race with fully explicit references to the moral character of different races. Rather than construing Kant as flip-flopping between different views, the most generous explanation is that his basic view is consistent across the three essays— and the account that I have provided shows how this is plausible. It is the notion of the transmission of characters through germs and natural predispositions that demonstrates the consistency of Kant’s theory of the human species. The critique of Herder’s Ideas and the justification of his theory of the human species shaped the contextual narrative against which Kant returned to his notion of race following a debate with the Kassel natural history professor Georg Forster. The argument between Forster and Kant extended to questions of scientific methodology, epistemology and the use of teleology in science, and in my view it represented the second missed opportunity by Kant to address the two moral issues of his theory.

118 

J. Yab

Kant’s Second Missed Opportunity Collecting and interpreting data and drawing support from different authoritative discourses, from the sciences, philosophical anthropology and ethics, Forster dedicated himself to analysing the evidence gathered from his travels, and his writings became increasingly doubtful about the claims of natural law to serve as an interpretive grid in anthropology. In his 1786 essay “Noch etwas über die Menschenrassen,”65 Forster had attacked the particular scientific method Kant had applied in his deliberations on race because he saw that a teleological mode of interpretation was about to turn into a rigid prescriptive grid for travellers and anatomists in their search for evidence. Forster looked at the whole of humankind in anthropological terms, and he dismissed racial differences. He also argued that fieldwork, drawings and artefacts gathered by travellers should form the basis of the anthropological endeavour. Forster dismissed Kant’s categorisation of human races, believing instead that everything in nature was connected and that in all physical appearances, transitions were gradual. It should never be forgotten, Forster insisted, that scientific definitions were obtained from the previous study and represented merely the fruit of these studies. In this context, Forster adhered to a strict nominalism about the validity of systems of knowledge. He highlighted this point against the historicity of Kant’s method. Forster insisted that advancing empirical study would dramatically restructure the principles of science as well as existing knowledge, and he stressed the relevance of what he considered inductive procedures in comparative anatomy and fieldwork. It is for this reason that Forster disliked the term “race,” and he believed Kant’s definition to be useless. To Forster, skin colour was a matter of nuances, not of absolute differences. Siding with Carl von Linne and the French philosopher and scientist Buffon, he considered skin colour dependent entirely on environmental factors. Forster argued against Kant’s theory of skin colour as follows. If two members of different races as Kant had defined them were to procreate, with one person from the lighter end of the scale of a dark race, and the other one from the darker end of the scale of a light race, their children would not be easily classifiable. Forster was also not sure what

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

119

conclusions to draw from the fact that racially mixed couples do propagate. He believed that interracial propagation and the fertility of the offspring did not at all prove a common biological origin of humankind. Also, he argued that races, as defined by Kant, could very well be just varieties of one species, different merely due to their adaptations to their respective natural environments. Forster opposed Kant’s idea of a common biological origin of humankind. He believed all such reflections on racial history to be merely speculative; he wanted to rely on visible evidence. He also argued against Kant’s theory of the universal seeds of an original race. Kant’s extended reply in his third essay, “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy” of 1788, appeared only a year after the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. It also pointed to some of the themes that would receive more systematic development in the second part of the Critique of Judgment two years later. In reply to Forster’s attack on his distinction of the history and description of nature, Kant claimed that his basic principles had been misunderstood. Thus, he clears up the linguistic and conceptual misunderstanding and reconfirms his theory of the human species as previously conceptualised in his second essay. However, he explicitly appeals to teleological arguments. He also reaffirms the unequal moral character of different races, and therefore again missed an opportunity to have second thoughts on racial inequality.

The Teleology of Racial Diversity From the beginning of his third essay, Kant argues that in all investigation about nature, reason requires a theory because “we always remain ignorant concerning the efficient causes, no matter how evident we can make the suitability of our presuppositions with final causes.”66 To Kant, this appeal for the theory is inherently inscribed in the essence of nature itself for which the examination would follow two directions: the theoretical approach which concerns physics and the teleological approach which concerns metaphysics. The physical examination of nature involves experience, and the metaphysical examination of nature involves “intentions … only an end that is fixed through pure reason.”67

120 

J. Yab

To come to terms with the overwhelming amount of data about the human species collected from various sources, Kant recommended splitting natural sciences into “natural history” and “description of nature.” Description of nature was to account for the physical character of nature and to organise it according to similarities, while natural history was to lay bare the inner relations among the human species according to their reconstructed biological and moral character and their ability to propagate. Kant therefore dismissed the claim that the concept of race could be defined by a description of nature because “nothing of a purposive nature could ever be found through mere empirical groping without a guiding principle of what to search for.”68 To Kant, the description of nature found in Linnaeus’ and Buffon’s classifications of the human species lacks precisely the features of purposiveness which effectively give the differentiation of the human species its meaning. As he argues: “only methodically conducted, the experience can be called observing”69 The investigation into natural history is thus about an observation that calls for theory first because it is the role of a theory to guarantee a “coherent cognition” with reason. Only with such a theory can the empirical data collected from travellers be cognised in a way that would make sense. Kant is convinced that the misunderstanding occasioned by his previous essays is due to this confusion between the description of nature and natural history; this is why having explained why it is essential to separate both disciplines, he carries his narrative by reconfirming his definition of race. “What is a race?” Kant asks. He confirms that the concept of “race” does not belong to a description of nature because it cannot be grounded in empirical observation alone. However, the fact that it cannot be grounded in a description of nature should not prevent the philosopher of history from finding it in natural history because it is grounded in the idea of reason. At this point, Kant states that race is “a radical peculiarity indicating a common phyletic origination and at the same time permitting several such persistently hereditary character not only of the same animal species but also of the same phylum.”70 Concerning Kant’s previous definition of race, there is no innovation here; Kant reaffirms race as the character of the human species that is unfailingly hereditary. Kant presents how natural history was to proceed under the guidance of the

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

121

idea of monogenesis of humankind, and he calls sub-species those differences that come from the same phylum and hence are unfailingly hereditary. He argues against Blumenbach’s theory of degeneration because he considers that it is against the laws of nature in the sense that the preservation of the species would not be possible. Hence races “are characters that develop only over the course of generations, hence not different kinds but subspecies.”71 Kant reiterates here his argument for monogenesis, that is, an “idea of the way in which the greatest degree of manifoldness in the generation can be united by reason with the greatest unity of phyletic origin.”72 This is the moment that calls for observation because we must find this unity of the “phyletic origin” in nature. However, observation must be guided by a “determinate principle.” As already demonstrated in his second essay, unless maxims guide the observer of nature, there is no guarantee that the truth will come from facts, as there are always in experience better facts to contradict other ones. As we are in the field of natural history, the “determinate principle” pushes us to keep in mind the idea of the common phylum rather than a resemblance of the character prescribed in the description of nature. This highlights the difference between the description of nature, which involves a classification of human difference under criteria of resemblance, and natural history, which entails a classification of human diversity under natural laws of the unity of the human species. The observation of the human species under the guidance of a determinate principle demonstrates that “there is no more certain marks of the diversity of the original phylum than the impossibility of gaining fertile progeny through the mixing of two divisions of human beings that are different in hereditary terms. However, if such a mixing succeeds, then even the greatest difference of shape is no obstacle to finding that their common phyletic origin for them is at least possible.”73 Again, here Kant’s reformulation of his monogenesis argument based on Buffon’s law of half-breeding is not new, as he reaffirms that germs and predispositions were purposively hidden in the original phylum to facilitate the development of different characters once they reach their natural environment. Kant reinforces the purposiveness of germs and natural predispositions that are the direct cause of the formation of the inner and outer character of the human species. He goes on to suggest that to preserve the inner

122 

J. Yab

and outer character of the species “with respect to the varieties… seems to prevent the melting together, because it is contrary to its ends, namely the manifoldness of the characters; by contrast, as regards the differences of the races, nature seems to permit the melting together, although not to favour it.”74 Thus, germs and natural predispositions had been purposively carried off and had adapted themselves to different local environments, causing races to emerge, which then maintained their characters even in new circumstances. Kant believed that the substantial divergence, especially in terms of skin colour, was caused by these germs and natural predispositions but actualised by environmental factors. It is only when the observer of nature enquiries about the end of the human species that this whole picture is visible. Natural history shows the purposiveness of diversity of the human species as making it possible for the species to populate all regions of the earth. To do so, nature has placed germs and predispositions in the original phylum, which are the direct cause of the four races of the human species. Moreover, what demonstrates the common phylum origin of the races is their capacity when crossed with one another to always beget half-breed progeny. Guided by the “determinate principle,” the observer of nature remarks that the only physical characteristic that is unfailingly hereditary is skin colour. This is conclusive for Kant to confirm that only skin colour can account for human species classification into classes. This is why Kant defends that there are only four characters with regard to skin colour that can account for human species classification, as they are the only ones that perpetuate in all transplantations. It is therefore the purposiveness of skin colour that calls for a teleological explanation since a theoretical analysis lacks conformity with the idea of the unity of mankind. If germs and natural predispositions and their conditions of activation were purposively contained in the original phylum, this means that when the “Charakteristik” of the human species is transmitted generation after generation, all elements regarding the inner and outer character are also purposively transmitted. “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy” is Kant’s opportunity to reconfirm his commitment to the theory of human races that he started in his lectures in Physical Geography decades ago, and in which talents among different races were unequally distributed. The innovation of his third essay resides in the fact that he explicitly calls for teleological

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

123

arguments to justify this unequal distribution in which the White race possesses all the talents. When Kant published his third essay on race, he had already laid down his whole Universalist moral philosophy, and yet he reconfirms his claim about the unequal repartition of moral talents among different races in unfamiliar terms. He endorses what he already stated in previous essays about the Native American race: Their natural disposition did not achieve a perfect suitability for any climate, can be seen from the circumstance that hardly another reason can be given for why this race, which is too weak for hard labour too indifferent for industry and incapable of any culture—although there is enough of it as example and encouragement nearby—ranks still far below even the Negro, who stands on the lowest of all the other steps that we have named as differences of the races.75

Indeed, in 1788, the year in which he published his third essay, Kant also published his second critique, Critique of Practical Reason. Just as the nature of the human cognition was elucidated in the first critique, Critique of Practical Reason, practical reason posits the concepts of duty and moral obligation in the form of the law that demands to be obeyed for its own sake. The law, however, the command that is not issued by some alien authority but represents the voice of reason, which the moral subject can recognise as his own, can take the form of the categorical imperative that Kant has already developed in Groundwork (1785). For Kant, practical reason issues a duty to respect the law. That is, morals are not entrenched in consequences, but are pretty in maxims. Practical reason issues a “categorical imperative” that commands us to act on maxims by the commands of reason. There is only one categorical imperative, but Kant offers different formulations of it: (1) Act as if your maxim were a universal law of nature, (2) Treat another human being as an end in himself, not as a simple means, and (3) Act as if your maxim would harmonize with a kingdom of ends. It is therefore legitimate to question the relationship between Kant’s conception of the human species and his moral philosophy. How are we to understand the fact that while Kant is defending his moral universalism, he conceives at the same time a theory of racial inequality?

124 

J. Yab

What is important to note in Kant’s quotation above is the purposive role of germs and natural predispositions in the formation of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. It is essential to recall the significance of predispositions to fully apprehend the implication of Kant’s quotation here. Kant’s thinking about the formation of the “Charakteristik” of the human species is indeed linked with his theory of natural predispositions. This concept synthesises significant aspects of both epigenetic and preformationist theories of organic generation, that is, the process by which organic beings come to be. It includes the developmental process of the human species not only as natural being but also as rational being. Let us call it the “formative process of the “Charakteristik” insofar as it includes inner and outer components. In the eighteenth century, the two dominant approaches to the formative process of the “Charakteristik” of the human species were epigenesism and preformationism. The epigenesist doctrine was defended by René Descartes, the French philosopher, mathematician and writer; he asserted that new organisms arose from self-organised matter because of the interaction of physical forces. The “preformationism” doctrine put forward by Nicolas Malebranche teaches that passive matter cannot be the cause of its own movement, and thus requires a divinity to move it. Such matter could never make something as composite as a living being, and hence organisms must be shaped by God at creation. Therefore, living beings existed preformed in the embryo in the form of a maternal egg.76 Kant’s conception of the formative process of the “Charakteristik” of the human species can be situated between these two approaches. Kant does not assume that the finalised individual pre-existed in the egg but rather that germs and predispositions were present in the original phylum. Kant defines natural predispositions as “the grounds of a determinate unfolding which are lying in the nature of an organic body.”77 Hence, as demonstrated previously, he dismissed these predispositions to respond to a mechanical explanation. Therefore, we must consider such arrangements as preformed. However, Kant still allows the influence of the environment in the formation of “Charakteristik” but only indirectly. Kant wants to elucidate the process of the formation of the “Charakteristik” of the human species regarding predetermined natural predispositions that are activated by external factors. Different predispositions develop in

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

125

response to various environmental conditions through the purposiveness of nature. As Kant faces his critics, his conception of natural predisposition becomes teleologically oriented, as described in his second essay on race. His conception also became more specific about the role of these predispositions. He states: I took those first predispositions… to have been united in the first human couple. Hence those of their descendants in which the entire original ­predisposition for all future subspecies was still unseparated were fit for all climates (in potentia), such that the germ that would make them suitable to the region of the earth in which they or their early descendants were to find themselves could develop in that place.78

By appealing to natural predispositions within the formation of the “Charakteristik” of the human species, Kant commits himself to a conception of the development of the human species that explains human variety as purposively significant. To Kant, the formation of the “Charakteristik” of the human species is not further explainable either physically, that is, through mechanical laws of epigenesis, or metaphysically, that is, through divinely ordained preformationism, but only through teleological analysis. One can scientifically explain why the different characters, namely the four races, have specific developmental possibilities by explaining what purpose the original predispositions serve. This purposiveness of the predispositions is well explained in the footnote below in which Kant approves a slavery text: “A knowledgeable man adduces the following against Ramsay’s wish to use all Negro slaves as free laborers,” because he goes on “of the many thousand freed Negroes which one encounters in America and England he knew no example of someone engaged in a business which one could properly call labor.”79

This quotation echoes what has already been expanded on in Chap. 2 when explaining the issue of the dispossession of the character of the human dignity of the Negro race. It was argued that the character of human dignity is the feeling of the beautiful and sublime placed in the human breast by nature. Moreover, Kant posited that the Negro has no

126 

J. Yab

feeling of the beautiful and sublime. Besides, consequently, he has no character of the dignity of human nature. I based this deduction on quotations (1) and (2) in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. The originality of Kant’s third essay is that if in Observations we knew that the dispossession of the character of human dignity of the Negro race was consecutive to the lack of talent, in “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy,” Kant explains why not only this race but also the race of Native Americans lacks talents. In the same footnote, he continues: …It is not the northern climate that makes the Negros disinclined for labor. For they would rather endure waiting behind the coaches of their masters or, during the worst winter nights, in the cold entrances of the theaters (in England) than to be threshing, digging, carrying loads, etc. should one not conclude from this that, in addition to the faculty to work, there is also an immediate drive to activity (especially to the sustained activity that one calls industry), which is independent of all enticement and which is especially interwoven with certain natural predispositions; and that Indians, as well as Negros, do not bring any more of this impetus…80

This is to say that the dispossession of the character of human dignity of the Negro race and the incompleteness of the character of the Native American race is due to the purposiveness of natural predispositions responsible for the development of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. More precisely, it is due to the lack of the specific predispositions of a drive to activity in both races that they are unable to carry out “business which one could properly call labour” but instead are suitable for slavery. This is why, If one prefers, the spontaneously purposively active nature, indeed paid no heed to a transplanting after germs have already developed, yet without thereby justifying the accusation of lacking wisdom and being short-­ sighted. Rather through the arranged suitability to the climate, nature has hindered its exchange, especially that of warm climate against the cold one…so where have Indians and Negros attempted to expand into northern regions? However, those who were driven there have never been able to bring about their new progeny… a sort that would be fit for farmers or manual labourers.81

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

127

Kant’s third essay on race offers a theory of natural predispositions oriented towards the end of the human species. Kant argues, for example, in the Critique of Pure Reason that we know the world of phenomena because the mind gives laws to our senses, converting our perceptions into the organised notion of a world that works according to our understanding of cause and effect, time, and space. More importantly, our understanding implies the idea of purpose, which is a necessary regulative idea in interpreting natural history; otherwise, the world would be a world of means without an end. Kant’s account of the formative process of the “Charakteristik” of the human species therefore relies not on metaphysical explanations but on teleological principles, a purpose inscribed into the idea of reason. The teleological conception of the “Charakteristik” of the human species is a speculative idea that normalises our investigation of natural history and leads us to determine causes of the principle of nature. Additionally, it is due to this principle of nature that Kant sees no conflict between the Universalist principles of his moral philosophy and the inegalitarian racial claims of his anthropological theory. That is, Kant’s universalism implies racial inegalitarianism. I will develop this thesis in the last chapter. This chapter is central to the development of this book because of what it helped us to achieve and most importantly it is also significant for the completion of my whole argument. It has accomplished three things. First, demonstrating that Kant’s methodological shift from a scientific conception to a philosophical notion of the “Charakteristik” of the human species was prompted not only by the development of his philosophy but also by the criticisms of Herder and Forster. Second, I have shown that the notion of “Charakteristik” is at the heart of Kant’s conception of the differentiation of the human species, and that his theory of germs and predispositions is what makes the four characters (visibly marked by skin colour) morally and physically unequal. Third, I have demonstrated that Kant’s commitment to racial inequality was teleologically grounded. Consequently, Kant sees the criticisms of Herder and Forster as opportunities not only to reinforce his theory on teleological grounds but also to dismiss their claims about the importance of non-­ White races in the development of humanity. On the other hand, from the premises developed in the present chapter, I show in the next chapter

128 

J. Yab

that the notion of “Charakteristik” continues to play a leading role in Kant’s philosophy after the critical turn. And, more importantly, and contra Kleingeld’s argument according to which Kant changed his mind about his racial theory right at the publication of Perpetual Peace in 1795, I demonstrate that the notion of “Charakteristik” in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, published in 1798, is the ultimate evidence of Kant’s commitment to his theory of the human species and therefore to his racial inequality.

Notes 1. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the Concept of Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R.  B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 145. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., p. 197. 4. Ibid., p. 200. 5. KANT, I., GUYER, P. & WOOD, A. W. 1998. Critique of pure reason, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 101. 6. Ibid., p. 387. 7. KANT, I. 2007. Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 109. 8. Ibid., p. 109. 9. KANT, I. & GREGOR, M. 1998. Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 3. 10. Ibid., p. 21. 11. Ibid., p. 21 12. HERDER, J. G. & CHURCHILL, T. O. 1800. Outlines of a philosophy of the history of man; translated by T. Churchill, London, p. 348. 13. Ibid., p. 349. 14. Ibid., p. 348. 15. Ibid. 16. HERDER, J. G. & BARNARD, F. M. 1969. J. G. Herder on social and political culture. Translated, edited, and with an introduction by F. M. Barnard, Cambridge, University Press, p. 282.

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

129

17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid., p. 283. 21. Ibid., p. 41. 22. HERDER, J. G. & CHURCHILL, T. O. 1803. Outlines of a philosophy of the history of man; translated by T. Churchill., London, p. 349. 23. Ibid. 24. KANT, I. 2007. Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 109. 25. For Herder romanticism see BARNARD, F. M. 2003. Herder on nationality, humanity, and history, Montreal; London, McGill-Queen’s University Press. 26. ZAMMITO, J.  H. 1992. The genesis of Kant’s Critique of judgment, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, p. 185. 27. KANT, I. 2007. Review of J. G. Herder’s Ideas for the philosophy of the history of humanity. In: LOUDEN, R.  B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 142. 28. ZAMMITO, J.  H. 1992. The genesis of Kant’s critique of judgment, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. 29. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the Concept of Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R.  B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 156. 30. KLEINGELD, P. 2007. Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race. The Philosophical Quarterly, 57:229, 573–92. 31. LARRIMORE, M. 2008. Antinomies of race: diversity and destiny in Kant. Patterns of Prejudice [Online], 42. 32. KANT, I. 2007. Of the different races of human beings. In: LOUDEN, R.  B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 94. 33. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the Concept of Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R.  B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 156. 34. KLEINGELD, P. 2007. Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race. The Philosophical Quarterly, 57:229, 573–92.

130 

J. Yab

35. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the Concept of Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R.  B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 145. 36. KANT, I., GUYER, P. & WOOD, A. W. 1998. Critique of pure reason, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 37. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the concept of a Human Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 146. 38. Ibid., p. 147. 39. KANT, I., GUYER, P. & WOOD, A. W. 1998. Critique of pure reason, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. JACOBS, B. & KAIN, P. 2003. Essays on Kant’s anthropology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 1. 45. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the Concept of Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R.  B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 147. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid., p. 149. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. LARRIMORE, M. 2008. Antinomies of race: diversity and destiny in Kant. Patterns of Prejudice [Online], 42. 51. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the Concept of Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R.  B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 150. 52. Ibid. 53. KANT, I. & PLUHAR, W.  S. 2002. Critique of practical reason, Indianapolis, Hackett Pub. Co., p. 29. 54. KANT, I. & GREGOR, M. 1998. Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 3. 55. KANT, I. & GREGOR, M. J. 1996. Practical philosophy, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press.

5  Kant, Race and Teleology 

131

56. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the Concept of Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R.  B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 150. 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid., p. 152. 63. Ibid., p. 153. 64. Ibid. 65. I use the following French book as the basis of my interpretation of Forster. GILLI, M. (ed.) 2005. Un révolutionnaire allemand. Georg Forster (1754–1794), Paris: Éditions du CTHS, Pages. 66. KANT, I. 2007. On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy. In: LOUDEN, R. B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 195. 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid., p. 197. 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid., p. 199. 71. Ibid., p. 200. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid., p. 202. 75. Ibid., p. 211. 76. For epigenesism versus preformationism see ROBERT, J.  S. 2004. Embryology, epigenesis, and evolution: taking development seriously, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 77. KANT, I. 2007. Of the different races of human beings. In: LOUDEN, R.  B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 89. 78. KANT, I. 2007. On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy. In: LOUDEN, R. B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 208. 79. Ibid., p. 209. 80. Ibid. 81. Ibid.

Part III Kant’s Theory of Race and Cosmopolitanism

6 Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View

The claim that Kant had second thoughts on race in the middle of the critical period goes against the existing views on the matter in the Kant literature. Whether they emphasise his racism or his universalism, commentators suppose that Kant’s position remained stable during the Critical period. I shall argue that Kant did defend a racial hierarchy until at least the end of the 1780s, but that he changed his mind, after the publication of “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy” (and most likely after 1792), and before the completion of Toward Perpetual Peace (1795).1 The grounds on which Kleingeld advances this claim are as follows: (1) “He makes no mention of a racial hierarchy anywhere in his published writings of the 1790s.”2 (2) “He becomes more egalitarian with regard to race. He now grants a full juridical status to non-Whites, a status irreconcilable with his earlier defence of slavery. For example, his concept of cosmopolitan right, as introduced in Toward Perpetual Peace, explicitly prohibits the colonial conquest of foreign land.”3 (3) “Kant repeatedly and explicitly criticizes slavery of non-Europeans in the strongest terms, as a grave violation of cosmopolitan right.”4 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Yab, Kant and the Politics of Racism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69101-1_6

135

136 

J. Yab

(4) “In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant rejects consequentialist justifications for colonialism.”5 Therefore, (5) “The oft-defended thesis that Kant’s racism remained constant thus needs correction, and one should not use evidence from the 1780s in support of claims about his views in the 1790s.”6 These citations summarise Kleingeld’s claims in her article “Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race” and, apart from claims (1) and (5), all other claims have already received some substantive answers by Bernasconi in his article “Kant’s Third Thoughts on Race.”7 For Bernasconi, Kant’s cosmopolitanism is not an antidote to Kant’s racialism. This confusion makes Kleingeld guilty of succumbing to the “feeling that we must have a reading of Kant that imposes consistency on him from outside when it seems that there is none.”8 According to Bernasconi, if Kleingeld agrees that Kant has managed to live with inconsistencies until 1792, and that in the absence of real evidence he changed his mind (even Kleingeld admits that Kant did not give an explanation for the change of mind she attributes to him), the historian of philosophy should not use “general statements of human equality as incontrovertible evidence that Kant had renounced his earlier belief in a racial hierarchy.”9 Bernasconi’s response to Kleingeld’s claims is satisfactory in my view. However, because his argumentation belongs to the “orthodox reading” of Kant, it suffers from the problems encountered by that reading, that is, that he missed the centrality of the notion of the “Charakteristik” in Kant’s theory. In addition, I have claimed that the problem is not ultimately the fact that Kant defended the hierarchy of races, but rather the reasons why he defended racial hierarchy. As we have seen, the problem that the “orthodox reading” is trying to solve is the issue of whether Kant’s racialism impacts on what are called the core arguments of his philosophy. That is, his moral egalitarianism, which is interpreted in his categorical imperative. I think that 1. When Eze tries to prove that Kant used his transcendental philosophy

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

137

in order to elaborate his racial comments; 2. Or when Boxill and Hill try  to show that Kant thought in  relying on regulative or constitutive principles when he defined his theory does not support Eze’s claims that racial hierarchy is a necessary truth; 3. Or when Mills tries to provide that the non-­White race comprise only “sub-persons” because in Kant’s terminology the notion of person is fully raced; I think that these attempts aim at defending or accusing Kant, and consequently have  converged into one single question which is: was Kant guilty of racialism? Kleingeld’s argument in my view is the most sophisticated position of the “orthodox reading.” Because she states essentially that, no matter the verdict on the debate about Kant’s racial theory (i.e. guilty for Bernasconi, Eze and Mills, and not guilty for Boxill and Hill, Wood and Louden), Kant changed his mind between1792 and 1795. According to her, he silenced his derogative comments about non-White races; he abandoned his racial hierarchy and embraced the equality of all races. Kleingeld’s position is creative because it gives Kant absolute immunity on the issue of racialism as if Kant were born again between1792 and 1795 and as to whether Kant’s apparent silence on race meant conversion. Hence, it is no longer about the consistency or the inconsistency of Kant’s egalitarianism because this belongs to the past and the old Kant; instead, it is about Kant’s legacy. Hence, the real question to ask should be what is the legacy of the new Kant. Is Kant’s rebirth free of racial hierarchy? Despite the fact that I do not subscribe to the orthodox debate, I wish to come back in this chapter to Kleingeld’s claims which have not received sufficient attention, namely claims (1) and (5) to demonstrate first of all that, concerning claim (1), the “Anthropological Charakteristik” in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View encompasses racial hierarchy and therefore expresses Kant’s two moral problems described in Chap. 2. Moreover, if the precedent is correct, no corrections should be made regarding claim (5), and additionally, I will use evidence from the 1790s as requested by Kleingeld to support Kant’s view of the1780s.

138 

J. Yab

 ome Preliminaries about Kant’s Racial Theory S of the 1790s Before going through the demonstration of the “Charakteristik” as part of Kant’s racial theory, let us stress that the reason why one may think that Kant has abandoned his theory is primarily that the “orthodox reading” claims that he wrote no further essays dedicated to race from the 1790s.10 Muthu declares, for instance, that “Kant in recent years…the hierarchical and biological concept of race disappears in his publishing.”11 However, this can also be interpreted the other way around, that is, Kant did not change his mind on race and this is why he wrote no further essays on the subject. In fact, when challenged by Herder and Forster in the 1780s, Kant thought that these critics meant that his concept of race was not defined. Thus, he reiterated his theory in his further essays by describing race as an a priori concept. That is, the unity of the “Charakteristik” of the human species was a practical necessity in order to think of humanity’s common origin and ends. In the 1790s Kant assumed that his concept of race was then philosophically clearly defined and hence there was no need to investigate further this part of the theory. However, what was needed was the understanding of the pragmatic sphere of the “Charakteristik” of the human species, since for Kant a human being was at the same time characteristically physiological and moral. Therefore, the understanding of the human being as moral agent required the analysis of his “Charakteristik” as a free acting being, that is, as what he makes of himself. The second reason why it appears to the “orthodox reading” that Kant wrote no further essays on race after the 1790s lies in Kant’s argument in the Preface to Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View that “Even knowledge of the races of human beings as products belonging to the play of nature is not yet counted as pragmatic knowledge of the world.”12 This led some scholars to consider that race does not belong to pragmatic anthropology. Thus, Kant did not have to elaborate on this matter in that book. This argument is sometimes taken in conjunction with the fact that in the same book, in the section titled “On the Character of Races,”

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

139

Kant does not argue about race. Instead, he directs the reader to the book by Christoph Girtanner. Girtanner dealt only with the biological hypotheses of Kant’s concept of race and did not think of races in a pragmatic and comparative perspective, where their character would be evaluated in terms of advantages or disadvantages to achieve human species ends. Even Kleingeld uses both arguments to demonstrate that Kant changed his mind. However, Larrimore argues that “the contrast Kant was making (in the preface of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View) was not between anthropology and Geography (with race relevant only in the latter) but between two kinds of anthropology, both of which have things to say about race.”13 Thus, Kant in his preface is not expressing that race does not belong to anthropology at all. Instead, he is claiming this in the preface of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, as the interpretation of what nature makes of a human being (physiology), and race does not belong “yet” to the pragmatic dimension of anthropology but rather to its physiological dimension. However, as soon as race becomes the investigation of what the human being “as free agent” makes of himself, then it has its place within the pragmatic dimension of anthropology. In contrast to Kleingeld who argues that Kant did lose interest in human diversity with his cosmopolitan project, I affirm that this is not the case. His theory instead became more explicit. If in the 1780s Kant’s concept of race acquired its philosophical dimension, in the 1790s Kant posited that race was a way to understand the “Charakteristik” of human diversity within the course of one’s action as a free moral agent. In this sense, the concept of the “Charakteristik” provided Kant with the necessary tools to comprehend and measure human actions, progressing from what nature makes of him to what he can make of himself. For Kant, the notion of the “Charakteristik” is the concept that explains not only the beginning of the natural history of the species but also the natural history of the ends of the human species. The aim of the natural history of the species is thus to invent the possibilities of the history of human diversity in action. That is, a natural history of what man makes of himself. Therefore, there are three levels of the study of the “Charakteristik” of the human species:

140 

J. Yab

1. the level of what man is (which we have examined in Chap. 4); 2. the level of what nature makes of man (which we have examined in Chap. 5); 3. the level of what man makes of what nature makes of him (which is the subject of the present chapter). This is the context in which Kant’s theory of race of the 1790s should be understood. The “Anthropological Charakteristik” of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View gives Kant’s theory of race of the 1790s the pragmatic component that it needed in order to be finalised. In contrast to the “orthodox reading,” I assert that the “Anthropological ‘Charakteristik’” of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View describes the ultimate step of Kant’s theory of race and at the same time marks its completion. To be consistent with Kleingeld’s claim (5) that “…one should not use evidence from the 1780s in support of claims about his views in the 1790s,” I wish to argue that in order to prove that Kant did not change his mind about his theory, I need to demonstrate that his later writings are consistent with the earlier ones. The model of comparison would be the pre-critique writings. Accordingly, the question is whether the “Anthropological Charakteristik,” which I claim to be the pragmatic and final dimension of Kant’s theory of race, is consistent with the dimensions of the 1770s and 1780s. This chapter is divided into two parts. The first examines the definition of the “Charakteristik” in Kant’s anthropology, the objective of which is to demonstrate that Kant’s notion of the “Charakteristik” is the expression of his theory of race. The second part demonstrates that the concept of “Anthropological Charakteristik” in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View of 1798 not only continues to develop Kant’s racial theory but is consistent with Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime of 1764, the book I have claimed to be the foundational writing of his theory.

What is Pragmatic “Charakteristik”? In the section “Anthropological Charakteristik” of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Kant claims that “Charakteristik” is “The way of cognizing the interior of human being from the exterior”14

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

141

For Kant, the “Charakteristik” concerns the outer and inner features of the human being as part of nature. However, for a human being, nature is manifested in two separate ways: the interior and the exterior. Thus, to study the human being as a whole is to enquire about these two aspects of his nature. The exterior represents what is visible as his body and the interior signifies his soul or spirit. On the one hand, it is the physical and the biological “Charakteristik” of the human being, and on the other hand, it expresses the intellectual and moral capacities of human beings as free agents. From the pragmatic point of view, “Charakteristik” not only indicates a set of physical signs, which differentiate human beings as natural beings, but also implies the signs which distinguish human beings as gifted with reason and able to use their freedom. “Charakteristik” is thus located at the intersection of the exterior and the interior, the physical and psychological, of the human being. The “Anthropological Charakteristik” shows how to recognise a set of natural provisions of a human being, and at the same time underlines the possibility of their adaptation and their development within the framework of human civilisation. In other words, “Charakteristik” proposes to display the human being while at the same time regarding what nature makes of him and what he makes of himself from what nature made of him. The pragmatic concept of “Charakteristik” allows Kant to describe with more precision the diversity of human nature as a whole because human beings are not only different races but also different persons, different sexes and different people. In this sense, the concept of “Charakteristik” expresses, but is not limited to, Kant’s theory of race. Kant states: One can, without tautology, divide what belongs to a human being’s faculty of desire (what is practical) into what is characteristic in (a) his natural aptitude or natural predisposition, (b) his temperament or sensibility, and (c) his “Charakteristik” purely and simply, or way of thinking.”—The first two predispositions indicate what can be made of the human being; the last (moral) predisposition indicates what he is prepared to make of himself.15

With the notion of “Charakteristik,” Kant defines race as the combination of natural predispositions, temperament and moral character. This

142 

J. Yab

entity forms the general “Charakteristik” of the human species. Thus, in the following section I examine in the “Charakteristik” only as natural predispositions since the temperament has been analysed in Chap. 2 and will be further developed in the second part of this chapter. Since natural predispositions precondition the moral “Charakteristik,” their study will thus be sufficient to prove my point, that is, to demonstrate that Kant’s natural predispositions are the prerequisite of the moral “Charakteristik” in his understanding of human nature in general and of race in particular. Therefore, the fact that Kant did not amend his theory of natural predispositions, which encompass inherently racial hierarchy, and, moreover, the fact that he continues to elaborate on this matter in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View goes against Kleingeld’s conclusion that Kant changed his mind about his theory of race.

The “Charakteristik” as Natural Predispositions In this section I examine Kleingeld’s claim (1), an argument according to which Kant “makes no mention of a racial hierarchy anywhere in his published writings of the 1790s.” This seems to suggest that what is most problematic in Kant’s theory is his hierarchy of races. In Kleingeld’s view, because Kant stopped his explicit juxtaposition of races in the 1790s, this suggests that he changed his position on the subject. Since I have demonstrated in Chap. 1 that Kant’s race hierarchy denotes a more problematic issue, which is (1) the completeness of the character of the White race and (2) the dispossession of the character of the beauty and human dignity of the Negro race, the juxtaposition of races is the result of Kant’s reasoning about the character of the “Charakteristik” of the human species and not the motive for such reasoning. It is because Kant considers the White race as a complete race that it occupies the first rank among other races. Equally, since the Negro race lacks the characteristic of human dignity, it places them in the category of lower races. Hence, racial hierarchy is just one of the consequences of Kant’s theory, not its cause. The causes of (1) and (2) are to be found in Kant’s understanding of natural predispositions. Hence, it is not sufficient for Kleingeld to demonstrate that Kant changed his mind about race juxtaposition, but

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

143

instead she must show that his whole theory of natural predispositions, which is the root of his account of the racial hierarchy, has also changed. However, this is not the case. I now show not only that Kant’s theory of natural predispositions did not change, but also that he continues to elaborate and rely on it in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View of 1798. The theory of natural predispositions is Kant’s theory of organic generation that lets him develop a conception of race in which he aimed to secure the monogenesis of the human races, that is, the idea that human beings come from a single original phylum. The theory of natural predispositions implies that natural predispositions determine every element that is contained in the general “Charakteristik” of race. Let us recall that there were two dominant theories of organic generation in Kant’s era. On the one hand, the preformationist analysis was a theory claiming that the adult organism was already shaped in miniature, in the sperm, and that its growth was the progression of this tiny being. On the other hand, the epigenesis analysis held that matter self-organises into composite living beings by connections of physical forces. Kant, of course, does not assume that humans are pre-existent in the egg, but that the conditions of the possibilities of the character of the human being are present in the original phylum. Kant’s principal concept for thinking about the formation of the human organism is the notion of “natural predispositions,” which also comprise “germs.” This notion combines both the epigenetic and preformationist views. Natural predispositions are the cornerstone of racial difference. The preformationist account in the formation of racial differences secures the permanent racial heredity element through the development and transmission of natural predispositions, since it stresses that there must have been a genuine single phylum containing the germs of all human races. This phylum is the proof that all races belong to the same species since inheritance preserves natural predispositions. Likewise, the epigenetic component lets some germs rather than others be actualised depending on the milieu. Since the germs of all races must be present from the start in the original phylum, their transmission is the only way of acquiring the inheritance of the racial character. The potentiality of transferring any acquired character by inheritance is the evidence that the germ must have been present in the

144 

J. Yab

organism from the beginning. External conditions may occasion but cannot produce inheritable alterations. In this sense, Kant’s theory of natural predispositions can be understood as the condition of the possibility of the racialisation of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. Thus, in dividing the “Charakteristik” of the human species into natural predispositions, temperament and “Charakteristik” in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View Kant recommits himself to his theory of race. Let us get started with Kant’s natural predispositions of 1775.

Kant’s Natural Predispositions of the 1770s In “Of the Different Races of Human Beings” of 1775, after defining race, Kant’s next concern is to determine the cause of the origin of the different races. Kant found this origin provided by nature through natural predispositions, which he defines as follows: …the grounds of a determinate unfolding which are lying in the nature of an organic body (plant or animal) are called germs,” if this unfolding concerns particular parts; if, however, it concerns only the size or the relation of the parts to one another, then I call them natural predispositions.16

Thus, the germs are responsible for the development of the parts, whereas the predispositions are reasonable for the proportions and the connection between the parts. The usefulness of natural predispositions lies in the purposiveness of nature regarding the human species. Nature equipped the human species with these provisions not only to populate the globe but also to preserve itself as a species: The human being was destined for all climates and for every soil; consequently, various germs and natural predispositions had to lie ready in him to be on occasion either unfolded or restrained, so that he would become suited to his place in the world and over the course of the generations would appear to be as it were native to and made for that place.17

Thus in 1775 Kant’s theory of natural predispositions aimed at explaining the differences between races as inherently purposive; the germs and

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

145

natural predispositions are the potentialities that wise nature placed in the original phylum from which different races derived to allow them to populate different climate regions. However, when these potentialities begin to develop in a given region, they become permanent. Since germs and natural predispositions condition the development and adaptation of the human race, this implies the causes of (1) the completeness of the character of the White race well expressed by Kant as follows: Yet the region of the earth from the 31st to the 52nd degree of latitude in the ancient world (Europe) …is rightly taken for that region of the earth in which the most fortunate mixture of the influences of the colder and hotter regions are found and also the greatest riches in creatures of the earth are found; and where also the human being must have diverged the least from his original formation/given that he is equally well prepared for all transplantings from there.18

In addition, (2) the dispossession of the “Charakteristik” of the beauty and human dignity of the Negro race is well-articulated in the next citation: One makes use of the red slaves (Americans) in Surinam only for labours in the house because they are too weak for field labor, for which one uses Negroes. Yet there is no dirt of forcible means in this case; however, the natives of this part of the world are lacking in general in faculty and endurance.19

Both moral issues are to be found in natural predispositions, but also that the character of races (1) and (2) is permanent, as confirmed in Kant’s 1785 quotation as follows: The germs which were originally placed in the phylum of the human species for the generation of the races must have developed already in most ancient times according to the needs of the climate, if the residence there lasted a long time; and after one of these predispositions was developed in a people, it extinguished all the others entirely.20

146 

J. Yab

Kant’s Natural Predispositions of the 1780s In “Determination of the Concept of a Human Race” of 1785, Kant’s objective with his theory of natural predispositions is to lay out how and why the human species conserves itself. Kant states the following regarding the human species through heredity and natural predispositions: These are my reasons for not being able to concur with a mode of explanation that ultimately promotes the raving penchant to the art of magic, for which any cloak, even the smallest one, is desirable: namely, that heredity even only the contingent one, which does not always succeed, could ever be the effect of another cause than that of the germs and predispositions lying in the species itself.21

Kant here dismissed all other reasons except that of natural predispositions to explain the conservation of the human species because if he Admit(s) any botching influence of the power of the imagination on nature’s business of generation… (Or)…any human faculty to affect alterations in the ancient original of the species or kinds through external artifice, to bring those alterations into the generative power and to make them hereditary.22

then The limits of reason are then broken through once, and delusion forces itself through this breach in thousands.23

Thus, the germs and natural predispositions as the principle of the conservation of the human species is posited by the maxim of reason and not by scientific observation because within the observation analysis facts can oppose one hundred other facts. It is not sufficient for Kant to determine the causes of the origin of different human races; it is essential to explain how among all colours of races, only the four colours, that is, White, Red, Yellow and Black, are those that are permanent. Kant states in this regard:

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

147

What else could be the cause of this than that they must have lain in the germs of the unknown original phylum of the human species, and that as such natural predispositions which were necessary for the preservation of the species at least in the first period of its propagation and for that reason had to occur unfailingly in the successive generations?24

Thus, in Kant’s view, the only factor that can guarantee the preservation of the human species is natural predispositions, and this can also secure the development of the “Charakteristik,” since as Kant concludes his essay: “Even the character of the Whites is only the development of one of the original predispositions.”25 The conclusion of this essay is quite telling because it translates powerfully my claim about the moral issues of Kant’s theory, which are (1) the completeness of the “Charakteristik” of the White race and (2) the dispossession of the “Charakteristik” of the beauty and human dignity of the Negro race. The predispositions of the completeness of the White race must have been placed in the original phylum by mere nature to make this race full of talents and incentives that would make them the race above all other races. Equally, the Negro race lacks the predispositions of the dignity of human nature and therefore is only suitable to be slaves. In 1788, Kant’s natural predispositions continued to develop the “Charakteristik.” In a footnote in “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy” Kant claims that natural predispositions are responsible for the faculty to work and drive towards activity: Negroes disinclined for labour. For they would rather endure waiting behind the coaches of their masters or, during the worst winter nights, in the cold entrances of the theatres (in England) than to be threshing, digging, carrying loads, etc. Should one not conclude from this that, in addition to the faculty to work, there is also an immediate drive to activity (especially to the sustained activity that one calls industry), which is independent of all enticement and which is especially interwoven with certain natural predispositions; and that Indians as well as Negroes do not bring any more of this impetus into other climates and pass it on to their offspring than was needed for their preservation in their old motherland and had been received from nature; and that this inner predisposition extinguishes just as little as the externally visible one.26

148 

J. Yab

The role that natural predispositions play in this essay suggests that the moral inferiority of the Negro race, for example, is heritable and unchangeable. Kant is claiming the incapacity for activity and industry of the Negroes and Indians. He is implying that the “laziness” ascribed to these two races is not only biologically and morally motivated, but is also lasting. In this essay, as I have already demonstrated in the preceding chapters, Kant, with the notion of “Charakteristik,” strictly commits himself to racial difference with moral implications, which are (1) the completeness of the “Charakteristik” of the White race and (2) the dispossession of the “Charakteristik” of the beauty and human dignity of the Negro race. Kant never overcame these issues even in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View of 1798.

Kant’s Natural Predispositions of the 1790s The “Anthropological Charakteristik,” the second section of Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, is a sort of conclusion of Kant’s theory of race. Here Kant analyses natural predispositions at the origin of human races from different angles, person, sexes and people, because these are the creation of mere nature. Thus, the following sections aim to prove this point. There are two levels of analysis here: the form and the content. The form represents the fact that Kant did continue to develop his account of natural predispositions in his later writings, namely in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. The fact that we can find full references about natural predispositions in Kant’s later writings constitutes, on its own, evidence that Kant never changed his mind about his theory of race. My objective at the beginning of this section was to demonstrate that Kant’s theory of natural predispositions is the premise of Kant’s theory of race because predispositions are potentialities that mere nature installed in the original phylum to bring about the development of human diversities, and without these potentialities the formation of the general character of a human being is not possible. My contention here is then to develop Kant’s historical account of natural predispositions from his earlier writings to the later ones. Kant did not change his narrative

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

149

about natural predispositions and as in Kant’s view it is not possible to conceive the development of the human species without natural predispositions. I thus conclude that Kant did not change his mind either on his theory or on his racial hierarchy. The content level of analysis consists in examining whether references to natural predispositions in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View of 1798 have the same meaning as references found in his earlier writings. That is the objective of this section. In Kant’s view, person, sexes and people are the outcomes of natural predispositions. If we can find these categories within different races it is because of nature’s purpose aimed at a differentiation that would bring human development to completion. Thus, the meaning of natural predispositions in Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View of 1798 is the same meaning found in Kant’s writing of the 1770s and 1780s, that is, of potentialities placed in the original phylum by wise nature. Regarding the character of persons, the previously mentioned quotation is quite telling. It reads: “Therefore in the “Charakteristik” one can, without tautology, divide what belongs to a human being’s faculty of desire (what is practical) into what is “Charakteristik” in (a) his natural aptitude or natural predisposition, (b) his temperament or sensibility, and (c) his character purely and simply, or way of thinking.—The first two predispositions indicate what can be made of the human being; the last (moral) predisposition indicates what he is prepared to make of himself.”27 In Kant’s view, there are two kinds of predispositions. First, the predispositions that indicate natural aptitude, that is, what Kant returns to in his doctrine of the temperaments developed earlier in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime of 1764. Second, the predispositions that indicate moral attitude also developed in Kant’s earlier writings. As I develop the doctrine of the temperaments in the second part of this chapter, I wish to highlight that what is important here is the fact that Kant continues to rely on natural predispositions, and moreover, he explicitly recommits himself to his biological and moral conception of human diversity. To him, a person is a combination of natural and moral predispositions. Likewise, the predispositions here mean the same entity it meant in Kant’s earlier writings. Natural predispositions are what nature makes of a human being, and moral predispositions are what man makes of himself. As I show in the second part of this chapter, Kant’s

150 

J. Yab

moral predispositions are preconditioned by his natural predispositions, and this has an impact on sexes and people. Regarding the character of sexes, Kant argues that One can only come to the characterization of this sex if one uses as one’s principle not what we make our end, but what natures end was in establishing womankind; and since this end itself, by means of the foolishness of human beings, must still be wisdom according to nature’s purpose, these conjectural ends can also serve to indicate the principle for charactering woman—a principle which does not depend on our choice but on a higher purpose for the human race. These ends are the preservation of the species, (2) the cultivation of society and its refinement by womankind.28

The preservation of the species is only guaranteed by natural predispositions that mere nature wisely placed in the original phylum. Also, if the preservation of the species is not secured, it would not be possible to cultivate the society through the arts and sciences. However, the development of the arts and sciences belongs to the finer feeling of the beautiful and the sublime, which is preconditioned by the possession or the dispossession of talents. What is also important to mention here is the role of natural predispositions in the formation of sexes, which is the same as in 1764 when Kant wrote Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. That is, the sexual difference expression of the will of nature is a means of the natural economy that aims first to preserve the species, and second to cultivate the society. This cultivation is achieved through the “war of the sexes.” The progress of culture and the development of the society from the state of nature to the realm of the state of freedom imposes that each sex plays its role from the settings of natural predispositions that nature placed on each category. The conclusion I draw is that it is clear for Kant that the preservation of the species is the ultimate goal of natural predispositions that nature placed in the original phylum regarding different sexes. Besides, as stated in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, these predispositions represent the same potentialities that are behind Kant’s sexism remaining the same within the two writings. From the above I can first conclude that natural predispositions are in Kant’s view those potentialities placed in the original phylum by nature,

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

151

and without which the conception of the human species as human diversity would not be possible. Second, the notion of the “Charakteristik” is predetermined by these natural predispositions simply because it is the entity which describes and translates the diversity of the human species into what are called ‘race,’ ‘person,’ ‘sex,’ ‘people’ and so on. Finally, I determine that due to the fact that Kant expanded on natural predispositions from his early to his later writings, and that their signification remained the same, that is, physical and moral potentialities determined by nature and transmitted by heredity, he therefore did not change his mind on either his theory or racial hierarchy since his natural predispositions carry in themselves the potentialities of racial juxtaposition. Furthermore, in 1798 Kant not only elaborated on natural predispositions, he also recalled his whole doctrine of the temperaments, for example that he developed earlier in his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime in 1764 and which related racial differentiation to the possession and the dispossession of the feeling of the beautiful and the sublime. He also elaborated on physiognomy, national character and so on; these are different subjects in which racial inequality was at the basis of Kant’s analysis. Thus, in the second part of this chapter, I show that if Kant recalled the 1764s thematic on his doctrine on temperaments, physiognomy and national character, the themes from which he developed his racial theory and racial hierarchy, and if he redeveloped all these subjects in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View in 1798, and if their content is similar to the 1764s content, this implies that Kant did not ultimately change his mind on his theory of race.

 he “Anthropological Charakteristik” of 1798 T and Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime of 1764 In this section, I provide a comparative account of the “Anthropological Charakteristik,” the second part of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View and Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime to demonstrate not only the continuity of both texts, but also that the former text represents the completion of the latter in terms of Kant’s race theory

152 

J. Yab

thematic. Kant distinguishes five different characters from the particular to the general, dealing with “person,” “couple,” “race,” “country” and “species,” that is, the character of the person—character of the sex—character of the people—character of the race-character of the species. Nevertheless, these characters are all influenced by Kant’s notion of temperaments, the feature that translates the mixture of humour which creates the “Charakteristik.” Years before Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Kant theorised about the temperaments in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, in which he interconnected temperaments with sex and national character through the feeling of the beautiful and sublime. In Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View he resumed the same discussion; however, this time he correlated temperaments with sex and people via the notions of feeling and activity. My contention in this section is that the concept of “Charakteristik” in 1798 proceeds from Kant’s same doctrine of temperaments already developed in 1764. The first section of the “Anthropological Charakteristik” is concerned with the temperament of a person’s character, and after that, Kant will connect a person’s temperament with sex, people, race and species.

The Character of Persons According to Kant, character lies in the temporal dimension of the individual. If, on one hand, man receives his “Charakteristik” from nature, on the other, he must build his moral character. In the Preface of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Kant explains that human knowledge can be treated systematically physiologically or pragmatically. However, the opposition mentioned between physiological and pragmatic could suggest a clean separation between the physiological and pragmatic, that is to say between the action of nature and human action. However, this is only an apparent contradiction because Kant knew that human beings are not abstract, but rather a mixture of mind and body. They are the result of temperaments, which are not only physical but also psychological: From a physiological point of view, when one speaks of temperament one means physical constitution (strong or weak build) and complexion (fluid elements moving regularly through the body by means of the vital power,

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

153

which also includes heat or cold in the treatment of these humours). However, considered psychologically, that is, when one means temperament of soul (faculties of feeling and desire), those terms borrowed from the constitution of the blood will be introduced only in accordance with the analogy that the play of feelings and desires has with corporeal causes of movement (the most prominent of which is the blood).29

This is why Kant notes that in the character of the person the word is used in two ways: it is said that a man has a particular character (in the physical sense), and in the other way a man is said to have, or not, the character, in a moral sense. This duality converges in what Kant usually calls the general character of man. With this unification under the concept of the character, the contrast between nature and man’s action is now much less pronounced. This duality is also expressed in the tripartite form: natural aptitude, temperament and moral character. The former are natural predispositions, and the latter is moral predispositions. This means that man receives, at least in part, a character from “nature” through natural predispositions and applies his “freedom” to the development of these natural predispositions. The character indicates here initially an “imprint,” or a “sign” left in a human being by nature. It can be a physical mark or psychological, like the fact of having a “good nature.” The character also indicates a print reinforced by habit. It is therefore “what nature makes of man” as well as “ what man makes of himself ” which fall within the doctrine of the temperaments. The temperaments are the result of actions motivated by some sentiment of feeling and/or activity. To understand why Kant connects the temperaments to the sentiment of feeling and activity, we must come back to his notion of the feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature developed in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime in 1764.

 e Sentiment of Feeling and Activity Versus the Feeling Th of the Beauty and Dignity of Human Nature In “On the Qualities of the Sublime and the Beautiful in Human Beings in General,” the second section in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, Kant discusses the attribute of the beautiful and

154 

J. Yab

sublime in human nature and connects these with moral experience. Kant shows that three kinds of virtue are involved when we analyse the temperaments. The first is “true virtue,” which “can only be grafted upon principles”30 and which governs the action of human beings. However, “in recognition of the weakness of human nature and the little power that the universal moral feeling exercises over most hearts, providence has placed such helpful drives in us as supplements for virtue.”31 Thus, the second kind of virtue, “adopted virtues,” that is, “Sympathy and complaisance (they) are grounds for beautiful actions that would perhaps all be suffocated by the preponderance of a cruder self-interest, but as we have seen they are not immediate grounds of virtue.”32 Finally, “simulacrum of virtue” is “the feeling for honour and its consequence, shame.”33 The three virtues are correlated with the temperaments; they are motivated by what Kant calls the “feeling of the beauty and the dignity of human nature,”34 which refers to the higher realm of the aesthetic experience that should motivate human action. Thus, for Kant, the three virtues are what stimulates human action and therefore influences the temperaments. The feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature is “the consciousness of a feeling” that motivates human actions and influences human temperaments. Besides, for Kant, the feeling is the “sentiment of gratification or vexation…intrinsic to every person, of being touched …with pleasure or displeasure.”35 However, and as stated in Chap. 1, according to Kant, while almost every human being is able to experience the sentiment of the feeling of “vulgar sensuality”36 which does not necessitate moral and intellectual character, only a cultivated character is capable of experiencing the feeling of both the beautiful and the sublime. Although in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View Kant does not relate temperament to the beautiful and sublime, he links temperament with the two notions of feeling and activity. He therefore distinguishes the temperament of feeling and the temperament of activity. Thus in 1798, as in 1764, the temperaments are still related to the notion of feeling or activity. However, this is precisely the feeling that some races are still lacking: “The negroes of Africa have no feeling that rises above the ridiculous.” And this is why they have never demonstrated any talents in the arts and sciences. In contrast, “among the Whites, there

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

155

are always those who rise from the lowest rabble and through extraordinary gifts earn respect in the world.” So essential, Kant goes on, “is the difference between the two humankinds, and it seems to be just as great with regard to the capacities of mind as it is with the respect to the colour.”37 Also, People from Africa and India lack a “drive towards activity,” never becoming anything more than drifters. Although the quotation above is from Kant’s earlier writings, my point is to show that Kant in 1798, almost at the end of his life, is still relating the temperaments to precisely the same “Charakteristik” as in 1764, which appears to be lacking in some races. Kant’s failure to mention people from Africa in the section of “Anthropological Charakteristik” in which he is comparing nationalities according to their temperament is deliberate, and is also consistent with the quotation above which states that the Negro has by nature no feeling beyond the ridiculous. As demonstrated earlier, in lacking the feeling, the Negro will also lack the temperament. In 1798 Kant therefore distinguished four temperaments divided into temperaments of feeling and activity, which are the same temperaments developed earlier in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime of 1764.

 e Character of a Person According Th to the Four Temperaments The character of a person could consequently be discussed regarding natural predispositions (aptitude and temperament) on the one hand, as well as moral character on the other. Natural aptitudes are articulated in the feeling for how one human being is affected by another, while temperament is characterised by a sensible incentive to act. Kant states that nature gives to each man a “character,” that is, initial behaviour related to its physical complexity. Kant refers to the early theory of moods to distinguish four natural “temperaments,” divided into the traditional forms established by the ancient notion of the four humours: sanguine (light-­ blooded),38 melancholic (heavy-blooded), choleric (hot-blooded)39 and phlegmatic (cold-blooded).40 He specifies that he does not refer to these to give an explanation of the cause of human behaviour, but only “to

156 

J. Yab

classify the individuals according to the observed effects.”41 There are initially two temperaments of feeling: the first example is the sanguine person (who has light blood) and exteriorises his sensitivity. However, as he is “light,” he is a bad debtor, who always asks for extensions. Kant states that he is “a good companion, jocular and high-spirited, he does not like to attribute foremost importance to anything.”42 The second one is, in contrast, the melancholic person who “attributes great importance to all things that concern himself.” However, there are also the temperaments of activity. The hot-tempered person has “hot” blood; he is choleric; he “flares up quickly like straw fire.” The hot-tempered person “likes to be the mere commander-in-chief who presides over it but does not want to carry it out himself. Hence his ruling passion is ambition; he likes to take part in public affairs and wants to be loudly praised.”43 Kant thus concludes: “In short the choleric temperament is the least happy of all because he calls up the most opposition to itself.”44 Finally, the phlegmatic “controls its emotions.” The “play” of nature according to Kant differently generates complex intersections because it is possible to combine these four primitive temperaments. The four elementary temperaments produce a multiplicity of combinations, and especially they separate according to the person’s actions; having “character,” Kant states, is high “praise,” because it is the sign of a “moral strength.” As natural predispositions, the temperaments reflect a differentiated set of categories that characterise the inclination towards special affects, passions and feelings including weak or pathological forms, as in 1764 when Kant described the same doctrine of the four temperaments in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. In this book, Kant associated the four temperaments with the feeling of the beautiful and sublime. The person of sanguine temperament, for example, has a governing feeling for the beautiful; he is “good-hearted and benevolent.”45 He has much moral sympathy and because he is a friend of all human beings is never really a friend. He is a poor payer of his debts since he has little sentiment for justice. The feeling of the sublime also governs the person of melancholic temperament. He is “steadfast… he subordinates his sentiments to principle.”46 He does not find himself troubled about how other judges or what they hold to be true because he relies on his own insight. Another temperament is one of

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

157

choleric temperament. The choleric person “considers his own value and the value of his things and actions on the basis of the propriety or appearance.”47 He usually appears to be smarter than he is. The last temperament Kant discusses in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime is the temperament of the phlegmatic: Since in the phlegmatic mixture there are ordinarily no ingredients of the sublime or the beautiful in any particularly noticeable degree, this quality of mind does not belong in the context of our considerations.48

It is worth noting that Kant’s views on the temperament of the phlegmatic evolved from the person who completely lacks feeling in 1764 to the person who when motivated by the weakness part of the phlegm is characterised by the “propensity to inactivity.”49 However, when the strength part of the phlegm motivates the person, he has the quality of “not being moved easily… however… slowly…persistently.”50 This has led some scholars of the “orthodox reading” to defend that within the doctrine of the four temperaments, the Negro race is moved by the character of the phlegmatic. However, the Negro race does not belong to the problematic of the four temperaments because he has no feeling at all. As we saw above, in 1764 Kant related the doctrine of the four temperaments to the feeling of the beautiful and sublime, and in 1798 he divided it into the temperament of feeling and activity because he considered that the doctrine of the temperaments is preconditioned by the predisposition of the feeling by different races. However, it appears that providence did not place the predispositions of the finer feeling, that is, the feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature, in the Negro race. Consequently, the Negro does not belong to the doctrine of the temperaments. Also, Kant describes German as having the character of “phlegm combined with understanding.”51 Suggesting with Larrimore that the temperament of the race of Negroes is phlegmatic is to say that Kant thinks of the Germans and Negroes as civilised people, which is just a nonsense, since as Kant himself argues: Since phlegm (taken in its good sense) is the temperament of cool reflection and perseverance in the pursuit of one’s ends, together with endurance

158 

J. Yab

of the difficulties connected with the pursuit, one can expect as much from the talent of the German’s correct understanding and profoundly reflective reason as from any other people capable of the highest culture; except in the department of wit and artistic taste, where he perhaps may not be equal to the French, English, and Italians.52

As clearly indicated in this citation, the Negroes are not capable of the highest culture and this is why Kant did not include them in the section of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View that discusses the “character of people” in which Kant describes the character of different nations according to the four temperaments. The conclusion is definite: The Negro race does not belong to Kant’s pragmatic project. As stated above, in 1798 Kant continues to elaborate on his doctrine of the four temperaments based on the possession of the finer feeling, which is materialised by natural predispositions that providence placed in the original phylum for the benefit of racial differentiation, which aimed at populating the entire globe. From the preceding, I can conclude that Kant’s theory of race continued to live actively in 1798 towards his doctrine of the four temperaments, which serves him in describing the character of the people.

The Character of the People The “Charakteristik” settings of different races regarding the character of a people allow Kant to review the high forms of the European civilisation and mainly of the White race because the other races do not belong to his pragmatic project. Here, as in 1764, Kant thinks of Europeans as the most civilised people on earth, and that they are the ones responsible for the development of human civilisation, and in this sense the European nations are the only nations included in Kant’s pragmatic project. My contention here is that Kant, in using the same terminology as in 1764 about the character of nations, and most importantly in demonstrating that Europeans are the most civilised people on earth from the character of their nations which is drawn from the doctrine of the four temperaments and which derived from the natural predispositions, not only did not change his mind on race, but is merely reconfirming his racial hierarchy in a pragmatic sense. By the word “people” Kant means a

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

159

Number of human beings united in a region, insofar as they constitute a whole. This number, or even a part of it that recognizes itself as united into a civil whole through common ancestry, is called a nation.53

Consequently, the character is no longer the product of a natural provision only but also the result of a historical development, which is the formation of a nation. The nation is based on a “political constitution” and makes possible the development of the forms of civility. As Kant made explicit in the essay “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy,” only the White Europeans occupy the top level of the hierarchy of nations, they display the capacity to vigorously and rationally develop their culture, and they are the ones capable of republican self-­ government and moral progress. He again writes here that the character of a nation derives from both its racial and cultural characters. Moreover, in civilised nations like France and England, national character is based on cultural distinctiveness. In other nations, national “Charakteristik” is based more upon racial characters given by nature, that is, from the “predispositions of their nature, which results from the mixture of their originally different tribes.”54 Besides, there is no doubt for Kant that European nations “are the most civilized,” and among them “England and France are the two most civilized people on earth.”55 Kant then goes on to describe their moral character. The French nation, for example, is characterised among all others by its “courteous” manner, its vivacity and its “spirit of freedom.” The English peoples “have a character that they have acquired for themselves” which makes them “a powerful people of maritime commerce.”56 They have also the “disposition to stick to a voluntarily adopted principle and not to deviate from a certain rule (no matter which) gives a man the significance that one knows for certain what one has to expect from him, and he from others.”57 The Spaniard has a private behaviour of solemnity and dignity. The Italian “unites French vivacity (gaiety) with Spanish seriousness (tenacity), and his aesthetic character is a taste that is linked with affect.”58 The Germans are believed to have a good personality, which is one of “honesty and domesticity,”59 and they have a talent for industry and sound understanding. Furthermore, in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, Kant claims that different nations have different aesthetic and moral sensibilities. The

160 

J. Yab

feeling of the beautiful and the sublime refers to the highest realm of aesthetic experience. At the top of Kant’s classification, “the German …has a fortunate combination of feeling, both in that of the sublime and in that of the beautiful,” surpassing the Englishman and the Frenchman. Here in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, the German, In his dealings with others, (he)’s character is modesty. More than any other people, he learns foreign languages, he is … a wholesale dealer in learning, and in the field of the sciences he is the first to get to the bottom of many things that are later utilized by others with much ado; he has no national pride and is also too cosmopolitan to be deeply attached to his homeland. However, in his own country he is more hospitable to foreigners than any other nation; he strictly disciplines his children toward propriety/just as, in accordance with his propensity to order and rule, he would rather submit to despotism than get mixed up in innovations (especially unauthorized reforms in government).60

There is a clear hierarchy of people here according to their national character. Kant uses his theory of race to first classify people of his own continent, which he considers as the referential continent among all continents. The difference between 1764 and 1798 is as follows. Kant has matured his theory of race and finally posits that the White race in Europe has invented the sciences and arts. It thus seems evident to him that none of the other races on other continents have the propensity to invent anything and therefore do not belong to the pragmatic dimension of his project, which sees its achievement in his cosmopolitanism. Because the pragmatic dimension of a human being means what a human being makes of himself from what nature makes of him, it appears then that the outcome of what man makes of himself is translated into the arts and sciences. The capacity to perform in the arts and sciences is preconditioned by natural predispositions that nature placed in the White race. It does not matter if some nations on the European continent have not yet developed what it takes to have a final national character: what is essential is that some of them have, and this is a sufficient condition to direct the progress of humanity towards its ultimate destination. Kant states:

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

161

Since Russia has not yet developed what is necessary for a definite concept of natural predispositions which lie ready in it; since Poland is no longer at this stage; and since the nationals of European Turkey never have attained and never will attain what is necessary for the acquisition of a definite national character/the sketch of them may rightly be passed over here. Anyway/since the question here is about innate, natural character which, so to speak, lies in the blood mixture of the human being, not characteristic of nations that are acquired and artificial (or spoiled by one must therefore be very cautious in sketching them.61

Kant in this citation confirms that the national character is built not only upon natural predispositions but also from cultural distinctiveness, which the Russians lack at present. Cultural distinctiveness is the external mark of a human being’s pragmatic dimension, since it reveals, mainly in the arts and sciences and even in the form of government, what man has made of himself. However, in Kant’s view, it is certain that the Russians, for example, will at one point develop what it takes to complete the pragmatic dimension of the human being. It is just a matter of time, as it is in the case of the character of the Greeks. Kant states: In the character of the Greeks under the harsh oppression of the Turks and did not much lighter oppression of their own Caloyers, their temperament (vivacity and thoughtlessness) has no more disappeared than has the structure of their bodies, their shape, and facial features. This character would, presumably, in fact re-establish itself if, by a happy turn of events, their form of religion and government would provide them the freedom to re-­ establish themselves.62

Thus, in Kant’s view, the national character of the Greeks will regenerate itself under certain conditions because they are predetermined by their natural predispositions to develop. Kant reconnects here the temperaments, the character and, most importantly, his doctrine of physiognomy that he took great care to redevelop when he was exposing the character of people. Hence, there is sufficient evidence in this section of Kant’s anthropology to suggest that Kant continues to use his hierarchy of race as standard reasoning to express the diversity of human beings. Kant even recalls his doctrine of physiognomy developed in Observations on the

162 

J. Yab

Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime in 1964. In Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View and precisely after defining what the character of the person meant, he believed that it was important because of the physiological and moral perspective of the character of the person to detail what the physical appearance may tell us about the morality of man. The point of exposing Kant’s pragmatic views on physiognomy is to demonstrate how in 1798 Kant still connects physical features to moral attributes of the human being and therefore this provides further evidence of his commitment to his raciology, since his theory of race is mainly about how the physical features of peoples put in distinct categories impact their morality.

Kant’s Pragmatic Physiognomy I now recall Kant’s account of the pragmatic physiognomy to prove, first, that he never abandoned his thinking according to which physical features translate the morality of man, and second, the fact that he only develops the pragmatic physiognomic dimension of the White race, reinforcing my claim about the non-inclusion of other races in his pragmatic project. Kant argues that the character of a person can be decoded from their facial expression, and mainly from the analysis of the glance. Kant defines physiognomy as The art of judging a human being’s way of sensing or way of thinking according to his visible form: consequently, it judges the interior by the exterior.63

According to this art, it is not the beauty of the exterior which is significant, but rather the involuntary defect, for example a wicked grin caused by habit. Facial observation is an act of prudence when trading with men. After defining physiognomy, Kant set the tone of his audience, which denotes that the physiognomy is written from the European perspective and concerns European physiognomy. It is proved by his usage of “we” and “us.” He states:

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

163

If we are to put our trust in someone, no matter how highly he comes recommended to us, it is a natural impulse to first look him in the face, particularly in the eyes, to find out what we can expect from him. What is revolting or attractive in his gestures determines our choice or makes us suspicious even before we have inquired about his morals, and so it is incontestable that there is a physiognomic character.64

It is important to note that Kant takes care not to imagine the possibility of a science of physiognomy because the art of physiognomy supposes the exercise of a perspicacious judgement different from scientific judgement. He criticises even Lavater’s attempts to develop such a science. Unlike Lavater, Kant mentions the art of the caricature, which is much more significant in Kant’s view: the face is an individual expression, and there is a science only for the general. Consequently, the face is resistant to a precise general description; there will always be an undeterminable residue that will undermine the science of the face, meaning the rigorous semiotics of the facial expression. This is related to Kant’s “play,” that is, the “play of nature.” However, all faces do not cause mistrust: there are beautiful faces, full of attractions. Kant claims to prefer the artistic beauty in the traditional symmetry of Greek art. However, Chinese art is to him grotesque. In contrast, in France the beautiful gives rise to the culture of courteousness and to the desire to look elegant, which is still excessive. It is significant to note that while Europeans are always depicted positively, non-Europeans appear in the text to contrast with Europeans and are constantly portrayed in a deleterious manner. Kant states, for example, that Whether a hump on the nose indicates a satirist—whether the peculiarity of the shape of the Chinese face, of which it is said that the lower jaw projects slightly beyond the upper, is an indication of their stubbornness’—or whether the forehead of the Americans, overgrown with hair on both sides, is a sign of innate feeble-mindedness…65

Kant also gives an account of ugliness, which he thinks is much more interesting for the “Charakteristik” because it is much more significant from the pragmatic point of view. Kant writes:

164 

J. Yab

There are men, whose faces are (as the French expression says), is “rébarbatif;” faces with which, as the saying goes, can drive children to bed; or who have a face lacerated and made grotesque by smallpox.66

Yet, what seems worthy of interest is that all these faces endeavour to make good company; men have sometimes even enough good mood and cheerfulness to joke about their ugliness, and thus “to civilise” the ugliness. Even the freedom available to men compared to women (women, as Kant notes, have more difficulties than men in assuming the disgrace of nature despite the many artifices they invent) concerning ugliness must have some limits. As a woman from Paris notes this in the form of a joke to Pelisson, a member of the French Academy: “Pelisson misuses the permission that men have to be ugly.”67 Therefore, ugliness becomes a holy word. The “man” (European), Kant tells us, can turn over his natural ugliness into an expression of his character. In addition to makeup and artifices, there is the power of laughter. Here the spirit transforms the naturalness feature, and the spiritual “man” manages in this way to thwart the nasty trick which nature has played on him while being played himself and from there he goes from the “play of nature” to the “play of the world.” To convince the reader, Kant recalls in a footnote an evening in London, as follows: Heidegger, a German musician in London, was a grotesquely formed but bright and intelligent man, with whom refined people liked to associate for the sake of conversation. Once it occurs to him at a drinking party to claim to a lord that he had the ugliest face in London. The Lord reflected and wagered that he could present a face still uglier, and then sent out for a drunken woman, and whose appearance for the whole party burst into a laugher and call out: “Heidegger who has lost the bet.” “Not so fast” he replied, “let the woman wear my wig and I shall put on her headdress; then we will see.” As this happened everyone fell into laughter, to the point of suffocation. For the woman looked like a very well-bred man, and the man like a witch. This proves that in order to call anyone beautiful or a least totally pretty, one most not judge absolutely, always only relatively, and someone must not call a man ugly just because he is perhaps not pretty. Only repulsive physical defects of the face can justify this verdict.68

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

165

This is written from the European outlook and for Europeans. The examples are mostly taken from the European culture, and this denotes that in Europe the description of beauty and ugliness became a moment to unify human diversity. The play of nature has provided Europeans with different facial character, but they have the freedom to turn either ugliness or beauty into a moment of civilisation. Kant’s pragmatic account of physiognomy is further evidence which goes against Kleingeld’s argument according to which he abandoned his racial theory of race almost at the same time that he published Towards Perpetual Peace. Why would someone who had just abandoned racial hierarchy, which links physical appearance to intellectual capacities, elaborate again on physical features with moral outcomes? The truth is this: Kant’s narrative on racial inequality was inherently part of his thinking, and thus it was not conceivable to him to think otherwise. So far, I have demonstrated that in “Anthropological Charakteristik” Kant continues to develop his theory of race through his constant allusion to natural predispositions, which are the prerequisites for the development of the four temperaments. Also, Kant refers to these four temperaments to describe the character of people of the European continent, which he considers as the being home to the most civilised nations on earth, dismissing non-European nations altogether. This is made clear by his deliberate omission of the national character of the peoples of Africa or America, for example in a section in which he has described the national character of Europeans, confirming that he has no intention to include these people in his pragmatic project and therefore in his cosmopolitanism. The most important aspect to highlight here is that the whole narrative above, which accompanied Kant’s description of race, was already developed in 1764 in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. Furthermore, the fact that he chooses to redevelop the same narrative in 1798 in his Anthropology tells the reader that Kant’s mind had not changed on race, because as far as the pragmatic dimension is concerned, only the White race is registered in the “play of nature.” Besides, even in the section of his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View called “On the Character of Races,” which is the ultimate proof of Kant’s commitment to his theory, the race that Kant uses as an example in this

166 

J. Yab

section is the White race, confirming again that he completely dismissed other races from the pragmatic game.

The Character of Races The fact that Kant created a section called “On the Character of Races” in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View on its own constitutes proof that Kant’s thinking on race was an ongoing issue. However, Kleingeld’s claim is not that Kant abandoned his thinking about races but rather that (1) he restricted that thinking to physical features and (2) what he instead indeed abandoned was his racial hierarchy. Both claims are unfounded. First, Kant does not restrict his race thinking only to physical features; in fact, in this section, Kant reconnects physiology and morality. He states that within the same race: Instead of assimilation, which nature intended in the melting together of different races, she has here made a law … to diversify to infinity the ­character of the same tribe and even of the same family in physical and mental traits.69

Here intellectual and physical qualities are linked with the character of races or at least within one race. Besides, Kant did not abandon his racial hierarchy because it is not possible to think of race in Kant’s view without thinking about natural predispositions, and this is what justifies the reference to mental and physical traits in the quotation above as the predispositions that are responsible for the actualisation of these traits. Also, it is natural predispositions that carry the moral and physical features of race. Therefore, Kant’s racial theory is a theory of natural predispositions. As mentioned above, the character of race in this section of Kant’s book is not developed as expected, and, if taken in isolation from his other writings in Anthropology, this might have suggested to the “orthodox reading” that Kant had nothing more to say about his racial theory. However, Marc Larrimore demonstrates that

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

167

Kant wrote no more essays on the subject because he didn’t have to. All three race essays were republished numerous times in collections of his works starting in 1793. More importantly, they were cited and recommended by Blumenbach in the 1795 edition of De generis humani varietate nativa (On the Natural Variety of Mankind), who now accepted the centrality of skin colour. In 1796 the young chemist Christoph Girtanner published Uber das kantische Prinzip fur die Naturgeschichte (The Kantian Principle for Natural History), a book-length synthesis of Kant’s three essays together with some ideas from Blumenbach. By 1797 Herder again saw the need to denounce race as inimical to a ‘human’ understanding of humanity. And in 1799 Schelling integrated Kant’s theory of race into Naturphilosophie.70

Larrimore concludes that Kant felt that the character of race was the only part of his theory that his students and readers knew and this is why he decided not to repeat what people already knew. Even if Kant did not elaborate this section as the “orthodox reading” might have expected, he nevertheless expounded on one of the features of his theory, which is the mixture of races, and he linked physical and moral features. Moreover, the close examination in this section of Kant’s theory of the 1770s–1790s proves that he was more committed to his theory than ever. In dealing with this section of Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Larrimore declares that The determinism of race had its place in nature, but a pragmatic anthropology showed it to be a threat to the human future, closing down rather than opening up possibilities. ‘Assimilation’ of races was to be avoided not for ‘natural’ but for ‘pragmatic’ reasons. The achievement of man’s end was in his own hands.71

To understand Larrimore’s quotation above, let us recall the essence of Kant’s racial theory. Kant considers that the predispositions that ensure the possibility of human life across the globe were already printed in the original phylum. He states: The variety among human beings even from the same race was in all probability inscribed just so purposively in the original line of descent to estab-

168 

J. Yab

lish—and in successive generations, develop the greatest diversity for the sake of infinitely diverse purposes, just as the differences among races establish fewer but more essential purposes.72

Kant also notes that racial diversity is essential for the progress of human beings adapted to all modes of different climatic conditions, which proves that the human species was destined to spread across the globe. He notes the fact that racial diversity is also linked to various kinds of difference in culture and talents. Kant argues that when reason itself is unable to provide a causal explanation we must employ teleological judgements that justify the ends of history and nature. In Idea for a Universal History Kant make the teleological claim that “all-natural capacities of a creature are destined to evolve completely to their natural end,” but that considering the great potentialities of human freedom, this progress can only be achieved in the species as a whole. Thus, for all-­natural dispositions to progress towards the purposive ends of human nature, it is necessary that human beings populate the globe as each race can only partially manifest the “Charakteristik” of the species, because when a particular character of race is activated in a given race, the other potentialities die out. This is why if nature has purposively permitted racial diversity, it opposes the mixing and assimilation of races. When concluding his section “On the Character of Nations,” for instance, he states: This much we can judge with probability: that the mixture of tribes (by extensive conquests), which gradually extinguishes their character, is not beneficial to the human race—all so-called philanthropy notwithstanding.73

For Kant, such mixture extinguishes the distinctiveness and character of races, reducing their potentialities, because he considers that the four human races possess different talents and mental capabilities, which are linked to different predispositions. The mixture of races would be counterproductive and an obstacle to the development of the human species as a whole. For Kant, the red American race display little if any capacity for cultural development and seem rooted in a primitive lifestyle, and the black African race can only be trained to be slaves. The Asian-Indian race

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

169

have a relatively high potential for cultural progress, but this progress has stagnated because their development has reached its peak. It is only the White European race that displays the potentialities for progress and civilisation. This is why in the second part of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, namely in “Anthropological Charakteristik,” Kant insists that Instead of assimilation, which nature intended in the melting together of different races, she has here made a law of exactly the opposite: namely in a people of the same race (for example, the White race), instead of allowing the formation of their character constantly and progressively to approach one another in likeness/where ultimately only one and the same portrait would result, as in prints taken from the same copperplate, rather to diversify to infinity the characters of the same tribe and even of the same family in mental and physical traits.74

Kant reiterates his early view of the mixing of races. What is different now is that, in the 1770s version of his theory, the mixing of races was prevented for cosmological reasons. In the 1780s the practical reason posited the non-mixture of races. In the 1790s, instead it was the pragmatic purposes that imposed the non-assimilation of races; otherwise the distinctiveness of the character of the White race, which is the possession of all motivating forces and talents to advance the civilisation, would have disappeared. This is what Larrimore meant in his quotation above when he says: “‘Assimilation’ of races was to be avoided not for ‘natural’ but for ‘pragmatic’ reasons.”75 However, Kleingeld has a different interpretation of this passage, as she believes that Kant’s view about “hybridisation” has evolved and that he now argues at least that “race fusion” is part of the plan of nature. The same passage also attracted Bernasconi’s attention in his essay “Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Racism.” He posits instead that Kant explained that it is in the mixing of races that there is an extinction of the character… races were defined in such a way that it is only in the case of race mixing that the diversity at which nature usually aims is frustrated.76

170 

J. Yab

The section on race in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View attracts different interpretations that are sometimes opposed to one another. However, whatever reading we assign to it, what remains true is that Kant did recall in that section some of the crucial points of his theory of race. Thus, Kant created a section on race, and moreover he brings back to mind the features of his racial theory that he developed in his earlier writings, without altering their signification, and these two facts are sufficient to conclude that Kant did not change his mind on race and that he was still committed to his racial hierarchy. Additionally, Kant concluded his reflections on the “Anthropological Charakteristik” with a section on the character of the species. There he lays out the distinct types of predispositions that distinguish a human being from other living inhabitants of the earth but also that differentiate human beings among them. Additionally, he provides further evidence that his theory of predispositions is the theory of human nature by excellence. Consequently, this confirms that he defended his racial hierarchy throughout this period and even in that last section of the “Anthropological Charackteristik.”

The Character of Species Among the living inhabitants of the earth the human being is markedly distinguished from all other living beings by his technical predisposition for manipulating things (mechanically joined with consciousness), by his pragmatic predisposition (to use other human beings skilfully for his purposes), and by the moral predisposition in his being (to treat himself and others according to the principle of freedom under laws). And any one of these three levels can by itself already distinguish the human being’s character from other inhabitants of the earth.77 Kant in his section “On the Character of the Species” intended to sum up what differentiates human beings from other creatures on the earth. However, this is also a reminder of what constitutes the essence of the character of the human being in his pragmatic understanding. In his view, three predispositions distinguish a human being from other living beings, namely the technical, pragmatic and moral predispositions. The pragmatic dimension of Kant’s notion of human nature is mainly

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

171

confined to one category of the human race, the White race. I provided as evidence to support this affirmation the fact that Kant has failed in his section “On the Character of the Person” to describe the character of the people of non-White races. In this section, he describes what he calls the pragmatic character of people according to their national character based on natural predispositions responsible for the different temperaments. In fact, here Kant does not consider other races apart from the White race as constitutive of the pragmatic significance of human nature. This is why he describes European nations only in a pragmatic way. For instance, Kant’s does not consider that the Negro race belongs to the doctrine of the four temperaments. As demonstrated in his earlier writings, the Negro race does not have what it takes to have a temperament, namely the feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature. Thus, it is not surprising that the character of the people of the Negro race does not appear in this section. However, as I wish to stay in line with Kleingeld’s demand according to which we do not have to appeal to Kant’s earlier writings but rather the latter to support claims about his racial theory, I must then analyse how Kant presented his section on the character of the species. It supports my claim that even in that last section on the “Anthropological Charakteristik” Kant defended his racial theory and his racial hierarchy. Kant defended his racial hierarchy in this section for two reasons. The first is that he still relies on his theory of natural predispositions, which differentiate between good and evil races. The second reason is that Kant wrote the section “On the Character of the Species” from the European perspective and for Europeans. In writing from that perspective he is persuaded that the pragmatic dimension of human beings concerns only the White race, and this is why he barely talks about non-White races in this section, and if so from a negative standpoint.

Different Types of Natural Predispositions Kant’s theory of natural predispositions of the 1790s has evolved from the definition of the predispositions in an organic body such as a plant or animal to the specific definition of the predispositions in a human being.

172 

J. Yab

In fact, in his 1775 essay “Of the Different Races of Human Beings,” Kant defines predispositions as follows: “The grounds of a determinate unfolding which are lying in the nature of an organic body… (and concerning) … the size or the relation of the parts to one another.” This definition is broad because it concerns both animals and plants. However, in 1793 Kant published Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone in which he gives a specific meaning to what he calls predispositions in a human being. He states in book one “concerning the indwelling of the evil principle with the good, or, on the radical evil in human nature” that By the predispositions of a being, we understand the constituent parts required for it as well as the forms of their combination that make for such a being. They are original if they belong with necessity to the possibility of this being, but contingent if the being in question is possible in itself also without them.78

Kant will therefore distinguish as in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View three predispositions: (1) The predisposition to the animality of the human being, as a living being; (2) The predisposition to humanity in man, taken as a living and at the same time a rational being; and (3) The predisposition to personality in man, taken as a rational and at the same time an accountable being.79 The predisposition to animality is intended “for self-preservation,” “for the propagation of the species, through the sexual drive, and for the preservation of the offspring thereby begotten through breeding,”80 and “for the community with other human beings, i.e., the social drive.” The disposition for self- preservation gives rise to desires not just to preserve one’s life in the face of danger, but also for food, drink and sleep (after all, food, drink and sleep are essential for our continued existence as living beings). All the inclinations that develop out of the predisposition to humanity “can be brought under the general title of self-love which is physical and yet involves comparison … Out of this self-love originates the inclination to gain worth in the opinion of others.”81 In other words, the predisposition to humanity aims at producing desire to have one’s lot in life compare favourably to others. Kant writes that “The predisposition to personality is the susceptibility to respect for the moral law as of itself a sufficient incentive for the power of

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

173

choice.”82 Without the predisposition to personality, we would be incapable of being able to act out of respect for the moral law. The difference between the 1770s and the 1790s definitions of natural predispositions lies only in the specificity of the latter definition, which concerns only human beings. Kant is concerned in the 1790s with those predispositions which have a direct orientation “to the faculty of desire and the exercise of the will.” This refers to the human being as a pragmatic entity and constitutive of what Kant calls the “the fixed character and destiny of man.” This is what Kant finally develops in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View in which he states: The sum total of pragmatic anthropology, in respect to the vocation of the human being and the character of his formation,” is the following. The human being is destined by his reason to live in a society with human beings and in it to cultivate himself, to civilize himself, and to moralize himself by means of the arts and sciences.83

This citation refers to the final goal of the three natural predispositions enumerated in the section “On the Character of the Species,” that is, the technical, pragmatic and moral predispositions. Here is where Kant’s theory of natural predispositions becomes challenging. It is interpreted by the “orthodox reading” as revealing that Kant’s theory of human nature is a progressive theory of natural predispositions. That is, the human being, in general, is destined to progress from his predispositions to animality, to humanity and then to the predisposition of personality84 as described in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, or to develop from his technical predisposition to pragmatic and finally to moral predisposition as defined in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. I would like to highlight that both versions of the different sets of predispositions are similar. In Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, the technical predisposition aimed at the preservation of the species as the predisposition to animality in Religion. The pragmatic predisposition in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View aimed at culture (the pragmatic predisposition to become civilised through culture) as the predisposition to humanity in Religion (for nature, indeed, wanted to use the idea of such rivalry which in itself does not exclude mutual love only as a

174 

J. Yab

spur to culture). Finally, the predisposition to morality in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View aimed at the observation of moral law as the predisposition of personality in Religion. The “orthodox reading” of Kant’s theory of natural predispositions presupposes that with his pragmatic project Kant assumes that all races are destined to evolve from their technical predisposition to their pragmatic and finally to their moral predisposition. This could be the case only if this section on the character is read in total isolation from his preceding section on the character of the races. However, the object of this book is precisely to read Kant’s theory of race as a whole. Besides, a close examination of the “Charakteristik” of the species in connection with the character of the races suggests that Kant is discussing the development of natural predispositions only in one race, namely the White race. Consequently, if Kant is arguing only about the development of the predispositions in the White race, nothing suggests that non-White races would have the same development of their natural predispositions.

 evelopment of Natural Predispositions D in the White Race Kant in his “Anthropological Charakteristik” took great care not to develop the capacities of any other races apart from the White race. As we have seen, in the section “On the Character of the Person” Kant only developed the character of European nations in connection with the doctrine of the four temperaments. However, in his following section, “On the Character of Races,” Kant specifically mentions that he would like to elaborate only on modifications that can occur in the same race. He states: I want only to make a further remark about family kind and the varieties or modifications that can be observed in one and the same race.85

Here Kant is not talking about any race other than the White race as he continues:

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

175

Instead of assimilation, which nature intended in the melting together of different races, she has here made a law of exactly the opposite: namely, in a people of the same race (for example, the White race), instead of allowing the formation of their character constantly and progressively to approach one another in likeness.86

Moreover, this is confirmed by the example he uses in the same section, when he states: So, for example, ash-coloured hair…does not come from the mixture of a brunette with a blond, but rather signifies a particular family kind.87

Therefore, it is not a matter of fortuity that in his following section, namely “On the Character of the Species,” Kant addresses the White audience, as suggested by his constant references to “we” and “us.” In fact, in the first paragraph of this section, Kant immediately sets the tone of his discourse: the White race is the referential race of the human species. He states: In order to indicate a character of a certain being’s species, it is necessary that it be grasped under one concept with other species known to us…But if we are comparing a kind of being that we know (A) with another kind of being that we do not know (non-A), how then can one expect or demand to indicate a character of the former when the middle term of the comparison is missing to us?—The highest species concept may be that of a terrestrial rational being, however we will not be able to name its character because we have no knowledge of non-terrestrial rational beings that would enable us to indicate their characteristic property and so to characteristic this terrestrial being among rational beings in general.88

My point here is to demonstrate the continuity of Kant’s thought in his “Anthropological Charakteristik,” which suggests that, from the character of the persons, peoples and sexes to the character of the races, Kant is developing a pragmatic understanding of the human nature of the White race. Hence, when it comes to the development of the natural predispositions, it is not surprising that it is also about the development of natural predispositions of the White race. In the section “On the

176 

J. Yab

Character of the Races,” Kant claims that the character of a human being is the character that he creates himself because of his quality as a rational animal. Thus, he distinguished himself from other living beings by three natural predispositions: First, with his technical predispositions, that is, with his hands and fingers, he preserves himself “partly through their structure, partly through their sensitive feeling.”89 To demonstrate how this account of the character of the species is concerned with and directed towards the White race, Kant even uses the Christian myth of creation when explaining the role of the technical predisposition: A first human couple, already fully developed, put there by nature in the midst of food supplies, if not at the same time given a natural instinct that is nevertheless not present in us in our present natural state, is difficult to reconcile with nature’s provision for the preservation of the species.90

There is no doubt in this quotation that the technical predisposition Kant is discussing is the one concerning only the White race. Second, with the pragmatic predisposition, the White human being can become civilised through culture. This is achieved through his capacity to be educated. It is worth remembering that in Kant’s view, the Negro race, for example, can only be trained as slaves. Hence, the education Kant is referring to is of the White race, by which the White man becomes well-mannered through the “art of culture.” Kant states, for example, in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, that the process in nature that allows this development is called culture: The production of the aptitude of a rational being for arbitrary purposes in general (consequently in his freedom) is culture. Therefore, culture alone can be the ultimate purpose which we have cause for ascribing to nature in respect to the human race (not man’s earthly happiness or the fact that he is the chief instrument of instituting order and harmony in irrational nature external to himself ).91

It includes two degrees, the first corresponding to a technical intelligence in the broadest sense: this is the culture of skill. The progress of the

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

177

skill accelerates social division of labour. The result is an inequality that will increase, but in which grow all-natural human predispositions, in particular the arts and sciences. This form of culture is not enough to further the will in the determination and choice of purposes. That is, it does not suffice to progress human will from hypothetical imperatives that are still sympathetic to natural ends for the determination of the categorical imperative of the will, since its universality has no correlate in nature. However, this form of culture paves the way for the discipline of preferences by refining the taste, and by reducing “very much … the tyranny of sensible tendencies and prepare humans for a sovereignty in which reason alone shall have power.”92 This is what requires the second level of culture, which facilitates the passage of one type of purpose to another, namely the culture of discipline. As this type of culture still fits in nature, it is purely negative; its purpose is to detach the human being from its animal desires that distance him from his ultimate purpose and make him use his will as a free legislator. It is worth comparing this historical outline to the table of races that Kant proposes in his lessons of anthropology, which explicitly prioritises races based on their capacity for culture: The race of the American cannot be educated. It has no motivating force, for it lacks affect and passion. They are not in love; thus, they are also not afraid. They hardly speak, do not caress each other, care about nothing and are lazy…The race of the Negroes, one could say, is completely the opposite of the Americans; they are full of affect and passion, very lively, talkative, and vain. They can be educated but only as servants (slaves) that is they allow themselves to be trained. They have many motivating forces, are also sensitive, are afraid of blows and do much out of a sense of honour… [the Hindus] … do have motivating forces but they have a strong degree of passivity, and all look like philosophers. Nevertheless, they incline greatly towards anger and love. They thus can be educated to the highest degree but only in the arts and not in the sciences. They can never achieve the level of abstract concepts. A great Hindustani man is one who has gone far in the art of deception and has much money. The Hindus always stay the way they are; they can never advance, although they began their education much earlier…The White race possesses all motivating forces and talents in itself.93

178 

J. Yab

The implicit hierarchy that Kant evoked in “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy” is presented here in a perfectly graduated way, by two criteria: the predispositions inherent in race, and the maximum degree of culture of each race. The conducting lead seems to be this: the Native Americans, because of the erratic development of their racial predispositions, have seen their nature disappear; the catastrophic result of the error of this adaptation is the absolute lack of these predispositions that is the precondition for the development of their faculties. Thus, because this is lacking, they cannot develop any culture. Among the Negroes, on the other hand, these impulses are present, but without any control given to them. Thus, the Negroes can receive something like education, but a purely external education, under coercion: it is not yet genuine culture, because it would mean the repossession by the Negro himself of his inner and outer nature to develop his talents, something that he is incapable of doing. The inner nature of the Negro is only destined for a coerced education. The outcome is that they can only be educated as slaves. They are educated to follow commands. In this sense, they are superior to the Native Americans. It is this same unilateral relation to culture, his inability to think by himself and to develop talents, that also characterised the Negro: “as if the pure positivity of its affects left no room for such thinking.” The Indian type is undoubtedly superior to the Negro type. This is because his psychology is more involved with some interference between instances of stability (serenity) and the correlative possibility of deep passions (anger, love) that contrast sharply with the immediacy of the impulses of the Negro (frivolity). This gives the Indians partial access to a genuine culture, obstructed, however, by the inability to make use of speculative reason as such, that is, the failure to disconnect the use of reason from original goals. He is unable to see another end to his existence than that of material happiness. This is why the figure of achievement is for an Indian the maximization of the means of enjoyment, by the development of an art to use others for his own purposes: a great Indian man is a man who has mastered the art of trickery and had a lot of money, says the quotation above. What seems to be developing in the Indian is a form of congested disposition to culture corresponding to

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

179

something lying between the technical predisposition and pragmatic predisposition proposed by Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View: The human being is markedly distinguished from all other living beings by his technical predisposition for manipulating things (mechanically joined with consciousness), by his pragmatic predisposition (to use other human beings skilfully for his purposes), and by the moral predisposition in his being (to treat himself and others according to the principle of freedom under laws). And any one of these three levels can by itself alone already distinguish the human being character as opposed to the other inhabitants of the earth.94

The pragmatic provision of the Indian has this particularity to remain virtually literal without the predisposition of its own maturity. It is not dialectic but unilateral, altmost similar to the technical predisposition of the Negro which is unilaterally passive. Thus, technical predispositions and pragmatic tend in the Indian to crush one another: his ideal is to know how to use others more effectively. For this same reason, it is the abstraction of the concept, his uprooting from his empirical ground (in theoretical reason) and the “pathological” causes of his formation (in practical reason), that remains out of his reach. The verdict is final: the Indian cannot develop a culture in the arts, nor in the sciences, and will not go further. The reason for this prognosis is not delineated. As for the White race, Kant states that he cannot specifically characterise it here because its description in fact belongs to the pragmatic study of the character of people. This is because this race is built on the mode of a gradual lifting of deprivation concerning the ideal of humanity. The White race is the realisation of this ideal (“the White race contains within it all impulses and all the talents”), and Kant specifies that it is the sole custodian of the human historicity and the engine of the fate of the species. That is what explains the exclusion of the three other human races from participating in the scientific revolutions of humanity. He defends that The drive to acquire science, as a form of culture that ennobles humanity, has altogether no proportion to the life span of the species. The scholar,

180 

J. Yab

when he has advanced in culture to the point where he himself can broaden the field, is called away by death, and his place is taken by the mere beginner who, shortly before the end of his life, after he too has just taken one step forward, in turn relinquishes his place to another. What a mass of knowledge, what discoveries of new methods would now be on hand if an Archimedes, a Newton, or a Lavoisier with their diligence and talent would have been favoured by nature with a hundred years of continuous life without decrease of vitality!95

Kant here is again defining how knowledge and science come to be accumulated within the referential race of the human species, which is the White race. The acquisition of sciences is the way of fulfilling the pragmatic disposition. Moreover, only the White European species was able to advance sciences and arts in the way that humanity could progress toward its ultimate goal. The reference in this quotation to Archimedes, Newton and Lavoisier is quite telling about whom Kant thinks was responsible for the advancement of the arts and sciences in the history of the human species. Hence, according to Kant, the culture of the White race has developed the arts and sciences from the distant past to now, as demonstrated by the work of first Archimedes of Syracuse, the Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor and astronomer; he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Second, it is demonstrated by the work of Isaac Newton, the English physicist and mathematician who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a critical figure in the scientific revolution. Third, it is revealed in the work of Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, the French nobleman and chemist who was central to the eighteenth-century Chemical Revolution and has had a considerable influence on both the histories of chemistry and biology. Thus, the European figures chosen by Kant to demonstrate how the White race of the human species has effectively dominated the development of the arts and sciences throughout history is not a mere fortuity. These are dynamic figures of European scientific history, and the fact that Kant took care to choose them from the distant past of Greek antiquity to his contemporary period only proves, for him, the continuity of the White race’s dominance in the sciences. Thus, when Kant argues about the pragmatic

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

181

predisposition that can be achieved through culture, he is addressing the pragmatic disposition of the White race. Third, through the moral predisposition, the White human being can “treat himself and others according to the principle of freedom under laws.”96 This led Kant to state that One can therefore say that the first character of the human being is the capacity as a rational being to obtain a character as such for his own person as well as for the society in which nature has placed him. This capacity, however, presupposes an already favourable natural predisposition and a tendency to the good in him.97

Thus, the capacity of a human being to reach the moral predisposition even if it is about the White race presumes the pre-existence of natural predispositions in the human being, the predispositions that would be responsible for the development of this moral tendency and without which this development would be impossible. It is important to stress here that the development of Kant’s ideas, such as the one contained in the quotation above, requires us always to look back at Kant’s earlier writings to fully understand the content Kant is referring to. For instance, in the citation above, Kant argues about certain pre-existing natural predispositions to morality. This requires us to come back to Kant’s theory of the natural predispositions of the 1770s–1780s. As demonstrated in Chap. 3, Kant’s theory of natural predispositions helped him to secure the monogenesis of human races. The germs and predispositions of all races have had to be present from the start in the original phylum. Since the transmission of these germs and predispositions is the only way of securing the inheritance of racial character, which encompasses physical as well as moral attributes, Kant’s theory entails that biological heritage can only be produced by natural predispositions present in the original phylum. Here lies, for example, the origin of (1) the completeness of the character of the White race and (2) the dispossession of the character of the beauty and human dignity of the Negro race, and this is also a pivotal point in understanding what Kant is referring to in the quotation above when he talks about the pre-existing favourable natural predispositions to morality. This is why I argue that Kleingeld’s claim (1) according to which

182 

J. Yab

Kant “makes no mention of a racial hierarchy anywhere in his published writings of the 1790s” is simply inaccurate because it overlooks his natural predispositions which are the entities accountable for racial inequalities and on which Kant continues to rely regarding his theory of human nature of the 1790s. Thus, the moral predisposition which Kant is referring to in his section on the character of the species is the potentialities that nature placed only in the White race to allow them to develop their moral potential. I have aimed to show that in contrast to the “orthodox reading,” in the section “On the Character of the Species,” the development of natural predispositions Kant is discussing concerns the White human species and not the general human being. This is directly demonstrated by the structure of the section preceding the character of the species section in which Kant stresses that he will be addressing the character that is related only to the White race. He then develops a discourse on the development of natural predispositions which concerns only the White human species, as confirmed by the use in his language of “we” and “us,” which implies that the theory he is developing concerns people of his kind. Even in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, in which Kant develops a specific account of natural predispositions related exclusively to a human being, he uses the same language settings of “us” and “we.” Hence, from the above discussion the conclusion that follows is that Kant did not think of non-White races as able to belong to the pragmatic project because of the two moral problems evoked in Chap. 2. This is why he excluded them from the whole discussion of “Anthropological Charakteristik.” However, he takes great care to define what he believes to be the pragmatic dimension of the White race without which the human species could not fulfil its natural purpose. Consequently, and in contrast to Kleingeld’s’ claims, Kant still thinks of races in a hierarchical disposition. Racial hierarchy prevails in Kant’s thinking well after 1792–1795, the period designated by Kleingeld as formative of Kant’s second thoughts on race. In this chapter, I have demonstrated that the “orthodox reading” overlooked the “Anthropological Charakteristik,” which constitutes in my view the final part of Kant’s theory of race in the sense that it reveals its pragmatic dimension. As a result, I have shown that Kleingeld’s claims

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

183

which say Kant “makes no mention of a racial hierarchy anywhere in his published writings of the 1790s” is unfounded since his racial hierarchy is self-contained in his theory of natural predispositions that he continues to develop in “Anthropological Charakteristik” of 1798. Therefore, I conclude contra Kleingeld that Kant’s racial hierarchy remained constant throughout his life. Now if the investigation on Kant’s account of natural predispositions which determines his theory of race has led us to conclude that his pragmatic project is discriminatory because it is only White inclusive, the question is how this impacts his cosmopolitanism given that his cosmopolitan right is supposed to be the champion expression of universalism. The following closing chapter will look at this question.

Notes 1. KLEINGELD, P. 2007. Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race. The Philosophical Quarterly, 57:229, 573–92. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., p. 588. 7. BERNASCONI, R. 2011. Kant’s Third Thoughts on Race. In: ELDEN, S. & MENDIETA, E. (eds.) Reading Kant’s Geography. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press; Bristol: University Presses Marketing [distributor], pp. 291–318. 8. Ibid., p. 293. 9. Ibid. 10. I am arguing for exactly the contrary. I think Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View is Kant’s last writing on Race. However, I wish to acknowledge here that even if it was true that Kant authored no further essays on race from the 1790s, this alone does not imply that he abandoned his theory. 11. MUTHU, S. 2003. Enlightenment against empire, Princeton, Princeton University Press. See also FENVES, P.  D. 2003. Late Kant: towards another law of the earth, New York, Routledge, pp. 103–05.

184 

J. Yab

12. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 232. 13. LARRIMORE, M. 2008. Antinomies of race: diversity and destiny in Kant. Patterns of Prejudice, 42, p. 359. 14. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: LOUDEN, R.  B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, History, and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 383. 15. Ibid., p. 384. 16. KANT, I. 2007. Of the different races of human beings. In: LOUDEN, R.  B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 89. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the Concept of Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R.  B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 158. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. KANT, I. 2007. On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy. In: LOUDEN, R. B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 209. 27. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: LOUDEN, R. B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 383. 28. Ibid., p. 402. 29. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 385. 30. KANT, I. 2007. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 31. 31. Ibid.

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

185

32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., p. 23. 36. Ibid., p. 32. 37. Ibid., p. 59. 38. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 385. 39. Ibid., p. 387. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid., p. 386. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid., p. 387. 45. KANT, I. 2007. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 35. 46. Ibid., p. 33. 47. Ibid., p. 36. 48. Ibid., p. 37. 49. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 387. 50. Ibid., p. 388. 51. Ibid., p. 412. 52. Ibid., p. 413. 53. Ibid., p. 407. 54. Ibid., p. 411. 55. Ibid., p. 407. 56. Ibid., p. 410. 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid., p. 412. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid., p. 413. 61. Ibid., p. 414. 62. Ibid., p. 415.

186 

J. Yab

63. Ibid., p. 393. 64. Ibid., p. 394. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid., p. 395. 67. Ibid., p. 396. 68. Ibid. 69. Ibid., p. 415. 70. LARRIMORE, M. 2008. Antinomies of race: diversity and destiny in Kant. Patterns of Prejudice [Online], 42. 71. Ibid., p. 360. 72. KANT, I. 2007. On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy. In: LOUDEN, R. B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 202. 73. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: LOUDEN, R.  B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, History, and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 415. 74. Ibid. 75. LARRIMORE, M. 2008. Antinomies of race: diversity and destiny in Kant. Patterns of Prejudice, 42, 360. 76. BERNASCONI, R. 2002. Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Racism. In: WARD, J. K. & LOTT, T. L. (eds.) Philosophers on race: critical essays. Oxford: Blackwell, p. 157. 77. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 417. 78. KANT, I., WOOD, A. W. & DI GIOVANNI, G. 1998. Religion within the boundaries of mere reason and other writings, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 52. 79. Ibid., p. 51. 80. Ibid., p. 52. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid. 83. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 420. 84. See WILSON, H.  L. 2006. Kant’s pragmatic anthropology: its origin, meaning, and critical significance, Albany, State University of New York Press, p. 2.

6  Kant, Race and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point… 

187

85. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 415. 86. Ibid. 87. Ibid., p. 416. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid., p. 418. 90. Ibid. 91. KANT, I. & GUYER, P. 2000. Critique of the power of judgment, New York, Cambridge University Press. 92. Ibid., p. 301. 93. EZE, E.  C. 1997. The Color of Reason: The Idea of ‘Race’ in Kant’s Anthropology. In: EZE, E.  C. (ed.) Postcolonial African philosophy: a critical reader. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, pp. 117–18. 94. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 417. 95. Ibid., p. 421. 96. Ibid. 97. Ibid., p. 424.

7 Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism

 ant’s Cosmopolitan Right as an Exclusive K Form of Right This gives hope finally that after many reformative revolutions, a universal cosmopolitan condition, which Nature has as her ultimate purpose, will come into being as the womb wherein all the original predispositions of the human race can develop.1

Kant’s cosmopolitanism is predicated on the view that the development of all-natural predispositions is the highest purpose of nature. The ultimate end of a human being is to realise its moral predispositions. A human being as an individual cannot achieve this full potential because it takes an infinite series of generations to reach perfection, as very few aptitudes can be developed within the life of an individual. This is why only the human species can reach that perfection. Thus, for human beings as a species to reach moral perfection, Kant argues that the conditions of cosmopolitan existence should be met. In 1795, Kant argued in Toward Perpetual Peace that humanity could solve the problem of warfare through a political confederation, grounded

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Yab, Kant and the Politics of Racism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69101-1_7

189

190 

J. Yab

in universal moral principles, comprising all the peoples of the earth. Kant’s cosmopolitanism therefore appears to be based upon universal and ultimate moral principles, the first of which is that all human beings are part of a universal community and should have a right to hospitality in all parts of the world on condition only that the claimant in question does not pose a threat to the foreign territory. Against this “orthodox reading,” this concluding chapter aims to demonstrate how Kant’s theory of race affects his cosmopolitanism. I wish to show that Kant’s cosmopolitanism, because it relies on his account of natural predispositions, is, in fact, a de facto exclusive (i.e. non-universal) form of right. Kant implies in the epigraph to this chapter, which concludes the eighth proposition of the Idea for a Universal History, that cosmopolitan conditions are the ideal conditions under which all-natural predispositions can realise their potential. Given his account of natural predispositions, this provides a prima facie basis for the view that Kant’s cosmopolitanism is rooted in his theory of race and hence that the latter impacts the former. Through a close examination of the addressees and the content of Kant’s cosmopolitan right and from the starting point of his theory of natural predispositions, I will uncover a unique, non-Universalist picture of Kant’s cosmopolitanism. This chapter is divided into three sections. In the first section, I will lay out the “orthodox reading” of Kant’s cosmopolitanism account to demonstrate that it is a common feature of that reading to overemphasise some texts at the expense of others in a way that makes Kant’s argument more palatable to contemporary sensibilities. The scholars of the “orthodox reading” have put disproportionate emphasis on Kant’s prescriptive articles in Perpetual Peace, thus confusing Kant’s posited final end of history with a purely legal order. However, I argue that the final end of history for Kant is the development of the natural predispositions. In the second section, I show that this orthodoxy leads to a bigger problem, which is a failure to note that Kant’s theory of natural predispositions, which determines his racial theory, also predetermines his cosmopolitanism. Here I use Kleingeld’s and Ypi’s narratives to demonstrate the failings of the “orthodox reading.” This will introduce, in section three, the “heterodox reading” of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, which claims that Kant’s natural predispositions determine his theory of race. I argue that only the

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

191

White race was included in Kant’s pragmatic project because it is the only race, he believed, which possesses all the natural talents to bring the world to moral development (the ideal condition for perpetual peace). From the standpoint of Kant’s account of natural predispositions, I propose, we can disclose a picture of Kant’s cosmopolitanism in which the cosmopolitan right is addressed exclusively to the White race.

Kant’s Cosmopolitanism: The “Orthodox Reading” The “orthodox reading” of Kant’s philosophy is the mainstream narrative, which interprets Kant’s philosophy from the standpoint of his Universalist—egalitarian character. Therefore, it embraces the claim that Kant’s philosophy is divided into central ideas, which are the three Critiques, and peripheral ideas, which encompass his earlier writings including his Anthropology. It is a common feature of the “orthodox reading” to dismiss those of Kant’s texts which are not in line with their reading or to exaggerate others to make some of Kant’s comments more palatable. The scholars from the “orthodox reading” include Kant’s defence side as well as Kant’s critical side of his universalism because both sides acknowledge in one way or another that Kant’s philosophy is divided into central and peripheral claims. However, there are typical features of this reading which may not be shared by the whole spectrum, such as the importance or non-importance of Kant’s derogative comments on race or, as we will see below, the view that Kant’s final end of history is a legal, political order. Nevertheless, it is a common feature of this reading to suggest that evidence drawn from the three Critiques is absolute, regardless of its relevance to the context. For instance, the “orthodox reading” will draw evidence from the Critiques to demonstrate that in Kant’s cosmopolitan analysis, the reading of Perpetual Peace is more important than the reading of Idea. This is why the “orthodox reading,” both among Kant scholars and among contemporary theorists who have taken an interest in international affairs, has been most interested in Kant’s prescriptive recommendations for a cosmopolitan order. In particular, these

192 

J. Yab

are his three “definitive articles” of perpetual peace that argue for every state constitution to be republican, a voluntary league of free states, and a cosmopolitan right that guarantees “universal hospitality” and combats European colonialism. This insistence on Kant’s prescriptive articles overlooks his Idea for a Universal History, which contains the premises of its cosmopolitanism. It misreads what Kant considers as the final aim of history since the reading seems to suggest that the legal order, which is presented in the prescriptive articles, is constitutive of Kant’s final end of history. I aim to demonstrate that this interpretation offers an inadequate understanding of Kant’s cosmopolitanism. However, before going through the “orthodox reading” of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, I wish to introduce James Tully in this chapter because, although he does not belong to the “orthodox reading’s” narrative, the interpretation of his account of Kant’s cosmopolitanism will allow me to expose more clearly the inconsistencies of that narrative. In the second volume of his Public Philosophy in a New Key, James Tully defends the view that: Although Perceptual Peace played an important role in promoting a form of post-colonial state building and international organization towards the end of this second and higher stage of imperialism, it is not unreasonable to question if it has not also played a role in continuing aspects of imperialism.2

Tully is not alone in his effort to theorise the influence of Kant’s cosmopolitanism in past and current imperialism or in suspecting the universality of Kant’s cosmopolitanism. Thomas McCarthy in Race, Empire and the Idea of Human Development3 takes Kant’s anthropology as the starting point in his analysis of the imperial nature of the global order, and David Harvey in Cosmopolitanism in the Anthropology and Geography asks the question thus: “If knowledge of…the awkward and intractable particularities of his anthropology and geography define (as Kant himself held) the ‘conditions of possibility’ of all other forms of practical knowledge of the world, then on what grounds can we trust Kant’s cosmopolitanism if his anthropological and geographical groundings are so suspect.”4

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

193

However, of these critical readers, Tully is the one who sees precisely Perpetual Peace and Idea for a Universal History as presenting a dominant account of a normative knowledge that hides imperial settings, because he defends the claim that the language Kant uses tends to “represent in non-imperial terms, precisely the imperial aspect”5 of his account. Tully criticises what he calls the “imperial dimension” of Kant’s traditional influence in international relations and political theory, which is perceived in the system of states and global institutions. This traditional influence he claims comes from texts such as Towards Perpetual Peace and Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim that maintain a dominant language, which comprises the “central features of the classic modern imperial meta-narrative.”6 The meta-narrative is translated first in “a social theory,”7 which not only contains the phases of the universal historical development of all societies but also ranks Europeans at the top and most advanced level. Second, the meta-narrative is also expressed in “a normative and juridical theory of the just and final ordering of all people and societies that would come about at the end of the historical development.”8 Tully argues that the normative theory expressed in the three definitive articles of Towards Perpetual Peace which defends a republican constitution for all states on earth is an expression of the normative idea that only a European style of world order permits the development of the human species. These republican states should form a “league” or a “federation” in which the most developed states (Europe) will lead all other states by “financial” and “military” means if necessary, to bring about development and civilisation to uncivilised nations. This project is supported by the use of the right of hospitality for commercial and communicative purposes. Tully also claims that in Kant’s view it is possible for a state in the league to intervene in another state that is in a lawless state of nature to impose the kind of civil constitution characteristic of European states.9 Tully defends the view then that the “social theory of universal historical development in the earlier Universal History explains how this normative order gradually come into being.”10 He explains that this development is worked out by nature through what Kant calls “unsocial sociability,” which he defines in Idea for a Universal History as man’s “tendency to enter into society, combined, however, with a thoroughgoing resistance

194 

J. Yab

that constantly threatens to surrender this society.”11 Tully argues that Kant views warfare as the principal mode of unsocial sociability that nature uses to develop natural human capacities. He cites the First Supplement to Perpetual Peace in which Kant explains how nature works through “unjust wars of expansion” to spread “Europeans” across the globe by means of “imperial wars and colonization,”12 who finally extend “commerce,” an “ethos of competitive individualism,”13 and the “relations of free trade” and “economic interdependency to the rest of the world.”14 This is how Tully sees Kant’s process of moving the world towards the normative ideal of perpetual peace in which European nations impose imperialism and colonialism as a system of the identical constitutional form of government bound together by commerce and public international law. This led Tully to conclude that Kant combined two very powerful imperial stories: a presumptively universal and Eurocentric narrative of historical development or modernization and a presumptively universal and Eurocentric juridical theory of global justice.15

According to Tully, the meta-narrative expressed in both Perpetual Peace and Idea for a Universal History is imperial because, firstly, It is presented as the universally necessary and irresistible path of development and modernization. Secondly, it presents the post-colonial phase of development as a universal system of formally identical European states forms, abstracted from their continuing colonial relations of historical construction, deepening dependency and substantive inequality, and as a system of informal imperial rule through the league, in a completely non-imperial vocabulary.16

This overview of Tully’s account of Kant’s cosmopolitanism brings this chapter to the heart of the “orthodox reading.” In interpreting the above quotation of Tully, Katrin Flikschuh and Lea Ypi in their introduction to the volume Kant on Colonialism argue:

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

195

While there is a clear textual warrant for attributing to Kant the view that Europe would eventually give laws to the rest of the world, it is doubtful that Kant had a very clear conception, even when he still held that view, of what specific form that law giving would take. Even the claim that Kant’s arguments would serve the interests of ruling elites would be hard to make since Prussia had no colonies on its own.17

I wish to highlight first that, in Tully’s view, Kant had a clear picture in his mind of the conception of the European ruling of the world. He also clearly presented this conception in both Perpetual Peace and Idea for a Universal History, in which he articulated his normative theory of the development of all societies, and his social theory that gives a developmental account of how the normative principles will be historically realised. The normative theory ranks Europeans at top of the hierarchy of all nations. Second, concerning the assumption that imperialism or colonialism always entails the possession of colonies, Tully argues that this assumption is false. He argues that: one of the major forms of imperial rule in west has non-colonial: that is, the tradition of informal imperial rule over another people by means of military threats and military intervention, the imposition of global markets dominated by great powers, a dependent local governing class and a host of other informal techniques of indirect legal, political, educational and cultural rule.18

In this respect, Tully gives the examples of the rule of Britain over the Middle East in the early part of the twentieth century and the rule of the United States over Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Also, and as we will see later, Kant is not presenting his cosmopolitanism only for the benefit of his own country as the editors of Kant and Colonialism presume, but instead, for the White (European) race. Prussia had no colonies. However, Spain, Portugal and England had many. On the one hand, this allusion to Prussia and its lack of colonies by the editors of Kant and Colonialism is significant because it sheds light on the claim that I presented in the introduction of this chapter that the addressees of Kant’s cosmopolitanism were the White race.

196 

J. Yab

On the other hand, Flikschuh and Ypi’s develop their argument as if the “orthodox reading” of Kant’s cosmopolitanism as expressing universalism were the only interpretative option. I go against this narrative to argue that Kant’s cosmopolitan right is a form of non-Universalist right. The central tenets of the “orthodox reading” of Kant’s cosmopolitanism are best illustrated by Sankar Muthu, who states: Kant’s arguments (a) in favour of cosmopolitan right, (b) against conquest/ empire, and (c) against a world state place him, broadly speaking, within this third Enlightenment tradition of theorizing global commerce… (that is) An affirmation of a cosmopolitan vision of global exchange and communication but by means of a balance of power among nations, including non-European resistance against European commercial, military, and political power…Kant strives to affirm cosmopolitan and global commercial norms by endorsing the idea of rival communities and that, accordingly, he values resistance by non-European nations both by countries such as China and Japan and by hunting and pastoral (‘nomadic’) nations.19

It seems that the “orthodox reading” considers that, in Kant’s view, the final end of history is a legal order in which commerce and trade will bring humanity together under cosmopolitan law. Their analysis runs as follows: Kant posits that the anarchic condition in which human beings live in the state of nature, where everyone is waging war against everyone, can find a solution in a civilised society in which, by a contract, human beings mutually agree to coexist. Rational human beings choose to live in a society because they find security in it despite the restriction imposed on their freedom by the freedom of others. As Kant himself argues: The formal condition under which nature can alone achieve this final aim (humans as moral beings) is that constitution of human relations where the impairment to freedom which results from the mutually conflicting freedom [of the individuals] is countered by lawful authority within a whole called civil society.20

The “orthodox reading” follows Kant’s argument that analogy can also find the insecurity which characterised the state of nature in which human beings lived before forming a civil society in a larger space of

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

197

international relations between states. This is why nations should exit the state of nature because each state is a threat to another. They will be entering more secure space guarantees by a cosmopolitan right that Kant defines in Metaphysics of Morals as a right that “has to do with the possible union of all nations with a view to certain universal laws for their possible commerce.”21 It is a convention in the “orthodox reading” to perceive Kant’s commerce and trade relations as an expression of his cosmopolitan universalism because he sees trade as a way of bringing people together in a continual communicative relation with one another. Muthu argues, for example, that “an appreciation of the international and cosmopolitan features of Kant’s thought requires, first, an analysis of his arguments about what is valuable about the global exchange.”22 However, this union under a commerce and trade relationship is not enough to bring peace, as Kant states in the third Critique: This constitution requires something further, even if human beings were intelligent enough to discover it and wise enough to submit voluntarily to its constraint: a cosmopolitan whole, a system of all states that are in danger of affecting one another detrimentally.23

This is why the “orthodox reading” states that in Towards Perpetual Peace Kant relies on his idea of a lawful federation under a commonly accepted international, right rather than his earlier preference for a single state. This narrative, which emphasises Kant’s prescriptive articles, also sees Kant’s cosmopolitanism as expressing his anti-imperialism and anti-­ colonialism, which is why Kleingeld considers: That Kant strengthens the status of non-Whites is clear from his discussion of cosmopolitan right…he argues that states and individuals have the right to attempt to establish relations with other states and their citizens, but not a right to enter foreign territory. States have the right to refuse visitors, but not violently, and not if it leads to their destruction. That implies an obligation to refrain from imperialist intrusions and provide safe haven for refugees. Cosmopolitan right as introduced in Towards Perpetual Peace, explicitly prohibits the colonial conquest by states “in our part of the world,” of lands elsewhere in the world.24

198 

J. Yab

Thus the “orthodox reading,” through their narrative of Kant’s prescriptive articles, seems to suggest that that final end of history according to Kant is a legal, political order. However, I argue that this is inadequate. For example, Robert Louden in Kant’s Impure Ethics, after summarising the views of Otfried Höffe, Wolfgang Kersting, Ludwig Siep and Yirmiyahu Yovel, who all suggested that Kant’s end of history is political justice, concluded: We can say that Kant’s philosophy of history is about external rather than internal progress in the following senses: (1) history concerns empirical events. It is about phenomena, not noumena. (2) History is about the carrying out of nature’s intensions—not the free action of human individuals. (3) His primary emphasis in the history essays proper is on progress that is achieved largely through political and legal means. Nature herself forces human beings to make progress in these areas whether they want to or not. The invisible hand of our unsocial sociability does most of the work here, not the specific intensions of individual agents.25

Even Kleingeld admitted that “there are still commentators who claim that Kant conceives of the final end of history in terms merely of a legal order, Kant, in fact, regards the establishment of legal order as itself a means toward a yet further goal.”26 This goal is the development of human predispositions. This is why I argue that Kant’s account of natural predispositions predetermines his cosmopolitanism.”

 roblematising the “Orthodox Reading” of Kant’s P Cosmopolitanism The “orthodox reading” of Kant’s cosmopolitanism has misread Kant’s final end of history because it has ignored the historical trajectory of the formation of Kant’s cosmopolitanism that found his premises in Idea for a Universal History. Consequently, the impact of Kant’s theory of race on his cosmopolitanism has gone unnoticed. It is a common failure of this reading to overemphasise some texts and to remain at the superficial textual level. For example, they have overstated Kant’s derogative comments on race rather than analysing the historical pattern of his account. As

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

199

demonstrated in the preceding chapters, the consequences of such a mistake are perceived in the way in which we interpret Kant’s entire philosophy. Similarly, here the “orthodox reading” has focused on Kant’s prescriptive articles presented in Perpetual Peace instead of deepening the historical account of Kant’s cosmopolitanism. Consequently, this reading has overstated Kant’s legal order presented in Perpetual Peace, suggesting that a political world arrangement is Kant’s ultimate end of history. Again, as concerns race, Kleingeld’s position in her essay Kant’s changing cosmopolitanism27 is in my view the most challenging. She argues, contra the standard line of the “orthodox reading,” that Kant’s legal order is not his final end of history. In fact, she states that Kant “sees the genuine final end of history as the complete development of the human predispositions for the use of reason.”28 However, she fails to give an accurate account of how these predispositions develop and, more importantly, she fails also to see how Kant’s conception of natural predispositions impacts his cosmopolitanism.

The Legal Order as Final End of History Before going further, let us examine why the legal order as the final end of history is appealing to the “orthodox reading.” In my view, it is because Kant’s legal narrative comes from the part of Kant’s philosophy which the “orthodox reading” describes as his central view of his thought. It is widespread practice for the “orthodox reading” to dismiss those of Kant’s texts which are not in line with their reading or to exaggerate others to make some of Kant’s comments more palatable. Brian Orend in War and International Justice states, for example, about the “orthodox reading” of Kant’s conception of war in Perpetual Peace, that In fact, …the weight of textual evidence points clearly in favour of a pro-­ just war reading of Kant, and that any view to the contrary can only be sustained by a partial and selective reading of the relevant texts. The common tendency to read only Perpetual Peace, in particular, is a prime source of this confusion. Its leads scholars…to say that Kant advocates a form of extreme pacifism… this claim is demonstrably false. The related tendency

200 

J. Yab

to put disproportionate emphasis on Perpetual Peace, even when drawing on such other crucial texts as Doctrine of Right… leads to the same error.29

Thus, the orthodox narrative, in this case, draws Kant’s Legal Theory from Metaphysics of Morals to imply that Kant’s legal order is the final end of history and that Towards Perpetual Peace also supports this reading. In fact, Kant elaborated in his Metaphysical Elements of Justice a methodical examination of republicanism within the outline of the modern nation-­ state. He began with the examination of private law. He placed property rights within the realm of natural laws to which “an obligation can be recognised a priori by reason without external legislation.”30 From there he engaged in a series of inferences from the postulates of practical reason: the notion of the “person” as an owner of rights who is a rational being under moral laws; the idea of a “thing” as “an object of free will that itself lacks freedom.”31 Kant then moved on to the domain of public law. From the “Idea of the state as it ought to be”32 Kant realised the institutional forms of a republican constitution, which included a representative legislature to create universal norms, an executive order to consider particular cases under these universal norms, a judiciary authority to determine what is right in cases of conflict, and the constitutional law of the separation of powers to uphold these different domains of activity. From the social contract theory, Kant drew a moral philosophy to derive a just state grounded in reason, the perfect civil society that would allow the republican government. Then Kant turned his focus to international law. He criticised the existing Westphalian order, as one in which there was no notion of international law. To challenge the violence and lawlessness that characterised existing relations between states, Kant turned to a new social contract at the inter-state level that placed a political demand on sovereigns to renounce their “savage and lawless freedom” and submit themselves to public coercive laws. Kant therefore construed cosmopolitanism as an international political order designed to establish “lawful external relations among states” and a “universal civic society.” These terms referred to the establishment or consolidation of international laws to guarantee the sovereignty of nation-states. They also referred to what Kant called the

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

201

cosmopolitan right in the proper sense of the term, which he identified with the “right of hospitality” according to strangers in a foreign land. Thus, the “orthodox reading” saw in Kant’s cosmopolitanism a continuation of his doctrine of right elaborated in his critical writings. However, what this narrative has neglected is the content of Kant’s cosmopolitan right as articulated in Towards Perpetual Peace. Unlike the international right, Kant’s cosmopolitan right addresses the relationship between individuals as human beings and states. However, his conception of individuals was already predetermined by his notion of natural predispositions. This is why Kant states, “after many reformative revolutions, a universal cosmopolitan condition…will come into being as the womb wherein all the original predispositions of the human race can develop.”33 Even if Kleingeld contends that Kant’s final end of history is the development of natural predispositions for the use of reason, she fails to give an accurate account of the development of these predispositions. She rightly noted that this development involves cultivation, civilisation and moralisation. However, she describes a linear process of this development. She states that in Kant’s view the development of human natural predispositions requires a legal order that is translated at the national level by a “fully just state”34 to discipline human unsocial-social tendencies. This “good state”35 allows freedom which is compatible with the freedom of others that one uses to “pursue a variety” of projects. The good state has the power to sanction undesirable behaviour of its subjects, obliging them to self-discipline. The just state is also a catalysing reservoir of progress in “arts, sciences and rational insight in general,” “freedom of the press” and “increasing enlightenment.” Because “it is enlightenment…which contributes to the development of a manner of thinking that will produce the transformation of society into the moral whole.” Even though Kleingeld in the same essay argues that Kant considered that the “development of these predispositions is not a matter of constant linear and gradual improvements,”36 she goes on to describe a linear process: Enlightenment requires a certain degree of political calm…warfare between states…tends to stifle the development processes within states. Money that

202 

J. Yab

is necessary for education is used for weaponry; civil liberties that are necessary for enlightenment are curtailed in the name of safety and security of state. Therefore, in the seventh propositions of the Idea, Kant introduces a second requirement for the development of the human rational faculties, in addition to that of a perfect civil constitution, namely, the requirement of a cosmopolitan condition.37

Kleingeld’s interpretation of Kant’s development of the natural predispositions is not only inaccurate but also dangerous. It is inaccurate because it is not consistent with Kant’s account of the development of natural predispositions either in Idea for a Universal History or Perpetual Peace. Her interpretation is also dangerous because it renders Kant’s philosophy more palatable at the expense of accuracy. In the next section, I crosscheck Kleingeld’s analysis against Kant’s texts to demonstrate how far her account of Kant’s development of natural predispositions is from the reality of textual evidence. However, before the next section, let us discuss essential points developed by Kleingeld and Ypi, which contribute to supporting the claims I have made in this book.

Kleingeld’s Contradictions Kleingeld argues in the same essay that in the 1790s, Kant’s “picture of human nature has not changed.”38 This is an important claim since Kant’s theory of race implies his conception of human nature. Kant’s conception of human nature encompasses a narrative of the human species being distinguished purposively by skin colour. Human nature is therefore determined by the characteristic of different races, which, because of the different natural predispositions that nature placed in them, are morally different. Thus, Kant’s conception of human nature is characterised by four races, which have different moral characters. If Kleingeld claims that Kant did not change his conception of human nature, then this supports the basic claim of this book. That is, Kant had a consistent theory of human nature, which encompassed a racial hierarchy based on his account of natural predispositions which posited that the White race possesses the complete character with all the talents and that the Negro race

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

203

dispossesses the character of the beauty and dignity of human nature. However, this also contradicts Kleingeld’s own claim that Kant changed his mind on his racial hierarchy from 1792. If Kant did not change his mind on his conception of human nature, why did he change it on his racial hierarchy, since Kleingeld herself confirmed that “throughout the 1780s and 1790s, Kant remained committed to the view, found in the idea that the final end of history is the complete development of the predispositions for the use of reason”? In other words, 1. since Kant’s theory of natural predispositions encompasses racial hierarchy because the predispositions are those physical and moral potentialities that mere nature placed in the original phylum to equip the human species for all climates; 2. since not only he did not change his conception of natural predispositions as demonstrated in the preceding chapter; and 3. since Kleingeld herself argues that he remained committed to these predispositions in the 1790s, I can conclude that Kleingeld’s claim according to which Kant had second thoughts on race and consequently abandoned his racial hierarchy in the 1790s is demonstrably false. Moreover, her claim is manifestly unfounded as she fails to note the link between Kant’s theory of nature, his account of natural predispositions and his theory of race. She confirms that Kant was committed to his account of natural predispositions and is then unable to see that these natural predispositions predetermine the character of races which in turn defines Kant’s theory of human nature and finally influences his cosmopolitanism, while the development of natural predispositions is the pre-condition for perpetual peace. Kleingeld is committed to demonstrating that Kant changed his mind on race and especially on his racial hierarchy because, as mentioned, according to her: (1) He makes no mention of a racial hierarchy anywhere in his published writings of the 1790s,”39 (2) “He becomes more egalitarian with regard to race. He now grants a full juridical status to non-Whites, a status irreconcilable with his earlier defence of slavery. For example, his concept of cosmopolitan right, as introduced in Toward Perpetual Peace, explicitly prohibits the colonial conquest of foreign land.”40 (3) “He repeatedly and explicitly criticizes slavery of non-Europeans in the strongest terms, as a

204 

J. Yab

grave violation of cosmopolitan right.”41 (4) “In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant rejects consequentialist justifications for colonialism.42

All these claims make Kleingeld’s argumentation vulnerable to inconsistencies. For example, in her essay “Kant’s Second Thoughts on Colonialism,”43 she argues that Kant changed his mind on colonialism at the same time that he changed his mind on race. She states: “Kant defended European colonialism during the 1780s and early 1790s, and that he started to criticise it only during the 1790s.”44 She continues that “Kant’s initial endorsement and his subsequent criticism of colonialism are closely related to his changing views on race because his endorsement of racial hierarchy played a crucial role in his justification of European colonialism,”45 because “Kant invokes… racial hierarchy—along with the thesis that non-Whites are incapable of governing themselves, and that Whites, by contrast, do have the requisite capabilities—to justify White’s subjecting and governing non-Whites through colonial rule.”46 However, Kant’s racial hierarchy is not the fundamental problem of his theory of race. It is only a manifestation of a more profound and complex issue about the completeness of the character of the White race and the dispossession of the character of the beauty and dignity of the Negro race. In other words, it is because Kant thinks that the White race possesses all natural predispositions prerequisite to govern that they are entitled to governing others. It is not their rank in the hierarchy system that gives them the right to govern but rather their natural predispositions. Therefore, and contrary to Kleingeld, Kant’s racial hierarchy does not justify colonialism. However, natural predispositions do. This means, for example, that Kant considers that the Negro race, which is the result of the unfolding of certain natural predispositions, is genuinely deficient in those predispositions responsible for self-government and should therefore occupy the lower rank. Thus, the rank is the result of the deficiency which is caused by natural predispositions, which in turn makes the Negroes incapable of governing themselves, and this is why the White race, because of the completeness of their natural predispositions, are entitled to legislate all non-White nations. Thus, if Kant’s theory of natural predispositions is teleologically oriented, this means that his support for European colonialism is also

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

205

teleologically purposive. It is according to the plan of nature that Europeans are not only entitled to occupy foreign lands, but are also purposively entitled to rule the people in those lands. This is why in the 1790s Kant’s condemnation is not about colonialism as an institution but instead about the violent actions perpetrated by Europeans in colonies. Bernasconi remarks on Kant’s relation to the slave trade, “Kant’s draft on Perpetual Peace …is directed against the slave trade and not against the institution of slavery itself…It is because he was arguing specifically against the slave trade that Kant referenced to cosmopolitan law of hospitality as the basis for his objection, but he did not use the opportunity…to call directly for the emancipation of African slaves in the Americas.”47 There is a real difference between condemnation of actions perpetrated by an institution and condemnation of the institution itself. In the case of Kant’s colonialism, the institution itself was purposively teleological, whereas violent actions perpetrated in the name of colonialism were not. Kant’s colonialism serves two purposes: populating and governing the globe. Accordingly, mere nature placed in the original phylum the natural predispositions which would help to accomplish the two purposes. Even Kleingeld, when she argues about Kant’s condemnation of colonialism and talks about “violence perpetrated by the Europeans,”48 does not talk about colonialism itself, and almost all of Kant’s quotations provided by her in support of her argumentation are regarding violent acts of colonialism, whereas the references in which Kant defends colonialism are about colonialism as an institution. For example, Kleingeld provides the following passage in which Kant supports colonial rule in India: These people [viz., in India] deserve a better fate than their current one because it is a very manageable and easily governed people! The current fate of India depends as little on the French as on the English, but this much is certain, that if they were to be ruled by a European sovereign, the nation would become happier.49

More striking is Kant’s passage below from the 1782 Doenhoff Lectures on Physical Geography in which he supports slavery and its practices:

206 

J. Yab

The Mandinka are the very most desirable among all Negroes up to the Gambia river, because they are the most hardworking ones. These are the ones that one prefers to seek for slaves, because these can tolerate labor in the greatest heat that no human being can endure. Each year 20,000 of this Negro nation have to be bought to replace the decline of them in America, where they are used to work on the spice trees and in general on the entire établissement. One gets the Negros by having them catch each other, and one has to seize them with force.50

Kant here is openly supporting the institution of slavery, and he is even providing ways to catch slaves. Kant also speculates about Negroes as if they were not humans. Moreover, this is consistent with the demonstration that I have made in Chap. 2 regarding the claim of “the dispossession of human dignity of the Negro race” drawn from Kant’s account of the Negro in Observations on the Feeling and which I have summarised as follows: A. The feeling of the beautiful and sublime is the feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature. B. The Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling of the beautiful and sublime. Given A and B it follows that: C. The Negroes of Africa have no feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature, which is provided by nature through natural predispositions. This conclusion is consistent with Kant’s previous passage stating that “these are the ones [Negroes from the Gambia] that one prefers to seek for slaves because these can tolerate labour in the greatest heat that no human being can endure.” The Negroes can tolerate heat because natural predispositions that nature placed in the original phylum and which then developed in the warm climate made them resistant. Because they have by nature no feeling of the beautiful and sublime, the feeling which makes human beings capable of moral actions, and because they are unable to attain any education other than slave training, they naturally

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

207

deserve to be enslaved. Thus, for Kant, mere nature made the Negroes from Gambia resistant to heat because of the role they will have to fulfil within the society. Thus, once more, Kant’s support of colonialism or slavery is based not on his racial hierarchy as Kleingeld contended but on his theory of the natural predispositions.

Ypi’s Inconsistencies Kant’s notion of natural predispositions is the subject of a recent essay, “Commerce and Colonialism in Kant’s Philosophy” by Lea Ypi, in which she attempts to link what she calls the “predisposition to unsocial-­ sociability”51 to Kant’s defence of commercial relations and colonialism with their implications for Kant’s racial hierarchy and cosmopolitanism. The line of argument that Ypi follows is the one already traced by Kleingeld, which consists of saying that Kant changed his mind in the 1790s about different subjects, and then she fell short in providing evidence to support her claim. This is a typical line of defence of the “orthodox reading” which consists of exploiting Kant’s pseudo-silence of the 1790s regarding the subjects he developed in his early writings. I call it pseudo-silence because the textual evidence suggests otherwise. What Ypi is trying to accomplish in her essay, apart from providing evidence in support of Kant’s anti-colonialism, is to argue that in the 1790s Kant changed his mind on his notion of natural predispositions and that he also even dropped his notion of germs. Her argument runs as follow: Kant in his earlier writings and more precisely in Idea praises commercial relations within the scope of the development of moral predispositions. In her view, Kant’s sceptical attitude about political institutions as the sufficient condition for the achievement of human moral predispositions towards the ideal of universal justice made him call for the intervention of nature. In her view: “Kant appeals to the important concept of the predisposition to unsocial sociability to explain how nature intervenes to promote humanity’s moral principles.”52 And the commercial spirit through “selfish instant,” “acquisition of property” and “desire for competition” facilitates the “unfolding of that predisposition”53 at national level, in which the condition of freedom protected by external laws replaces the state of

208 

J. Yab

nature among human beings and, at the international level, in which perpetual peace replaces the conflicting relations between states. Ypi then goes on to explain how the political process that achieves the development of commercial relations happens. Like Kleingeld, she describes a linear historical process in which the enlightenment of the society is facilitated by the will of the monarch, who will remove barriers to “citizens’ initiatives for the promotion of commercial relations.” I have already demonstrated that this account of the development of history is inadequate concerning Kant’s development of history. However, what is more essential for us here is how Ypi explains Kant’s account of the predispositions and germs. She cites Kant’s passage in which he describes the origin of different races: The grounds of a determinate unfolding which are lying in the nature of an organic body (plant and animal) are called germs, if this unfolding concerns particular parts, if however it concerns only the size or the relations of parts to one another, then I call them natural predispositions…this care of Nature to equip her creature through inner provisions for all kinds of future circumstances, so that it may preserve it self and be suited to the difference of the climate or the soil, admirable… Chance or the universal mechanical laws could not produce such agreements. Therefore, we must consider such occasional unfolding as preformed.54

Then she explains that for Kant, Different races develop as a result of different germs coming into contact with different environment. Predispositions, on the other hand, provides the structural conditions under which the development of certain germs could be occasioned.55

Therefore: Germs serve to explain biological, physical, cognitive, and also moral differences inherited by representatives of various races, whereas predispositions are shared by human beings but can develop more slowly or more quickly, depending on the empirical circumstances in which they evolve.56

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

209

Her point is that, in Kant’s view, germs belong to individual races and hence they are different for each race, whereas the predispositions are the same for all human beings. More striking is her claim that although Kant uses germs and predispositions to explain racial difference in his earlier writings, in the 1790s he changed his mind on the predispositions which he now saw as “inner purposive predispositions,”57and also stated that “there are no longer any reference to the concept of Keime [germs].”58 For Ypi, Kant not only changed the meaning of his natural predispositions (however, she failed to provide evidence in support of this claim), but he also abandoned the notion of germs, which was responsible for the moral and physical features of race. This claim is not surprising since, as we have seen, Kleingeld made a similar claim. However, Ypi takes this assertion further because if, as she claims, Kant has abandoned his concept of germs which according to her is responsible for “physical and cognitive, and also moral differences inherited representative of various races,”59 this means that Kant has abandoned his concept of race. I would like to suggest that Ypi’s narrative is inadequate. Although I have already elaborated on Kant’s account of natural predispositions in Chap. 5, I wish to highlight why Ypi’s narrative is not only inadequate but also partial. Although Kant at some point differentiates germs and predispositions, most of the time he uses only the term “predispositions” to encompass the moral and physical character of races. There are numerous passages in Kant’s writings that go against Ypi’s narrative, but let us use the following passage from “Determination of the Concept of a Human Race” of 1785: Only if one assumes that the predispositions to all this classificatory difference must have lain necessarily in the germs of a single first phylum, so that the latter would be suitable for the gradual population of the different regions of the world, can it be comprehended why, once these predispositions developed on occasion and accordingly also in different ways, different classes of human beings had to arise, which subsequently also had to contribute their determinate character necessarily to the generation with each other class, because this specific character belonged to the possibility of its own existence, thus also to the possibility of propagating its kind, and was derived from the necessary first predisposition in the phyletic species. From such inevitably hereditary properties, which are hereditary even in

210 

J. Yab

the mixing with other classes by producing half-breeds, one is forced to conclude their derivation from one single phylum, because without the latter the necessity of the heredity would not be comprehensible.60

Kant here is contending that the predispositions are responsible for the rise of “different classes of human being” with different “character” (moral and physical) because this character is what is heritable and necessary for the preservation of the species. In the following passages from “On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy” of 1788 Kant argues only about the predispositions as encompassing the moral and physical character of the race. These passages appear in the context in which Kant is defending his concept of race against Forster: There can be no more certain marks of the diversity of the original phylum than the impossibility of gaining fertile progeny through the mixing of two divisions of human beings that are different in hereditary terms. However, if such a mixing succeeds, then even the greatest difference of shape is no obstacle to finding that their common phyletic origin for them is at least possible. For just as they can still unite through generation’ into a product that contains characters of both, despite their diversity, so they were able to divide through generation out of one phylum, which had the predispositions for the development of both characters originally hidden in it, into that many races. And reason will not without need start from two principles if it can make do with one. But the certain sign of hereditary peculiarities, as the marks of just so many races, has already been named.61

And Likewise, the race or subspecies is an unfailing hereditary peculiarity which justifies the division into classes but yet does not warrant the division into kinds since the unfailing half-breed regeneration” (hence the melting together of the differential characters) does not yet preclude to view their inherited difference as originally unified in their phylum in mere predispositions and as developed and separated only gradually in procreation.62

And

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

211

The variety among human beings of the same race is in all likelihood just as purposively supplied in the original phylum in order to ground and subsequently develop the greatest degree of manifoldness for the sake of infinitely different ends, as is the difference of the races, in order to ground and subsequently develop the fitness to fewer but more essential ends—yet with the difference that the latter predispositions, once developed (which must have occurred already in most ancient times), do not let new forms of this kind come about any more and do not let the old ones become extinct either, whereas the former, at least to our knowledge, seem to indicate a nature that is inexhaustible in new characters (outer as well as inner ones).63

My aim is to demonstrate that Ypi’s narrative according to which: Kant abandoned his notion of germs in the 1790s; that only these germs carried moral features, a narrative that is based exclusively on the argument that Kant does not mention the notion of germs anymore is inadequate. In the 1780s, Kant already used both terms interchangeably, and most of the time, as shown in the passages above, he used only the notion of predispositions to mean both. Thus, Kant’s notion of predispositions always encompassed moral and physical features. Even Kleingeld uses the notion of natural predispositions to mean rational faculties. She states, for instance, that Kant explains why the full development of the human predispositions for the use of reason requires a legal order at both the state and the international level. A fully just state is important for the development of the human rational faculties because a legal order forces individuals to be disciplined.64

This implies that she sees both expressions as meaning the same thing. Kant’s natural predispositions are not only physical but also moral potentialities. This is essential in the sense that Kleingeld’s argument affirms that although Kant never abandoned his thinking on race, from the 1790s this thinking was only limited to the physical character of the race. In Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race, she notes about the section on race in Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View that The section on race now contains a brief reference to a book by Christoph Girtanner, who offers an extensive discussion of race on the basis of Kant’s

212 

J. Yab

conception of it. Interestingly, Girtanner focuses purely on issues of anatomy and physiology and does not provide any ‘moral characterization’ or racial hierarchy of intellectual talents and psychological strengths… the endorsement of Girtanner, also indicates that Kant did not renounce the concept of race as such, but restricted it to physiology, while dropping the racial hierarchy which he had previously associated with it.65

However, this claim is inconsistent with her allusion to natural predispositions as intellectual capacities. In other words, if Kleingeld considers that natural predispositions mean intellectual capacities, then her claim according to which in the 1790s Kant limited his race thinking to physical character only is demonstrably inadequate since Kant’s natural predispositions encompass both physical and intellectual character. The fact that in Kleingeld’s view in the 1790s 1. Kant remained committed to his account of natural predispositions, 2. As natural predispositions also mean intellectual capacities, and since Kant’s theory of natural predispositions implies Kant’s theory of race, Kant, in evoking his account of natural predispositions in the 1790s, did not refer only to the physical but also to the intellectual character of the race. That is what Ypi is denying, but she fails to provide any evidence. Ypi mentioned that Kant’s notion of natural predispositions of the 1790s changed to mean “inner purposive predispositions” and that “Kant now makes it clear that this analysis of biological organism has no moral implications.”66 Again, Ypi’s claims are inadequate since she fails to elaborate on the new meaning of Kant’s natural predispositions of the 1790s. She fails because Kant’s notion of natural predispositions never changed. Moreover, Kant, as demonstrated in Chap. 5 in the “Anthropological Charakteristik” of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View of 1798, states that the “anthropological characteristic [is] on the way of cognizing the interior of the human being from the exterior.”67 He went on to explain further: “in the Characteristic one can, without tautology, divide what belongs to a human being’s faculty of desire (what is practical) into what is characteristic in (a) his natural aptitude or natural predisposition, (b) his temperament or sensibility, and (c) his character purely and simply, or way of thinking—The first two predispositions indicate what can

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

213

be made of the human being; the last (moral) predisposition indicates what he is prepared to make of himself.”68 Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View highlights the completion of his theory of race because in the section “Anthropological Charakteristik,” he recalls all the features of his theory that he had developed earlier, including his notion of natural predispositions. However, these features are analysed in a pragmatic dimension which shows that from the investigations undertaken in his earlier writings, he realised that only the White race could successfully belong to the pragmatic project because it is the only race that demonstrates completeness from its natural predisposition. Therefore, it is possible to cognise its interior from its exterior because we already know that nature placed in the original phylum their predispositions which were then developed in the cold climate. Thus, even when the White race’s physiognomy reveals some ugliness, this ugliness can be pragmatically transformed into something unique and useful for the progress of humanity. Additionally, in explaining how both physical and moral aptitudes are connected, Kant states: From a physiological point of view, when one speaks of temperament, one means physical constitution (strong or weak build) and complexion (fluid elements moving regularly through the body by means of the vital power, which also includes heat or cold in the treatment of these humours). However, considered psychologically, that is, when one means temperament of soul (faculties of feeling and desire), those terms borrowed from the constitution of the blood will be introduced only in accordance with the analogy that the play of feelings and desires has with corporeal causes of movement.69

Since The question here is about innate, natural character which, so to speak, lies in the blood mixture of the human being…In the character of the Greeks under the harsh oppression of the Turks and the not much lighter oppression of their own Caloyers, their temperament (vivacity and thoughtlessness) has no more disappeared than has the structure of their bodies, their shape, and facial features. This characteristic would, presumably, in fact

214 

J. Yab

re-establish itself if, by a happy turn of events, their form of religion and government would provide them the freedom to re-establish themselves.70

These citations are taken from the last book Kant published in 1798, well beyond the period of the publication of Perpetual Peace, which is according to Kleingeld and Ypi the turning point for Kant’s views on race. However, the textual evidence shows that Kant did not change his mind either on his account of racial hierarchy or his theory of natural predispositions. Moreover, it is in the context of the development of natural predispositions that Kant introduces his vision of cosmopolitanism, and this is why I claim that Kant’s theory of natural predispositions, which are the condition of the possibility of race differentiation, predetermines his cosmopolitanism. Thus, I endorse Kleingeld’s conditional argument, which states the following: If Kant’s does regard European legislation for the rest of the world as part of the final end of the history, on the other hand, this fits with other comments he made elsewhere, to the effect that most non-White races are not capable of self-legislation. Then the proper way to read Kant…is against the background of the racial hierarchy that Kant still defended during the 1780s.71

I assert that Kant’s cosmopolitanism is only correctly understood in the context of the analysis of his theory of race, which encompasses his racial hierarchy. Now in the next section I present the “heterodox reading” of Kant’s conception of cosmopolitanism, which is based on Kant’s conception of natural predispositions and therefore on his theory of race.

 he “Heterodox Reading” of Kant’s T Cosmopolitanism Kant’s Development of Natural Predispositions In Idea for a Universal History Kant gives his account of the development of human beings’ natural predispositions. The quotation is long, but it is

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

215

worth citing in full because it allows us to illuminate contradictions between Kleingeld’s narrative and Kant’s text. Kant states: The means that nature uses to bring about the development of all of man’s capacities is the antagonism among them in society…the cause of law-­ governed order in society…I understand antagonism to mean men’s unsocial-­sociability, i.e., their tendency to enter into society, combined, however, with a thoroughgoing resistance that constantly threatens to sunder this society… Man has a propensity for living in society, for in that state he feels himself to be more than man, i.e., feels himself to be more than the development of his natural predispositions. He also has, however, a great tendency to isolate himself, for he finds in himself the unsociable characteristic of wanting everything to go according to his own desires…the first true steps from barbarism to culture, in which the unique social worth of man consists, now occur, all man’s talents are gradually developed, his taste is cultured, and through progressive enlightenment he begins to establish a way of thinking that can in time transform the crude natural capacity for moral discrimination into definite practical principles and thus transform a pathologically enforced agreement into a society and, finally, into a moral whole. Without those characteristics of unsociability…man would live as an Arcadian shepherd…and all talents would lie eternally dormant in their seed…Thus, thanks be to nature for the incompatibility…for the insatiable desire to possess and also to rule. Without them, all of humanity’s excellent natural predispositions would have lain eternally dormant… the sources of unsociability and of thoroughgoing resistance that give rise to so much evil but also drive men anew toward further exertions of their powers, consequently to diverse development of their natural capacities indicates the design of a wise creator, not the hand of a malicious spirit who fiddled with the creator’s masterful arrangement or enviously spoiled it.72

This account of the development of natural predispositions in Kant’s Idea is consistent with his development of natural predispositions in the First Supplement to Perpetual Peace as developed earlier in this chapter when introducing James Tully’s argument. For Kant, the development of natural predispositions is a matter of the will of mere nature, which he defines as “a necessary course of events governed by laws” and which “aims to produce harmony among men, whether or not they want it.”

216 

J. Yab

Because wise nature willed that human beings populate the whole globe, she placed natural predispositions in the original phylum, which are activated differently within the races according to the different climates. Although nature is against migrations from the warm to the cold regions, she permitted that people from the cold region could migrate to all other regions because people living in the cold region, that is, the White race, possess all the natural talents that equip them for all kinds of climates. The means by which mere nature allows the White race to populate other regions is war. Kant states: “Through war, she has driven humankind in all directions, even into the most inhospitable regions, to populate them; and through war, she has compelled them to enter into more or less legal relations with one another.”73 War is the “consequence of competitions of individual and states,”74 which Kant calls “unsocial-sociability.” Unsocial-­ sociability is the way in which mere nature facilitates the development of the natural predispositions. As Tully argues: “the main form of social-­ sociability used by nature to develop the capacities of human species toward a world system of states and perpetual peace is warfare.”75 In fact, Kant sees war as the driving force of the development of the individual natural predispositions, as well as the development of states towards the cosmopolitan ideal. In contrast, Kleingeld states that in Kant’s view “warfare between states, however, tends to stifle the development processes within states.”76 Because, as she continues, “Money that is necessary for education is used for weaponry; civil liberties that are necessary for enlightenment are curtailed in the name of the safety and security of the state.”77 Kleingeld here seems to dismiss the importance that Kant attributes to war within his process of the development of natural predispositions and also within his construction of perpetual peace. However, Kant himself in some passages praises war as the principal catalyst for the development of the natural predispositions. At the individual level, war is characterised by the “antagonism”78 among men which Kant describes as “their tendency to enter into society, combined, however, with a thoroughgoing resistance that constantly threatens to surrender this society.”79 At the state level, Kant states: “Even if a people were not forced by internal discord to submit to constraint by public laws, the war would compel them to do so, in the way I have described.”80 That is:

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

217

By ensuring that human beings could live anywhere on earth, nature has also willed in a despotic fashion that they ought to live all over the earth, even against their own inclination, without any assumption that this ought implies a duty to do so in order to comply with a moral law.—Rather, nature has chosen war in order to attain this end.81

For example, as he continues: The same is true of the Finns that live in the northernmost region of Europe, the Lapps, with regard to the equally remote Hungarians, whose language is related to theirs, but from whom they are separated by Gothic and Sarmatic peoples, who forced themselves between the two. And could there be any other explanation for the situation of the Eskimos (perhaps ancient European adventurers, a race fully distinct from all Americans) in the north, and that of the Pescharais in the south of America, down to Tierra del Fuego, than that nature has used war as the means to populate all of the regions of the earth? Yet war has no need of a particular motivating reason, but rather seems to have been embedded in human nature, and seems even to count as something noble, something which the human being is animated to pursue by the lust for honour without any self-serving motivation. This would explain why the warlike spirit (in the case of the native American savages as well as in the case of those in Europe during the age of chivalry) is judged to be of immediate and great value, not only during war (as is rightly expected), but also in order that there may be war.82

Thus, it Follows that an inner dignity is attributed to war as such. Even philosophers have been known to eulogize war as a form of ennobling humankind.83

My goal is to highlight the contrast between Kant’s texts and Kleingeld’s claim that in Kant’s view, warfare tends to stifle the development of states whereas Kant is claiming the contrary. Kleingeld’s analysis has significant implications in the sense that if Kant asserted that warfare was detrimental to the development of natural predispositions and perpetual peace, this would have implied that he had not supported the war at all and consequently that he was a pacifist Universalist—egalitarian.84 In the

218 

J. Yab

quotations above, Kant as a philosopher genuinely considers that: warfare is the motor of the development of history; Europeans’ colonialism and imperialism even though it may ‘spread famine, rebellion, treachery, and the whole litany of evils that afflict mankind,’ is the necessary passage for the cosmopolitan ideal because: Through wars, through the excessive and ceaseless preparations for war, through the resulting distress that every state, even in times of peace, must ultimately feel internally, nature drives humankind to make initially imperfect attempts, but finally, after the ravages of war, after the downfalls, and after even the complete internal exhaustion of its powers, [nature] impels humankind to take the step that reason could have told it to take without all these lamentable experiences: to abandon the lawless state of savagery and enter into a federation of peoples. In such a federation, every state, even the smallest one, could expect its security and its rights, not by virtue of its own power or as a consequence of its own legal judgment, but rather solely by virtue of this great federation of peoples (Foedus Amphictyonum), from a united power and from the decision based on laws of the united will.85

And It is the spirit of trade, which cannot coexist with war, which will, sooner or later, take hold of every people. Since, among all of the powers (means) subordinate to state authority, the power of money is likely the most reliable, states find themselves forced (admittedly not by motivations of morality) to promote a noble peace and, wherever in the world war threatens to break out, to prevent it by means of negotiations, just as if they were, therefore, members of a lasting alliance.86

Kant’s account of the development of natural predispositions contrasts with Kleingeld’s narrative, which is linear. Her account of the “good state,” which guarantees freedom of the press, in turn providing a space for the development of the arts, sciences and “increasing enlightenment” because enlightenment as “free public sphere” develops the thinking that will transform the whole society, is not only linear but also far from Kant’s real meaning of the development of the natural predispositions. Even

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

219

Robert Louden, one of the standard-bearers of the “orthodox reading,” in the introduction to Anthropology, History, and Education argues that: Kant is not so naive as to believe that this “universal cosmopolitan condition, as the womb in which all the original predispositions of the human species will be developed will come about easily and smoothly through intentional human planning. Rather, it too is part of nature’s hidden plan. The misery of continual wars (not to mention their growing expense) are themselves means by which nature drives nations “to what reason could have told them even without so much sad experience: namely, to go beyond a lawless condition of savages and enter into a federation of nations.87

In suggesting his cosmopolitan right in Perpetual Peace, Kant had already defined his theory of natural predispositions and the different stages of its development, which included the technical, the pragmatic and the moral stage. Because, as shown in the previous chapter, only the white race possessed all talents, it follows that the project of perpetual peace, in which war and asocial sociability operate to develop natural predispositions towards morality, is led exclusively by Europeans, and that Kant’s audience was this group, rather than the world. Equally since the final end of history concerns the development of these same natural predispositions and because we also knew that only the White race reaches the moral predisposition, which is the ideal cosmopolitan condition for perpetual peace. Therefore, I claim that Kant’s cosmopolitan addressees are White peoples. My next discussion will focus on Kant’s cosmopolitanism addressees and content.

Kant’s Cosmopolitanism Addressees The issue of addressees in Kant’s cosmopolitanism is one of the most important for interpreting its meaning as this determines the people to whom Kant’s cosmopolitan right is destined. I argue that from the standpoint of Kant’s conception of race that is determined by natural predispositions, his cosmopolitan right addresses individual and states; however, its fundamental addressees are the White race. The question of the addressees is complex, as Kleingeld in dealing with this issue states:

220 

J. Yab

For Kant, however, the answer lies in the difference in addressee between international and cosmopolitan law. According to the traditional view, shared by Kant, international law is the law between states. By contrast, in cosmopolitan law, “individual and states, who stand in an external relationship of mutual influence, are regarded as citizens of a universal state of humankind” (PP 8: 349n). In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant mentions nations and “citizens of earth” (MM 6: 353) as bearers of cosmopolitan rights. This cosmopolitan law addresses states and individuals, addressing individuals as “citizens of earth” rather than as citizen of a particular state.88

This passage is from an article in which Kleingeld tries to prove that Kant’s cosmopolitan law can be institutionalised without embracing the ideal of the unique world republic. Thus, she derives the difference between cosmopolitan right and international right from their distinctive addressees. For her, in Kant’s view, while international right addressees are states only, cosmopolitan right addressees are individuals and states. It is evident that Kant’s cosmopolitanism addresses the relation between the state and the individual. However, the beneficiaries of this right are not all individuals as such but merely White Europeans. There are two reasons for this. The first reason is that in “Anthropological Charakteristik” Kant writes about his cosmopolitan right from the European perspective and for Europeans. He states: As in the previous articles, we are concerned here with right, not with philanthropy, and in this context hospitality (a host’s conduct to his guest) means the right of a stranger not to be treated in a hostile manner by another upon his arrival on the other’s territory.89

Kant’s addressees here are White Europeans, and in contrast to the “orthodox reading” which defends the view that his cosmopolitanism90 is concerned with limiting and regulating European expansion, I claim that while this interpretation makes sense due to Kant’s statements of condemnation of European colonialism, he created at the same time a right that could justify European expansion. What I mean is that with his cosmopolitan right, Kant appears to condemn European colonialism; however, in fact with the right of hospitality, European colonialism acquired

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

221

the legal ground it lacked to justify its missions. Even very recent productions of the “orthodox reading” such as the contributions to Kant and Colonialism: historical and critical perspectives91 acknowledge Kant’s Eurocentric cosmopolitanism while adopting “chronological perspectives that see Kant views as maturing from an incipiently colonial to an increasingly anticolonial conception.”92 The claim that Kant provides legal ground for colonialism while denouncing it may appear controversial. However, if we consider that European colonialism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has no legal ground whatsoever, we may consider that in advocating for the right of hospitality on the basis that the earth belongs to all human beings, Kant is merely saying that Europeans have the right to seek new territories. Following this perspective in Perpetual Peace and Metaphysics of Morals, Kant is clearly against detrimental colonialism, and this is why he defines the cosmopolitan right in a negative sense. He says: “In this context hospitality (hospitableness) means the right of an alien not to be treated as an enemy upon his arrival in another’s country.”93 Kant is concerned here with the way in which his fellow Europeans have approached new lands: If one compares with this the inhospitable behaviour of the civilized states in our part of the world, especially the commercial ones, the injustice that the latter show when visiting foreign lands and peoples (which to them is one and the same as conquering those lands and peoples) takes on terrifying proportions. America, the negro countries, the Spice Islands, the Cape, etc., were at the time of their discovery lands that they regarded as belonging to no one, for the native inhabitants counted as nothing to them. In East India (Hindustan) they brought in foreign troops under the pretext of merely intending to establish trading posts. But with these they introduced the oppression of the native inhabitants, the incitement of the different states involved to expansive wars, famine, unrest, faithlessness, and the whole litany of evils that weigh upon the human species.94

The negative formulation of Kant’s cosmopolitan right results from the behaviour of Europeans because when approaching the lands of Black people or Native Americans, for example, they only brought violence and destruction. In response to that violence, Kant formulated the right of

222 

J. Yab

hospitality as a right not to be treated as an enemy. It is evident that with such European behaviour any population would have responded to them as the enemy. Kant himself notes, “China and Japan (Nippon), which have attempted dealing with such guests, have, therefore, wisely, limited such interaction. Whereas the former has allowed contact with but not entrance to its territories, the latter has allowed this contact to only one European people, the Dutch, yet while doing so it excludes them, as if they were prisoners, from associating with the native inhabitants.”95 Thus, the negative formulation of Kant’s cosmopolitanism addressees is White Europeans whose behaviour leaves no choice for overseas populations but to treat them as enemies. Hence, if Kant wrote his cosmopolitan right from a European perspective and chose to formulate it negatively, I claim that this was done purposively because his addressees were his fellow Europeans. The negative formulation is the result of the damaging actions of European colonists oversees. It is because of the violence caused by colonisers that Kant found it was important to limit their actions, otherwise the purpose of nature in favouring peaceful relations through the means of commercial relations would have been compromised. A positive formulation of the cosmopolitan right would have encouraged violent actions of colonialists and would have compromised the plan of nature since these actions were not profitable. He states, “The worst (or, considered from the perspective of a moral judge, the best) consequence of all this is that such violence profits these trading companies not at all and that all of them are at the point of near collapse.”96 For Kant, if violent actions are not profitable for the progress of history, then there is no need for such actions. He continues: “The Sugar Islands, the seat of the cruellest and most ingenious slavery, yield no true profit, but serve only the indirect and not very profitable purpose of training sailors for ships of war, which in turn aids the pursuit of wars in Europe.”97 Thus, if these actions bring war to Europe, which is for him the land of civilised people, then definitely such violent actions are useless. I mentioned earlier that Kant’s cosmopolitanism had also served as a justification of colonialism because at the time there was a real need to justify European expansion. The dialectical relationship between colonialism and the right of hospitality that Kant depicts has the same structure as that exhibited in Francisco de Vitoria’s “De Indis Noviter Inventis”

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

223

of 1539, which deals with the possible legitimisation of the Castilian conquista. In the first instance, just like Kant later, Vitoria supported local sovereignty against colonialist aspirations, but at the same time he provides legal ground for the legitimisation of the “just war.” In his book Meeting the Enemy Natsu Taylor Saito claims that: Fransciscus de Vitoria who in the course of applying the principles of Thomistic natural law to Spanish discoveries and settlement, laid the foundation in the earlier sixteenth century for an international jurisprudence designed to address relationships not only between the colonizers and the colonized but also between but also between what Europeans recognized as independent sovereign states.98

Saito argues that Vitoria’s legal framework that can be found in lectures such as “De Indis Noviter Inventis” (On the Indian Lately Discovered) and “De Jure Bellis Hispanorum in Barbaros” (On the Law of War Made by the Spaniards on the Barbarians) earned him the respect of both the “benign humanist who erected a basic defence of Indian dominium in the Americas,”99 and the “architect of a consummate legislation for one of the more spectacularly rapacious imperial powers.”100 The same description could be credited to Kant because while he denounced in his later writings the negative side of European colonisation, he provided at the same time a legal framework that could justify the presence of Europeans in foreign countries. The similarities between Vitoria’s legal framework and Kant’s cosmopolitanism are striking. Let us highlight two of them. Just as Kant did later, the first right Vitoria accorded to Spanish was “to travel in Indians lands. Moreover, Europeans right to proselytise, or send missionaries to the Indians.”101 The second right was “of the colonizers to engage in commerce and trade with native peoples”;102 consequently the “native Indians are bound to give them, at least, a friendly hearing and not repel them.”103 As we know now, Kant’s cosmopolitan right was the right to visit and engage in commercial relations with foreign countries. However, it is important to highlight that the rights that Vitoria accorded to Europeans were not reciprocal as Saito cites Peter Fitzpatrick, who states, “Vitoria created an imperial legality which could extend universally, naturally, to all men, yet effect and rely

224 

J. Yab

on an exclusion of some in constituting this very universality. And it was the barbari… which carried the resulting contradiction in imperial legality by being both utterly excluded yet always includable.”104 This is why Vitoria established that the “just war” could be waged upon indigenous people for denying the Spanish the right to travel or engage in commerce within their territories. Thus, Vitoria developed a global right of hospitality and free trade called ius communicationem,105 which justified conquest. Vitoria’s argumentation allowed the Spaniards who were in America to refer to their right to hospitality. If the Amerindians tried to expel the Spanish, the latter would be able to defend their right of hospitality by a bellum iustum,106 a “just war.” Vitoria states: To keep certain people out of the city or province as being enemies, or to expel them when already there, are acts of war. (…) If the Indian natives wish to prevent the Spaniards from enjoying any of their above-named rights under the law of nations, for instance, trade or other above-named matter, the Spaniards (…) can defend themselves and do all that consists with their own safety, it being lawful to repel force by force.107

Similarly, Tully defends a view of Kant that notes that “although the excessive violence of European imperial expansion in unjust, it cannot be resisted. According to Kant, there is an absolute duty to obey the law, no matter how unjust it may be or how unjust its original imposition.”108 There is no evidence to my knowledge that Kant read Vitoria’s lectures; however, what I want to highlight here is that while Vitoria defended certain indigenous rights, not only were his legal framework addressees Europeans, but also he allowed Europeans to justify their presence in Americas. Equally, while Kant’s cosmopolitanism dispels European violence in the Americas or the lands of Black peoples, he nonetheless provides a legal non-enforceable right to Europeans to justify their presence in these foreign lands. Because Kant’s cosmopolitan right mainly serves the purpose of the White race, I conclude that it is an exclusive right since, Kant did not consider the reciprocity of his right. Kant only considers the probability of the Europeans in a foreign land and not, for example, the possibility of Negroes in European lands. The examination of Kant’s cosmopolitan content in the following section is therefore

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

225

crucial from the standpoint of Kant’s conception of the individual as predetermined by natural predispositions, its exclusive character.

Kant’s Cosmopolitan Content In this section, I show that Kant’s cosmopolitan right’s addressees are not human beings in general but White human beings. Here the content of his cosmopolitanism that is the right of hospitality presupposes a particular conception of the human being predetermined by its natural predispositions. In Perpetual Peace, Kant develops a concept of peace among nations that is organised in preliminary articles, which contain the necessary conditions of peace, and three definitive articles outlining the sufficient conditions for establishing a peace order. The third definitive article is the one that outlines cosmopolitan right. Kant states: “cosmopolitan right shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality.” He asserts that this is not a matter of philanthropy, but of right. The right of hospitality is “the right of an alien not to be treated as an enemy upon his arrival in another’s country.” It is not a right to stay because “he can be turned away” by the other country “If it can be done without destroying him”; however, “as long as he behaves peaceably, he cannot be treated as an enemy.” The content of Kant’s cosmopolitanism is clear enough: it is the right of hospitality. I have already proposed that while Kant’s cosmopolitanism is typically interpreted as addressing all individuals, its addressees are not all human beings as such, but White European individuals. This is first because Kant wrote from the European perspective. Second, the content of Kant’s cosmopolitanism presupposes a particular conception of the human being and, third, it is also concerned with European migrations. However, Kant’s conception of migration depends upon his consideration of human beings as predetermined by their natural predispositions. Kant argues as follows about migration: As far as this second objection is concerned, I concede that the understanding, or, if one prefers, the spontaneously purposively active nature,” indeed paid no heed to a transplanting after germs have already developed, yet without thereby justifying the accusation of lacking wisdom and being

226 

J. Yab

short-sighted. Rather through the arranged suitability to the climate nature has hindered its exchange, especially that of the warm climate against the cold one. For it is exactly this poor match of the new region to the already adapted natural character of the inhabitants of the old region that all by itself keeps them away from the former. And where have Indians and Negroes attempted to expand into northern regions?—But those who were driven there have never been able to bring about in their progeny (such as the Creole Negroes, or the Indians under the name of the gypsies) a sort that would be fit for farmers or manual labourers.109

Since I have already demonstrated that Kant holds his theory of natural predispositions from the beginning to the end of his life, and that his notion of natural predispositions determines his theory of race since nature prevents migration from the regions where the Negro race lives to the region where the White race lives because of the poor match of their germs and natural predispositions, I believe it is conclusive to state that when Kant was considering the migrations within his right of hospitality, he determined that the prospect of finding the Negroes in Europe, for example, was unlikely for the reason that the will of nature prevents it. However, since nature willed that Europeans would be legislated everywhere and since they were already present everywhere, although without any legal right, consequently, the cosmopolitan right was designed in a minimalistic and negative way only to fit the reality of European actions overseas. To fully comprehend the implications of Kant’s views on migration for his cosmopolitanism, it is essential to understand how his whole argumentation on race operates. Kant’s argumentation runs as follows: Kant’s racial theory states that the original phylum of human beings was implanted with a set of germs and natural predispositions. In different climates, the appropriate germs and natural predispositions are triggered and developed. The predispositions that are not activated are extinguished, making the character of a human being permanent and distinguishable by skin colour. Kant consequently holds that there are four races (White European, Red American, Black African, and Yellow Asian), which are then further differentiated by their intellectual capacities. Kant also employs teleological judgements that attribute ends to history and nature because the

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

227

biological explanation alone proves to be unsatisfactory when it comes to explaining the permanence of the character of the race. From a teleological viewpoint, there must be a natural purpose behind the diversity of human races and the development of their predispositions. Consequently, Kant asserts that all the natural capacities of human beings are destined to develop to their fullest potential; however, given the short lifespan of the human being as an individual, this development can only take place in the species as a whole. This is why Kant says, concerning what can be called variety in the human species, that: I only note here that also in this case nature has to be viewed not as forming in complete freedom but as only developing and as predetermined with respect to those varieties through original predispositions, just as is the case with the racial characters. For in the variety, too, there is to be found purposiveness and corresponding suitability, which cannot be the work of chance.110

Hence, natural predispositions guarantee the possibility of human life across the globe according to the plan of nature. Thus, it is essential that humans spread across the globe and develop in a diversity of ways, such that all-natural predispositions can eventually be fully actualised. As mere nature has allowed racial diversity, it opposes both the mixing of races and migration mainly from the warm climate to the cold one. For the above such mixture extinguishes the distinctiveness and character of the race, undermining their power, and for the latter, natural predispositions of the warm climate are not suited to the cold climate. Consequently, Kant concludes that the four human races enjoy different moral capacities which are predetermined by the natural predispositions. Subsequently, the Native American race lacks the potentialities of cultural development, the Negro race can only be trained as slaves, and the Yellow race may have the capacity for cultural development but and its development has stagnated. It is only the White race that displays the capacities to develop their culture to reach republican self-government and moral progress because it possesses all motivating forces and talents. This is why the White race will legislate the world, and hence European colonialism and imperialism.

228 

J. Yab

Thus, Kant’s cosmopolitan right is a response to the anarchic occupation of foreign lands. It provided the legal framework which could justify their presence there while denouncing their violent actions that could lead to an inhospitable and inimical reception from the foreign population. Kant designed his cosmopolitan right minimally and negatively purposively. He states, “Cosmopolitan right shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality” because Europeans were already present on the ground, and there was no need, therefore, to give them what they already had, but rather what they didn’t have and this was the legal right to be where they were. Thus, it is right to say with the “orthodox reading” that Kant’s concern was to limit European expansion. However, this was not his main concern. When Kant states that the earth belongs to all human beings, he does not mention the land in Europe (perhaps because he thought that European land was already occupied); he only mentions overseas lands where Europeans were already present or the empty lands that they were intended for occupation. He states, for instance, “when discovered, America, the lands occupied by the blacks, the Spice Islands, the Cape.” This only proves that Kant designed his cosmopolitanism right to fit with the European preoccupation of the time. It is also important to highlight that in the Metaphysics of Morals, as with Vitoria’s ius communicationem, Kant entertains the possibility of using force to bring about civilization, even if he dismisses that option in the end. He states: “This is true despite the fact that sufficient specious reasons to justify the use of force are available: that is to the world advantage, partly because these crude peoples will become civilized… and partly because one’s own country will be clean of corrupt human beings, and they or their descendants will, it is hoped, become better in another part of the world.”111 Kant does not need to rely on coercion as a means to develop his cosmopolitanism. However, in evoking the idea of force, Kant made implicit that if the use of force were done in a humanistic way, it would advance the progress of humanity. As Tully argues, in Kant’s view, “Europeans are perfectly justified in coercively imposing Western Law on non-Europeans if they fail to submit voluntarily to Western colonial law or move off their traditional territories when the colonizers arrive.”112 However, Kant relies somewhat on the global dialogue and trade to develop his cosmopolitanism. In this case, he promotes, as Tully has argued, cultural and economic

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

229

imperialism instead of a political one, which is predetermined by natural predispositions that mere nature placed in the White race to legislate the world. This is why I argue that because Kant’s cosmopolitan right addressees are the White race, this makes it a de facto exclusive form of right and implies that Kant defends racialised forms of cosmopolitism.

Notes 1. KANT, I. 1784. Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View. Marxists Internet Archive. 1963 ed.: Marxists Internet Archive. 2. TULLY, J. 2008. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Volume II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 19. 3. MCCARTHY, T. 2009. Race, Empire and the Idea of Human Development, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 42–68. 4. HARVEY, D. 2011. Cosmopolitanism in the Anthropology and geography. In: ELDEN, S. & MENDIETA, E. (eds.) Reading Kant’s Geography. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press; Bristol: University Presses Marketing [distributor], p. 267. 5. TULLY, J. 2008. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Volume II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 19. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., p. 144. 9. Ibid., p. 145. 10. Ibid. 11. KANT, I. 2007. Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New  York: Cambridge University Press, p. 111. 12. TULLY, J. 2008. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol Ii: Imperialism and Civic Freedom, p. 145. 13. Ibid., p. 146. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., p. 148. 16. Ibid.

230 

J. Yab

17. FLIKSCHUH, K. & YPI, L. 2014. Kant on Colonialism—Apologist or Critic? In: FLIKSCHUH, K. & YPI, L. (eds.) Kant and Colonialism: Historical and Critical perspectives. first ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 3. 18. TULLY, J. 2008. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol Ii: Imperialism and Civic Freedom, pp. 131–32. 19. MUTHU, S. 2003. Enlightenment against empire, Princeton, Princeton University Press. See also MUTHU, S. 2012. Empire and modern political thought, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 221. 20. KANT, I. & GUYER, P. 2000. Critique of the power of judgment, New York, Cambridge University Press. 21. KANT, I. & GREGOR, M. 1996. The metaphysics of morals, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 158. 22. MUTHU, S. 2012. Empire and modern political thought, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 221. 23. KANT, I. & GUYER, P. 2000. Critique of the power of judgment, New York, Cambridge University Press. 24. KLEINGELD, P. 2009. Kant’s changing cosmopolitanism in: RORTY, A. & SCHMIDT, J. (eds.) Kant’s idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim: a critical guide. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 171–86. 25. LOUDEN, R.  B. 2000. Kant’s impure ethics: from rational beings to human beings, New York; Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 105. 26. KLEINGELD, P. 2009. Kant’s changing cosmopolitanism in: RORTY, A. & SCHMIDT, J. (eds.) Kant’s idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim: a critical guide. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 171–86. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid. 29. OREND, B. 2000. War and international justice: a Kantian perspective, Waterloo, Ont., Wilfrid Laurier University Press, p. 43. 30. KANT, I. & LADD, J. 1999. Metaphysical elements of justice: part I of the metaphysics of morals, Indianapolis, Hackett Pub. Co., p. 18. 31. Ibid., p. 17. 32. Ibid., p. 118.

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

231

33. KANT, I. 1784. Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View. Marxists Internet Archive. 1963 ed.: Marxists Internet Archive. 34. KLEINGELD, P. 2009. Kant’s changing cosmopolitanism in: RORTY, A. & SCHMIDT, J. (eds.) Kant’s idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim: a critical guide. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 171–86. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. KLEINGELD, P. 2007. Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race. The Philosophical Quarterly, 57:229, 573–92. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. KLEINGELD, P. 2014. Kant’s second thoughts on colonialism. In: FLIKSCHUH, K. & YPI, L. (eds.) Kant and Colonialism: Historical and Critical perspectives. first ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 43–67. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. BERNASCONI, R. 2011. Kant’s Third Thoughts on Race. In: ELDEN, S. & MENDIETA, E. (eds.) Reading Kant’s Geography. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press; Bristol: University Presses Marketing [distributor], pp. 291–318. 48. KLEINGELD, P. 2014. Kant’s second thoughts on colonialism. In: FLIKSCHUH, K. & YPI, L. (eds.) Kant and Colonialism: Historical and Critical perspectives. first ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 43–67. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. YPI, L.  Ibid. Commerce and colonialism in Kant’s philosophy. pp. 99–126. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid.

232 

J. Yab

55. Ibid. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 60. KANT, I. 2007. Determination of the Concept of Race. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R.  B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 151. 61. KANT, I. 2007. On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy. In: LOUDEN, R. B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 200. 62. Ibid., p. 201. 63. Ibid. 64. KLEINGELD, P. 2009. Kant’s changing cosmopolitanism in: RORTY, A. & SCHMIDT, J. (eds.) Kant’s idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim: a critical guide. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 171–86. 65. KLEINGELD, P. 2007. Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race. The Philosophical Quarterly, 57: 229, 573–92. 66. KLEINGELD, P. 2014. Kant’s second thoughts on colonialism. In: FLIKSCHUH, K. & YPI, L. (eds.) Kant and Colonialism: Historical and Critical perspectives. first ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 43–67. 67. KANT, I. 2007. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: LOUDEN, R. B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 383. 68. Ibid., p. 384. 69. Ibid., p. 385. 70. Ibid., p. 414. 71. KLEINGELD, P. 2009. Kant’s changing cosmopolitanism in: RORTY, A. & SCHMIDT, J. (eds.) Kant’s idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim: a critical guide. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 171–86. 72. KANT, I. 2007. Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. In: ZÖLLER, G. & LOUDEN, R. B. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK; New  York: Cambridge University Press, p. 111.

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

233

73. KANT, I., KLEINGELD, P., WALDRON, J., DOYLE, M.  W. & WOOD, A. W. 2006. Toward perpetual peace and other writings on politics, peace, and history, New Haven, Yale University Press, pp. 87–88. 74. TULLY, J. 2008. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Volume II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 19. 75. TULLY, J. 2008. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol Ii: Imperialism and Civic Freedom, p. 145. 76. KLEINGELD, P. 2009. Kant’s changing cosmopolitanism in: RORTY, A. & SCHMIDT, J. (eds.) Kant’s idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim: a critical guide. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 171–86. 77. Ibid. 78. KANT, I. 1784. Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View. Marxists Internet Archive. 1963 ed.: Marxists Internet Archive. 79. Ibid. 80. Ibid. 81. KANT, I., KLEINGELD, P., WALDRON, J., DOYLE, M.  W. & WOOD, A. W. 2006. Toward perpetual peace and other writings on politics, peace, and history, New Haven, Yale University Press, pp. 87–88. 82. Ibid., p. 89. 83. Ibid. 84. This position is supported by a variety of Kant scholars who claim that Kant has no just war theory. See H. Williams, Judgements on War: A Response, in H. Robinson, ed., Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress, Vol. l, Part 3 (Milwaukee, WN: Marquette University Press, 1995), 393; F. Teson, The Kantian Theory of International Law, Columbia Law Review 92 (1992): 90; G.  Geismann, World Peace Rational Idea and Reality. On the Principles of Kant’s Political Philosophy, in H.  Oberer, ed., Kant: Analysen, Probleme, Kritik (Germany: Konigshausen und Neumann, 1996), 286; and W. B. Gallie, Philosophers of war and peace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 19–20. 85. KANT, I., DOYLE, M.  W., KLEINGELD, P., WALDRON, J. & WOOD, A. W. 2006. Toward perpetual peace and other writings on politics, peace, and history, New Haven, Conn.; London, Yale University Press. 86. Ibid., p. 92.

234 

J. Yab

87. KANT, I., LOUDEN, R. B. & ZÖLLER, G. 2007. Anthropology, history, and education, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 14. 88. KLEINGELD, P. 1998. Kant’s Cosmopolitan Law: World Citizenship for a Global Order. Kantian Review, 2, 72–90. 89. KANT, I., DOYLE, M.  W., KLEINGELD, P., WALDRON, J. & WOOD, A. W. 2006. Toward perpetual peace and other writings on politics, peace, and history, New Haven, Conn.; London, Yale University Press. 90. KLEINGELD, P. 2014. Kant’s second thoughts on colonialism. In: FLIKSCHUH, K. & YPI, L. (eds.) Kant and Colonialism: Historical and Critical perspectives. first ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 43–67. See also WILLIAMS, H. 2014. Colonialism in Kant’s Political Philosophy. An Online Journal of Philosophy Diametros [Online], 39. Available: http://www.diametros.iphils.uj.edu.pl/index.php/diametros/article/view/570. 91. KLEINGELD, P. 2014. Kant’s second thoughts on colonialism. In: FLIKSCHUH, K. & YPI, L. (eds.) Kant and Colonialism: Historical and Critical perspectives. first ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 43–67. 92. Ibid. 93. KANT, I. 1992. Perpetual peace: a philosophical essay, Bristol, Thoemmes Press. 94. KANT, I., DOYLE, M.  W., KLEINGELD, P., WALDRON, J. & WOOD, A. W. 2006. Toward perpetual peace and other writings on politics, peace, and history, New Haven, Conn.; London, Yale University Press. 95. Ibid., pp. 83–4. 96. Ibid. 97. Ibid. 98. SAITO, N. T. 2010. Meeting the enemy: American exceptionalism and international law, New York; London, New York University Press, p. 48. 99. Ibid. 100. Ibid. 101. Ibid., p. 49. 102. Ibid. 103. Ibid. 104. Ibid., p. 51. 105. SCOTT, J. B. 2003. The Spanish origin of international law: Francisco de Vitoria and his law of nations, Holmes Beach, FL, Gaunt, p. 151.

7  Kant’s Non-Universal Cosmopolitanism 

235

106. Ibid. 107. Ibid. 108. TULLY, J. 2008. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol Ii: Imperialism and Civic Freedom, p. 147. 109. KANT, I. 2007. On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy. In: LOUDEN, R. B. & ZÖLLER, G. (eds.) Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 209. 110. Ibid., p. 201. 111. KANT, I. & GREGOR, M.  J. 1996. The metaphysics of morals, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 159. 112. TULLY, J. 2008. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol Ii: Imperialism and Civic Freedom, p. 147.

8 Concluding Remarks

This brings to an end my effort to replace Kant’s “orthodox reading” (which I believe is one of the most apologetic readings of his theory of race in particular, and his anthropology in general) with the “heterodox reading,” which is more accurate. After a comprehensive introduction in Chap. 1, I began Chap. 2 by claiming that the orthodox reading is inadequate and purposelessly restrictive and is thus of little value for the comprehension of Kant’s race thinking. I argued for a comprehensive historical approach, which takes into account not only Kant’s three famous essays on race but also includes Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View as inherently constitutive of his theory. Only this methodology has revealed the fundamental notion of the “Charakteristik” as the central tenet underlying the theory. I believe I have demonstrated in Chap. 3 that much of the contemporary discussions on the issue involve interpretative inadequacies. I have claimed that we need an alternative analysis to the kind of apartheid responsiveness reading that dominates the contemporary debate. Regarding this specific reading, we saw that Kleingeld wisely suggests a unifying alternative within the framework of the orthodox narrative © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Yab, Kant and the Politics of Racism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69101-1_8

237

238 

J. Yab

which consists of accepting Kant’s derogative comments as significant and damaging for his moral philosophy, but then makes the case that he abandoned his position later when he wrote Perpetual Peace to embrace a new universalist viewpoint. However, I have shown that her position is grounded within the scope of her systematic failure to acknowledge the role the “Charakteristik” plays in Kant’s racial theory. She subsequently wrongly considers racial hierarchy as the fundamental problem of theory. I have proved that the issues in Kant’s racial theory are not Kant’s claims about the hierarchy of races but instead (1) the completeness of the character of the White race and (2) the dispossession of the character of the beauty and human dignity of the Negro race, which are both predetermined by Kant’s natural predispositions. This is why I put forward the heterodox reading to undertake the systematic exegesis of Kant’s racial thinking. In Chap. 4, I began the exegetical work to discover that Kant’s 1770s theory of race was about the conception of the “Charakteristik” of the human species. He asserted that if all humans beings belong to one species because when mixed with one other they produce half-breeding, the intellectual and moral character are then unevenly spread within the various human races according to germs and natural predispositions that nature placed in the original phylum. This also accounts for the two moral problems encountered in Kant’s theory, described in Chap. 2. Kant explicitly likens his account of germs and natural predispositions to racial diversity, and argues that only skin colour is the mark of the “Charakteristik” of the human species and the manifestation of race. This argument regarding skin colour as the distinctive character of race would force Kant to defend his racial theory against virulent critics. The fifth chapter has brought these critics to light and has argued that Kant has missed the opportunity to change his mind on the moral implications of skin colour. He instead shifted his approach from an a posteriori to an a priori conception of the “Charakteristik” of the human species, and he demonstrated along the way that the new conception represents a progression rather than a reformulation of the theory. I have therefore maintained that the fact that Kant twice defended his theory in the 1780s and founded it in a priori reasoning confirms his commitment to his theory and to its moral implications. I have also demonstrated in

8  Concluding Remarks 

239

the same chapter that Kant’s development of his philosophy and the criticisms of Herder and Forster have motivated his methodological shift from a scientific conception to a philosophical notion of the “Charakteristik” of the human species which was finally teleologically oriented. It was the will of nature that human beings populated the globe since she placed in the original phylum germs and natural predispositions to make races morally and physically different to fit all climates. That the White race possesses all natural predispositions for moral development and that other races lack them all was the will of mere nature. In Chap. 6 I have argued that the “Anthropological Charakteristik” in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View is the completion of Kant’s theory of race. The book represents the finishing point of his theory with his pragmatic project. In that book, Kant has recalled all concepts that have supported his argumentations in his preceding writings on race, including his account of the “Charakteristik” and natural predispositions. However, what was important to Kant here was to determine that the pragmatic position of his race theory could only be assumed within the race which had natural predispositions of morality, which is why I have asserted that the book is written from the White race perspective and for it only. It was also the ultimate opportunity to provide evidence as to whether Kant changed his mind on racial hierarchy. From a historical development of Kant’s natural predispositions, I did come back to Kleingeld’s claim according to which Kant “makes no mention of a racial hierarchy anywhere in his published writings of the 1790s.” I have demonstrated that her narrative was ultimately inaccurate because she overlooked the “Anthropological Charakteristik” in which Kant continued to develop his account of natural predispositions. If Kant’s theory of human nature depended on his account of the development of natural predispositions, what does this tell us about his political project, namely his cosmopolitanism? The last chapter has answered this question. Here again I have established that the “orthodox reading” of Kant’s cosmopolitanism was full of inconsistencies. The “heterodox reading” I have defended is the line of criticism which, as Tully puts it, “derives from Johann Herder,1 Frantz Fanon,2 Edward Said,3 Charles Taylor4 and Iris Marion Young,”5 and takes a non-conventional interpretative approach to Kant’s

240 

J. Yab

cosmopolitanism. Because “if we take the respect for cultural diversity and democratic freedom seriously…then we have to criticise and go beyond the imperial, Eurocentric uniformity of the Kantian framework.”6 I have then claimed that from Kant’s account of natural predispositions, which determines his conception of human nature, his cosmopolitan right is a de facto exclusive form of right. Thus, the first task in the chapter was to bring to light the “orthodox reading’s” inconsistencies, which describe Kant’s cosmopolitanism as expressing an unconditional universalism. In this regard, two scholars have facilitated the achievement of my goal, Kleingeld and Ypi. While we have already explored Kleingeld’s position, which consists in perceiving Kant’s cosmopolitanism as an antidote to his earlier racialism and colonialism, we have seen in that chapter that Ypi went further within Kleingeld’s narrative. In her analysis of Kant’s account of the role of natural predispositions,7 she asserted that in the 1790s, Kant not only abandoned his conceptions of germs responsible for the inner and outer features of race, but he also changed his conception of natural predispositions to mean “inner purposive predispositions.” Ypi’s goal was to demonstrate that Kant abandoned the features that were connecting physical and racial features in his theory in order to reconcile his egalitarian conception of the world. From textual evidence, I have demonstrated that Ypi’s narrative is demonstrably inadequate, as Kant’s notions of germs and predispositions are interrelated, and furthermore he relied on them throughout his writings without altering their signification. We have seen that, although Kleingeld and Ypi acknowledged that Kant elaborated his cosmopolitan project within the context of the development of natural predispositions, they failed to take the next step in analysing the role of these predispositions in Kant’s cosmopolitanism. More precisely, they ignored the link between Kant’s theory of race, his natural predispositions and cosmopolitism. In exploring this link in the last section of the chapter from the standpoint of Kant’s conception of natural predispositions, we understand that Kant’s cosmopolitan right was a de facto exclusive (i.e. non-universal) form of right because it was written not only from the European White race perspective, that is, its addressees were White Europeans, but also its content, the right of hospitality which could have been interpreted as a de jure form of right, was in practice a legal framework to expend European colonialism at the time.

8  Concluding Remarks 

241

At the end of this book, I can state that Kant’s theory of race is, in fact, a showcase of his conception of human nature(s). It is about the multiple natures of the human being because, although my investigation was not directly intended to identify Kant’s theory of human nature, the evidence I gathered from the historical analysis of his accounts of natural predispositions suggests that Kant conceived a plurality of human natures within the possibility of a single species. He claimed that there is one human species and yet four races which are physically and morally different and which in turn constitute quite different human natures. The human nature of the White race is characterised by the completeness of their natural predispositions, which allow them to be part of the pragmatic project, the project by which human beings are what they can make of themselves instead of what nature makes of them. However, the pragmatic project is predetermined by natural predispositions of morality, which are possessed only by the White race. The human nature of the White race, because of its predetermined natural predispositions to morality, can achieve the ultimate end of nature. This stands in contrast to the human nature of other races and specifically of the Negro race, which is characterised by its dispossession of the character of the “feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature.” The causes of that dispossession are to be found in the will of nature that chose not to favour the development of the predispositions to morality within that specific race. The character of the “feeling of the beauty and the dignity of human nature” is the distinguishing feature between the White race’s and the Negro race’s human nature. Consequently, the Negro race cannot be part of the pragmatic project, which precisely concerns the capacity of a human being to use moral predispositions. If the Negro race cannot use moral predispositions because it lacks them all and Kant’s cosmopolitan project is concerned with the development of human natural predispositions, this implies that Kant’s cosmopolitanism is addressing the White race. Therefore, Kant’s theory of human nature(s) is predetermined by his account of the natural predispositions.8 Kant’s notion of human nature is also the most prevalent issue in his philosophy. Indeed, if there is one specific issue on which the orthodox and heterodox readings can agree, it is the role of human nature in Kant’s

242 

J. Yab

philosophy. As the orthodox reading puts it in Brian Jacobs and Patrick Kain’s words, No other issue in Kant’s thought is as pervasive and persistent as that of human nature. Posed as the peculiarly Kantian question, what is the human being? That may be the sole concern that appears consistently from Kant’s earliest writings through the last. In Kant’s lectures—on logic, metaphysics, ethics, and education—it is difficult to find a text utterly free of anthropological observation. Reaching far beyond considerations of ethics and history, moreover, the question of human nature is also present in Kant’s most accurate reflections.9

Moreover, Robert Louden claims that Kant repeatedly claimed that the question ‘What is the human being?’ should be philosophy’s most fundamental concern, and over the years he approached the question from a variety of different perspectives. In addition to addressing this question indirectly under the guises of metaphysics, moral philosophy, and philosophy of religion, Kant broached the question directly in his extensive work on anthropology, history, and education.10

He repeated elsewhere that Kant asserts in three different texts that the question: ‘what is the human being?’ Is the most fundamental question in philosophy, one that encompasses all others (Logik 9: 25; cf. Letter to Staudlin of May 4, 1793, 11: 429; Politz 28: 533–34). Also, he adds that he is ‘answered by… anthropology’ (9:25), a subject on which he lectured annually beginning in 1772 and continuing up to his retirement from teaching in 1796. In 1798 he published Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, a work that he modestly described as “the present manual for my anthropological course” …So this particular text is the most obvious place to look for Kant’s own answer to the question “what is the human being?11

If Kant’s theory of race is about his conception of human nature, if human nature is the most pervasive question in Kant’s philosophy and if his anthropology is the right place to find his conception of human

8  Concluding Remarks 

243

nature, this indicates that anthropology is the core discipline of Kant’s philosophy. This implies that what is at stake in this book is the role of anthropology in Kant’s philosophy. It can be concluded at the end of the book that Kant’s anthropology is the foundation of his philosophy. Kant says in a letter written to his former student Marcus Herz in 1773 that the intention behind anthropology was “to disclose the bases of all sciences, the principle of morality, of skill, of human intercourse, of the method of modelling and governing men, and thus everything that pertains to the practical.”12 This is why he also says in the introduction to his Lectures on Logic that The field of philosophy, in this sense, may be reduced to the following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought to do? 3. What may I hope? 4. What is Man? The first question is answered by Metaphysics, the second by Morals, the third by Religion, and the fourth by Anthropology. In reality, however, all these might be reckoned under anthropology, since the first three questions refer to the last.13

The foundational role of Kant’s anthropology within his system was defended by Kant himself, who explicitly stated that he intended to transform it “into proper academic discipline.”14 I consider that he undoubtedly attained this goal. Thus, at the end of this book, I look at the questions I raised in the introduction, namely: What is the impact of Kantian racial theory on his thought in general and on his cosmopolitan project in particular? Is Kant an egalitarian or an inegalitarian Universalist thinker? Or rather, is he the symbol of the racist prejudices of his time? What is the impact of his racial hierarchy on his cosmopolitan law? These questions have found well-developed answers throughout my argument. There is also one question whose answer has been the object of systematic demonstration throughout this work, that of knowing whether Kant is racist. Throughout this book I have proven that Kant is a fundamentally racist thinker not because he made racist claims as many authors have defended, but because he developed the anthropology, the philosophy and the politics of racism in a systematic way. As I conclude this book, there are many questions that I have not covered, such as what to do with Kant’s racial theory.

244 

J. Yab

There are also other objections to his theory in the literature to which I could present new answers through the type of “heterodox reading” proposed above. But this will have to be the subject of another discussion on another occasion. However, before closing the book, I would like to share a letter that Kant wrote to Gottlieb Fichte on 7 August 1799, concerning his theory of science, to demonstrate that Kant was not the kind of thinker who changed his mind easily on theories that took him almost all his life to conceive. Although the letter does not talk about his race theory, it demonstrates Kant’s attitude when defending his system. We have seen how he defended his conception against Herder and Forster’s critiques. In the letter below Kant not only reiterates that his transcendental idealism has to be taken literally, but he also departs solemnly from Fichte’s interpretation which he qualifies “as totally indefensible system.” Fichte from the reading of Kant, developed a fundamentally reviewed version of the transcendental idealism, which he called Wissenschaftslehre (Doctrine of Scientific Knowledge). The letter reads: …I hereby declare that I regard Fichte’s Theory of Science [Wissenschaftslehre] as a totally indefensible system…I must remark here that the assumption that I have intended to publish only a propaedeutic to transcendental philosophy and not the actual system of this philosophy is incomprehensible to me…I took the completeness of pure philosophy within the Critique of Pure Reason to be the best indication of the truth of my work. Since some reviewers maintain that the Critique is not to be taken literally in what it says about sensibility and that anyone who wants to understand the Critique must first master the requisite “standpoint” (of Beck or of Fichte), because Kant’s precise words, like Aristotle’s, will kill the mind, I therefore declare again that the Critique is to be understood by considering exactly what it says and that it requires only the common standpoint that any cultivated mind will bring to such abstract investigations. There is an Italian proverb: May God protect us from our friends, and we shall watch out for our enemies ourselves. There are friends who mean well by us but who are doltish in choosing the means for promoting our ends. But there are also treacherous friends, deceitful, bent on our destruction while speaking the language of good will, and one cannot be

8  Concluding Remarks 

245

too cautious about such men and the snares they have set. Nevertheless, the critical philosophy must remain confident of its irresistible propensity to satisfy the theoretical as well as the moral, practical purposes of reason, confident that no change of opinions, no touching up or reconstruction into some other form, is in store for it; the system of the Critique rests on a fully secured foundation, established forever; it will be indispensable too for the noblest ends of mankind in all future ages.15

If we have to take Kant’s philosophy, his political thought and Western literature seriously, the lesson to learn from this book is to read him literally as he wished.

Notes 1. HERDER, J. G. & MANUEL, F. E. 1968. Reflections on the philosophy of the history of mankind. abridged, and with an introd., by Frank E. Manuel, Chicago; London, University of Chicago Press. 2. FANON, F. 1961. Les damnés de la terre: Avec une préface de Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris., Maspero. 3. SAID, E. W. 1993. Culture and imperialism, London, Chatto & Windus. 4. TAYLOR, C. 1992. Multiculturalism and “The politics of recognition”: an essay with commentary by Amy Gutmann… [et al.], Princeton, Princeton U.P. 5. YOUNG, I. M. 2011. Justice and the politics of difference, Princeton, N.J.; Woodstock, Princeton University Press. 6. Ibid. 7. KLEINGELD, P. 2014. Kant’s second thoughts on colonialism. In: FLIKSCHUH, K. & YPI, L. (eds.) Kant and Colonialism: Historical and Critical perspectives. first ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 43–67. 8. I am arguing that Kant certainly thought that the Negro race are human beings. However, their human nature is completely different from and inferior to the White race’s human nature. This line of thought can also be apprehended in the thought of Thomas Jefferson, who, while condemning slavery and arguing for the freedom of slaves on the grounds of their humanity, still believed that nature had traced indelible lines between the two races so that if the Negros were freed, they should be deported, as both races cannot live in the same land as equal human

246 

J. Yab

beings. He says: “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation peaceably and in such slow degree as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their place is pari passu filled up by free White labourers. If on the contrary it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up.” HUMMEL, J. R. 1996. Emancipating slaves, enslaving free men: a history of the American Civil War, Chicago, Open Court. 9. JACOBS, B. & KAIN, P. 2003. Essays on Kant’s anthropology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 1. 10. KANT, I., LOUDEN, R. B. & ZÖLLER, G. 2007. Anthropology, History, and Education, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 14. 11. LOUDEN, R. B. 2011. Kant’s human being: essays on his theory of human nature, New York, Oxford University Press, p. xvii. 12. KANT, I. & ZWEIG, A. 1967. Philosophical correspondence, 1759–99, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, p. 78. 13. KANT, I. & YOUNG, J. M. 1992. Lectures on logic, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 538. 14. KANT, I. & ZWEIG, A. 1967. Philosophical correspondence, 1759–99, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, p. 78. 15. Ibid., p. 253.

Bibliography

Kant’s Chronological Writings 1749 Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces. Tr. Jeffrey B. Edwards and Martin Schönfeld in Eric Watkins (ed.), 2012, pp. 11–155.

1754 Examination of the Question whether the Rotation of the Earth on its Axis, by which it Brings About the Alternation of Day and Night, has Undergone any Change Since its Origin, and How One Can be Certain of This, which was set by the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin as the Prize Question for the Current Year.” Tr. Olaf Reinhardt in Eric Watkins (ed.), 2012, pp 159–64. The Question, Whether the Earth is Ageing, Considered from a Physical Point of View. Tr. Olaf Reinhardt in Eric Watkins (ed.) (2012, 167–81).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Yab, Kant and the Politics of Racism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69101-1

247

248 Bibliography

1755 Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, or Essay on the Constitution and Mechanical Origin of the Entire Universe, treated in accordance with Newtonian Principles. Tr. W. Hastie in Hastie (1900). Tr.by Stanley L. Jaki in Jaki (1981). Tr. Olaf Reinhardt in Eric Watkins (ed.), 2012, pp. 191–308. Concise Outline of Some Reflections on Fire. Tr. Lewis White Beck in Beck (ed.), 1992, pp 16–33. And in Eric Watkins (ed.), 2012, pp 311–26. New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition. Tr. J. A. Reuscher in Beck (ed.), 1992, pp 42–83. Tr. David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Walford (ed.), 1992, pp 5–45.

1756 On the Causes of the Earthquakes, on the Occasion of the Calamity that befell the Western Countries of Europe towards the End of Last Year. Tr. Olaf Reinhardt in Eric Watkins (ed.), 2012, pp 329–36. History and Natural Description of the Most Noteworthy Occurrences of the Earthquake that Struck a Large Part of the Earth at the End of the Year 1755. Tr. Olaf Reinhardt in Eric Watkins (ed.), 2012, pp. 339–64. Continued Observations of the Terrestrial Convulsions that have been perceived for Some Time, Tr. Olaf Reinhardt in Eric Watkins (ed.), 2012, pp. 367–373. The Employment in Natural Philosophy of Metaphysics combined with Geometry, of which Sample One Contains the Physical Monadology. Tr. Lewis White Beck in Beck (ed.), 1992, pp 92–106. Tr. David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Eric Walford (ed.), 1992, pp 51–66. New Notes to Explain the Theory of the Winds, in which, at the same time, he Invites Attendance at his Lectures. Königsberg, the 25th of April 1756.” Tr. Olaf Reinhardt in Eric Watkins ed.), 2012, pp 375–85.

1757 Plan and Announcement of a Series of Lectures on Physical Geography, with an Appendix Containing a Brief Consideration of the Question, Whether the West Winds in our Regions are Moist because they Travel over a Great Sea. Tr. in part as Appendix 1 in Bolin (ed), 1968, 224–33. Tr. Olaf Reinhardt in Eric Watkins (ed.) 2012, pp 387–95.

 Bibliography 

249

1758 New Doctrine of Motion and Rest, and the Conclusions associated with it in the Fundamental Principles of Natural Science, while at the same time his lectures for this semester are announced, the 1st of April 1758. Tr. Olaf Reinhardt in Eric Watkins (ed.) 2012, pp 399–408.

1759 An Attempt at Some Reflections on Optimism by Immanuel Kant, also containing an announcement of his lectures for the coming semester. 7th October 1759. Tr. David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Eric Walford (ed.), 1992, pp 67–83.

1760 Thoughts on the Premature Death of Mr. Johann Friedrich von Funk. Tr. Margot Wielgus, Nelli Haase, Patrick Frierson, and Paul Guyer in Frierson/Guyer (ed.), 2011, pp 3–8.

1762 The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures Demonstrated by M. Immanuel Kant. Tr. (1992). David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Eric Walford (ed.), 89–105.

1763 The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God. Tr. Gordon Treash in Treash (ed.), 1979. Tr. by David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Eric Walford (ed.), 1992, pp 111–201. Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy. Tr. David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Eric Walford (ed.), 1992, pp 207–41.

250 Bibliography

1764 Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime. Tr. John T. Goldthwait in Goldthwait [1960] in Günter Zölle (r Ed.). Tr. Paul Guyer in Zöller/ Louden, 2007, pp 23–62. Inquiry concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality. Tr. David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Eric Walford (ed.), 1992, pp 247–75.

1765 Announcement of the Programme of his Lectures for the Winter Semester 1765–1766. Tr. David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Eric Walford (ed.), 1992, pp 291–300.

1766 Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics. Tr. David Walford and Ralf

1768 Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space. Translated by David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Eric Walford (ed.), 1992, pp 365–72.

1770 On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible World. Tr. Lewis White Beck in Beck (ed.), 1992, pp 121–57. Translated David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Walford (ed.), 1992, pp 377–416. The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God.” Tr. Gordon Treash in Treash (ed.), 1979. Tr. David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Eric Walford (ed), 1992, pp 111–201.

 Bibliography 

251

Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy. Tr. David Walford and Ralf Meerbote in Eric Walford (ed.), 1992, pp 207–41.

1771 Review of Moscati’s Work: Of the Corporeal Essential Differences between the Structure of Animals and Humans. Tr. Günter Zöller in Zöller/Louden (ed.), 2007, pp 79–81.

1775 Of the Different Races of Human Beings, and to announce the lectures on physical geography for the summer semester 1775. Tr Jon Mark Mikkelsen in Mikkelsen (ed.), 2013, pp 41–54, 55–71. The 1775 lecture announcement and the 1777 revised essay, Ed. Günter Zöller, tr. Holly Wilson and Günter Zöller in Zöller/Louden (ed.), 2007, pp 84–97.

1776 Essays Regarding the Philanthropinum. Ed. and tr. by Robert Louden in Zöller/ Louden (ed.)

1781 Critique of Pure Reason. Tr. Norman Kemp Smith in Kemp Smith (ed.), 1929. Tr. Werner Pluhar in Pluhar (ed.), 1996. Tr. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood in Guyer/Wood (ed.), 1997.

1782 A Notice of Johann Bernoulli’s Edition of Lambert’s Correspondence. Tr. Eric Watkins in Eric Watkins (ed.), 2012, pp 415–17. A Note to Physicians. Ed. and tr. Günter Zöller in Zöller/Louden (ed.), 2007, p 106.

252 Bibliography

1783 Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics that will be able to come forward as a Science. Tr Lewis White Beck in Beck (ed.), 1950. Tr. James W. Ellington in Ellington (ed.), 1977. Tr. Gary Hatfield in Allison/Heath (ed.), 2002, pp 51–169. Review of Johann Heinrich Schulz’s Essay on the Moral Instruction of all Humans, regardless of their Religion. Tr. Mary J. Gregor in Gregor (ed.), 1996, pp 7–10.

1784 Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. Tr Ted Humphrey in Humphrey (ed.), 1983a, pp 29–39. Ed Günter Zöller, tr Allen W. Wood in Zöller/Louden (ed.), 2007, pp 108–20. An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? Tr Ted Humphrey in Humphrey (ed.), 1983a, pp 41–46. Tr Mary J. Gregor in Gregor (ed.), 1996, pp 17–22.

1785 Review of Herder, Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Humanity. Tr H. B. Nisbet in Reiss (ed.), 1991, pp 201–20. Edited by Günter Zöller, translated by Allen W. Wood in Zöller/Louden (ed.), 2007, pp 124–42. Errinerungen des Rezensenten der Herderschen Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit über ein im Februar des Teutschen Merkur gegen diese Rezension gerichtetes Schreiben in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, Appendix to the March issue (2 pp., unpaginated). “Rezension zu Johann Gottfried Herder, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (Zweiter Teil)” in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, #271, 15 November 1785, pp. 153–56. On the Volcanoes on the Moon. Tr Olaf Reinhardt in Eric Watkins (ed.), 2012, pp 419–25]. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Tr Lewis White Beck in Beck (ed.), 1949. Tr James Ellington in Ellington (ed.), 1981. Tr Mary J. Gregor in Gregor (ed.), 1996, pp 43–108. Determination of the Concept of a Human Race. Tr Jon Mark Mikkelsen in Mikkelsen (ed.), 2013, pp 125–41. Ed Günter Zöller, tr Holly Wilson and Günter Zöller in Zöller/Louden (ed.) 2007, pp 145–59.

 Bibliography 

253

1786 Conjectural Beginning of Human History. Tr Ted Humphrey in Humphrey (ed.), 1983a, pp 49–59. Tr H. B. Nisbet in Reiss (ed.), 1991, pp 221–34. Ed Günter Zöller, tr Allen W. Wood in Zöller/Louden (ed.), 2007, pp 163–75. Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Tr James W. Ellington in Ellington (ed.), 1970. Tr Michael Friedman in Allison/Heath [2002, 171–270], slightly revised in Friedman [2004]. Review of Gottlieb Hufeland’s Essay on the Principle of Natural Right. Tr Allen W. Wood in Gregor (ed.), 1996, pp 115–17. Some Remarks on L. H. Jakob’s Examination of Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden. Tr Günter Zöller in Zöller/Louden (ed.), 2007, pp 178–81.

1787 Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd edition See entry for the 1st edition; transl. Zweig 1999, 249].

1788 Critique of Practical Reason. Tr Lewis White Beck in Beck (ed.), 1949. Tr Mary J. Gregor in Gregor (ed.), 1996, pp 139–271. Tr Werner S. Pluhar in Pluhar (ed.), 2002. On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy. Tr Jon Mark Mikkelsen in Mikkelsen (ed.), 2013, pp 169–94. Tr Günter Zöller in Zöller/Louden (ed.), [2007, pp 195–218. Kraus’s Review of Ulrich’s Eleutheriologie. Tr Mary J. Gregor in Gregor (ed.), 1996, pp 125–31. On the Philosophers’ Medicine of the Body. Tr by Mary J. Gregor in Beck (ed.), 1992, pp 228–43 and in Zöller/Louden (ed.), 2007, pp 184–91.

1789 First Introduction to the Critique of the Power of Judgment. Tr James Haden in Haden (ed.). Tr James Haden in Haden (ed.), 1965. Tr Werner S. Pluhar in Pluhar (ed.), 1987, pp 385–441. Tr Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews in Guyer (ed.), 2000, pp 3–51.

254 Bibliography

1790 Critique of the Power of Judgment. Tr Werner S. Pluhar in Pluhar (ed.), 1987. Tr Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews in Guyer (ed.), 2000. On the Propensity to Fanaticism and the Means to Oppose it. Tr by Arnulf Zweig in Zweig (ed.), 1999, pp 337–39]. On a Discovery, whereby Any New Critique of Pure Reason is to be Made Superfluous by an Older One. Tr Henry E. Allison in Allison (ed.), 1973 and in Allison/ Heath (ed.), 2002, pp 283–336.

1791 On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy. Tr George di Giovanni in Wood/di Giovanni (ed.), 1996, pp 24–37.

1793 Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. Translated by Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson as Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (New York: Harper & Row, 1960). Translated by George di Giovanni in Wood/di Giovanni [1996, 57–215]. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar as “Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason” in Pluhar [2009]. What Real Progress Has Metaphysics Made in Germany since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff? Tr Ted Humphrey in Humphrey (ed.) 1983. Tr Peter Heath in Allison/Heath (ed.), 2002, pp 351–424. On the Common Saying: ‘That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice. Translated by Ted Humphrey in Humphrey [1983a, 61–89]. Translated by Mary J. Gregor in Gregor [1996, 279–309].

1794 Something Concerning the Influence of the Moon on the Weather. Tr Olaf Reinhardt in Eric Watkins (ed.), 2012, pp 427–33. The End of All Things. Tr Ted Humphrey in Humphrey (ed.), 1983a, pp 93–103. Tr Allen W. Wood in Wood/di Giovanni (ed.), 1996, pp 221–31.

 Bibliography 

255

1795 Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Project. Tr Ted Humphrey in Humphrey (ed.), 1983a, pp 107–39. Tr H. B. Nisbet in Reiss (ed.), 1991, pp 93–130. Tr Mary J. Gregor in Gregor (ed.), 1996, pp 317–51.

1796 On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy. Tr Peter Fenves in Fenves (Ed.) 1993, pp 51–72. Tr Peter Heath in Allison/Heath (ed.), 2002, pp 431–45.

1796 Remarks on Sömmering’s On the Organ of the Soul. Ed Günter Zöller, tr Arnulf Zweig in Zöller/Louden (ed.), 2007, pp 222–26. Settlement of a Mathematical Dispute Founded on Misunderstanding. Tr Peter Heath in Allison/Heath (ed.), 2002, p449 Proclamation of the Imminent Conclusion of a Treaty of Perpetual Peace in Philosophy. Tr Peter Fenves in Fenves (ed.), 1993, pp 83–93. Tr Peter Heath in Allison/Heath (ed.), 2002, pp 453–60.

1797 The Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by John Ladd in Ladd (ed.), 1999; tr Mary J. Gregor in Gregor (ed.), 1996, pp 365–492, 509–603. Declaration against Schlettwein. Tr. Arnulf Zweig in Zweig (ed.), pp 1999, 510–11. On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy. Tr Mary J. Gregor in Gregor (ed.), 1996, pp 611–15.

1798 On Turning Out Books. Two Letters to Mr. Friedrich Nicolai from Immanuel Kant. Tr Allen W. Wood in Gregor (ed.), 1996, pp 623–27.

256 Bibliography

Explanatory Notes on the Metaphysical Foundations of the Doctrine of Right. Tr Mary J. Gregor in Gregor (ed.), 1996, pp 492–506. The Conflict of the Faculties. Tr by Mary J. Gregor and Robert Anchor in Wood/ di Giovanni (ed.), 1996, pp 239–327. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Tr Mary J. Gregor in Gregor (ed.), 1974. Tr Victor Lyle Dowdell in Dowdell (ed.), 1978. Tr Robert B. Louden in Louden (ed.), 2006 and Zöller/Louden, 2007, pp 231–429. Declaration Regarding Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre. Tr Arnulf Zweig in Zweig (ed.), 1999, pp 559–60. Preface to Reinhold Bernhard Jachmann’s Examination of the Kantian Philosophy of Religion. Tr Allen W. Wood in Wood/di Giovanni (ed.), 1996, pp 333–34. Logic. Tr Robert Hartman and Wolfgang Schwartz in Hartman/Schwartz (ed.), 1974. Tr J. Michael Young in Young (ed.), 1992, pp 521–640.

1802 Immanuel Kant’s Physical Geography. Tr Ronald Bolin (Indiana University thesis, 1968). Tr. Olaf Reinhardt in Watkins (ed.), 2012, pp 441–679.

1803 On Pedagogy. Tr. Annette Churton in Churton (ed.), 1899. Tr. Robert Louden in Zöller/Louden (ed), 2007, pp 437–85. Opus postumum. Tr. Eckart Förster and Michael Rosen in Förster (ed.), 1993.

Works Cited Agutter, P. S., & Wheatley, D. N. (2008). Thinking about life: The history and philosophy of biology and other sciences (p. 129). Springer. Aristotle, Fine, G., & Irwin, T. (1996). Aristotle: Introductory readings. Hackett Pub. Barnard, F. M. (2003). Herder on nationality, humanity, and history. McGill-­ Queen’s University Press. Bechler, Z. (1991). Newton’s physics and the conceptual structure of the scientific revolution. Kluwer Academic.

 Bibliography 

257

Bernasconi, R. (2001). Who invented the concept of race? Kant’s role in the enlightenment construction of race. In R. Bernasconi (Ed.), Race (p. 14). Blackwell Publishers. Bernasconi, R. (2002). Kant as an unfamiliar source of racism. In J. K. Ward & T. L. Lott (Eds.), Philosophers on race: Critical essays (p. 157). Blackwell. Bernasconi, R. (2003). Race and anthropology. Thoemmes. Bernasconi, R. (2011). Kant’s third thoughts on race. In S. Elden & E. Mendieta (Eds.), Reading Kant’s geography (pp. 291–318). SUNY Press; University Presses Marketing [distributor]. Bernasconi, R., & Lott, T. L. (2000). The idea of race. Hackett Pub. Co. Boxill, B. R., & Hill, T. E. (2001). Kant and race. In B. R. Boxill (Ed.), Race and racism (pp. 448–472). Oxford University Press. Cohen, I. B., & Smith, G. E. (2002). The Cambridge companion to Newton. Cambridge University Press. Cohen-Halimi, M., Marcuzzi, M., & Seroussi, V. (1999). Kant Geographie. Aubier. Eze, E. C. (1997). The color of reason: The idea of ‘Race’ in Kant’s anthropology. In E. C. EZE (Ed.), Postcolonial African philosophy: A critical reader (pp. 117–118). Blackwell. Eze, E. C. (1997). The color of reason: The Idea of race in Kant’s philosophy. In E. C. Eze (Ed.), Postcolonial African philosophy: A critical reader (p. 119). Blackwell. Eze, E. C. (1997). The color of reason: The Idea of race in Kant anthropology. In E. C. Eze (Ed.), Postcolonial African philosophy: A critical reader (p. 120). Blackwell. Eze, E. C. (1997). The color of reason: The Idea of Race in Kant anthropology. In E. C. Eze (Ed.), Postcolonial African philosophy: A critical reader (p. 130). Blackwell. Eze, E. C. (1997). Postcolonial African philosophy: A critical reader. Blackwell. Eze, E. C. (1997). Race and the Enlightenment: A reader. Blackwell. Eze, E. C. (2001). Achieving our humanity: The idea of the postracial future. Routledge. Fanon, F. (1961). Les damnés de la terre: Avec une préface de Jean-Paul Sartre. Maspero. Fenves, P. D. (2003). Late Kant: Towards another law of the earth (pp. 103–105). Routledge. Figal, S. E., & Larrimore, M. J. (2006). The German invention of race. State University of New York Press.

258 Bibliography

Flikschuh, K., & Ypi, L. (2014). Kant on colonialism- apologist or critic? In K. Flikschuh & L. Ypi (Eds.), Kant and colonialism: Historical and critical perspectives (1st ed., p. 3). Oxford University Press. Fox, C., Porter, R., & Wokler, R. (1995). Inventing human science: Eighteenth-­ century domains (p. 132). University of California Press. Gilli, M. (Ed.). (2005). Un révolutionnaire allemand. Georg Forster (1754–1794). Éditions du CTHS. Gregory, M. E. (2008). Evolutionism in eighteenth-century French thought (p. 84). Peter Lang. Harvey, D. (2011). Cosmopolitanism in the anthropology and geography. In S. Elden & E. Mendieta (Eds.), Reading Kant’s geography (p. 267). SUNY Press; University Presses Marketing [distributor]. Herder, J. G., & Barnard, F. M. (1969). J. G. Herder on social and political culture (F. M. Barnard. Trans, Ed., and with an Intro, p. 282). Cambridge University Press. Herder, J. G., & Churchill, T. O. (1800). Outlines of a philosophy of the history of man (T. Churchill, Trans., p. 348). Herder, J. G., & Churchill, T. O. (1803). Outlines of a philosophy of the history of man (T. Churchill, Trans., p. 349). Herder, J. G., & Manuel, F. E. (1968). Reflections on the philosophy of the history of mankind (Abridged, and with an Intro., Frank E. Manuel). Chicago; London, University of Chicago Press. Hetherington, N. S. (1993). Encyclopedia of cosmology: Historical, philosophical, and scientific foundations of modern cosmology (p. 338). Garland Pub. Home, H. L. K. (1778). Sketches of the history of man. In Online Library of Liberty (2007 ed.). Online Library of Liberty. Hoquet, T. (2014). Biologization of race and racialization of the human: Bernier, Buffon, Linnaeus. In N. Bancel, T. David, & D. R. D. Thomas (Eds.), The invention of race: Scientific and popular representations (pp. 17–32). Routledge. Hummel, J. R. (1996). Emancipating slaves, enslaving free men: A history of the American Civil War. Open Court. Jacobs, B., & Kain, P. (2003). Essays on Kant’s anthropology (p. 1). Cambridge University Press. Judy, R. (1991). Kant and the Negro. Surfaces [Online], 1, 8. Kant, I. (1784). Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view. In Marxists Internet Archive (1963 ed.). Marxists Internet Archive. Kant, I. (1960). Religion within the limits of reason alone. Open Court Pub. Co.

 Bibliography 

259

Kant, I. (1992). The only possible argument in support of a demonstration of the existence of God. In D. Walford & R. Meerbote (Eds.), Theoretical philosophy, 1755–1770 (p. 158). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (1992). Perpetual peace: A philosophical essay. Thoemmes Press. Kant, I. (1996). The metaphysics of morals. In M. J. Gregor (Ed.), Practical philosophy (p. 409). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 415). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 385). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 232). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 315). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 420). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 417). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 387). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 238). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, History, and Education (p. 383). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, History, and Education (p. 415). Cambridge University Press.

260 Bibliography

Kant, I. (2007). Determination of the concept of a human race. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 146). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Determination of the concept of race. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 151). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Determination of the concept of race. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 159). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Determination of the concept of race. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 145). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Determination of the concept of race. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 150). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Determination of the concept of race. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 147). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Determination of the concept of race. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 158). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Determination of the concept of race. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 156). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (pp. 107–120). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 111). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim. In G. Zoller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history and education (p. 109). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Observation of the feeling of the beautiful and the sublime. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 31). Cambridge University Press.

 Bibliography 

261

Kant, I. (2007). Observation of the feeling of the beautiful and the sublime. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 32). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Observation of the feeling of the beautiful and the sublime. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 23). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Observation of the feeling of the beautiful and the sublime. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 35). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Observation of the feeling of the beautiful and the sublime. In G. Zöller & R. B. Louden (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 59). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Of the different races of human beings. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 89). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Of the different races of human beings. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 92). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Of the different races of human beings. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 94). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Of the different races of human beings. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 85). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Of the different races of human beings. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 97). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Of the different races of human beings. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 84). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Of the different races of human beings. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 95). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Of the different races of human beings. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 90). Cambridge University Press.

262 Bibliography

Kant, I. (2007). On the use of teleological principles in philosophy. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 209). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). On the use of teleological principles in philosophy. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 202). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). On the use of teleological principles in philosophy. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 200). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). On the use of teleological principles in philosophy. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 209). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). On the use of teleological principles in philosophy. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 197). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). On the use of teleological principles in philosophy. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 195). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). On the use of teleological principles in philosophy. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, history, and education (p. 208). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2007). Review of J. G. Herder’s ideas for the philosophy of the history of humanity. In R. B. Louden & G. Zoller (Eds.), Anthropology, History, and Education (p. 142). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., Doyle, M. W., Kleingeld, P., Waldron, J., & Wood, A. W. (2006). Toward perpetual peace and other writings on politics, peace, and history. Yale University Press. Kant, I., & Gregor, M. (1996). The metaphysics of morals (p. 158). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., & Gregor, M. (1997). Critique of practical reason. Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., & Gregor, M. (1998). Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals (p. 3). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., & Gregor, M. J. (1996). The metaphysics of morals (p. 159). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., & Gregor, M. J. (1996). Practical philosophy. Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., & Guyer, P. (2000). Critique of the power of judgement. Cambridge University Press.

 Bibliography 

263

Kant, I., Guyer, P., & Wood, A. W. (1998). Critique of pure reason (p. 101). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., Guyer, P., & Wood, A. W. (1998). Critique of pure reason. Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., & Johnston, I. (2008). Universal natural history and theory of the heavens (p. 8). Richer Resources Publications. Kant, I., Kleingeld, P., Waldron, J., Doyle, M. W., & Wood, A. W. (2006). Toward perpetual peace and other writings on politics, peace, and history (pp. 87–88). Yale University Press. Kant, I., & Kuehn, M. (2006). Introduction. In R. B. Louden (Ed.), Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view (p. xi). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., & Ladd, J. (1999). Metaphysical elements of justice: Part I of the metaphysics of morals (p. 18). Hackett Pub. Co.. Kant, I., & Louden, R. B. (2006). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., Louden, R. B., & Zoller, G. (2007). Anthropology, history, and education (p. 14). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., & Pluhar, W. S. (2002). Critique of practical reason (p. 29). Hackett Pub. Co.. Kant, I., Wood, A. W., & Di Giovanni, G. (1998). Religion within the boundaries of mere reason and other writings (p. 52). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., & Young, J. M. (1992). Lectures on logic (p. 538). Cambridge University Press. Kant, I., & Zweig, A. (1967). Philosophical correspondence, 1759–99 (p. 78). University of Chicago Press. Keen, B. (1971). The Aztec image in western thought (p. 251). Rutgers University Press (1990 [printing]). Kleingeld, P. (1998). Kant’s cosmopolitan law: World citizenship for a global order. Kantian Review, 2, 72–90. Kleingeld, P. (2007). Kant’s second thoughts on race. Philosophical Quarterly, 57, 573–592. Kleingeld, P. (2007). Kant’s second thoughts on race. Philosophical Quarterly, 57(229), 573–592. Kleingeld, P. (2007). Kant’s second thoughts on race. Philosophical Quarterly, 57(229), 588. Kleingeld, P. (2009). Kant’s changing cosmopolitanism. In A. Rorty & J. Schmidt (Eds.), Kant’s Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim: A critical guide (pp. 171–186). Cambridge University Press.

264 Bibliography

Kleingeld, P. (2014). Kant’s second thoughts on colonialism. In K. Flikschuh & L. Ypi (Eds.), Kant and colonialism: Historical and critical perspectives (1st ed., pp. 43–67). Oxford University Press. Lang, H. S. (1998). The order of nature in Aristotle’s physics: Place and the elements. Cambridge University Press. Larrimore, M. (2008). Antinomies of race: Diversity and destiny in Kant. Patterns of Prejudice, 42, 360. Larrimore, M. (2008). Antinomies of race: Diversity and destiny in Kant. Patterns of Prejudice [Online], 42, 360. Larrimore, M. (2008). Antinomies of race: Diversity and destiny in Kant. Patterns of Prejudice, 42, 341–363. Larrimore, M. (2008). Antinomies of race: Diversity and destiny in Kant. Patterns of Prejudice, 42, 359. Le Clerc, G. L. C. D. B. (1749). L’histoire Naturelle. Buffon et l’histoire naturelle: L’édition en ligne cnrs. Lefevre, W. (2001). Between Leibniz, Newton, and Kant: Philosophy and science in the eighteenth century. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Leunissen, M. (2010). Explanation and teleology in Aristotle’s science of nature. Cambridge University Press. Linnaeus, C. (1735). Systema naturae. In: B. H. Library (ed.), Biodiversity Heritage Library. 09/11/2007 ed.: Biodiversity Heritage Library. Louden, R. B. (1992). Morality and moral theory: A reappraisal and reaffirmation (pp. 101–102). Oxford University Press. Louden, R. B. (2000). Kant’s impure ethics: From rational beings to human beings (p. 105). Oxford University Press. Louden, R. B. (2011). Kant’s human being: Essays on his theory of human nature (p. xvii). Oxford University Press. Mahner, M., & Bunge, M. (1997). Foundations of biophilosophy (p. 277). Springer. Mallon, R. (2010). Sources of racialism. Journal of Social Philosophy, 41, 272–292. McCarthy, T. (2009). Race, empire and the idea of human development (pp. 42–68). Cambridge University Press. Mills, C. W. (1997). The racial contract. Cornell University. Mills, C. W. (1998). Blackness visible: Essays on philosophy and race. Cornell University Press. Mills, C. W. (2005). Kant’s Untermenschen. In A. Valls (Ed.), Race and racism in modern philosophy (pp. 169–193). Cornell University Press.

 Bibliography 

265

Mills, C. W. (2005). Kant’s Untermenschen. In: A. Valls (Ed.), Race and racism in modern philosophy (pp. 169–194). Cornell University Press [Bristol: University Presses Marketing distributor]. Muthu, S. (2003). Enlightenment against empire. Princeton University Press. Muthu, S. (2012). Empire and modern political thought (p. 221). Cambridge University Press. Orend, B. (2000). War and international justice: A Kantian perspective (p. 43). Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Oruka, H. O. E. (1990). The racism of Kant and Hegel. In H. O. E. Oruka (Ed.), Sage philosophy: Indigenous thinkers and modern debate on African philosophy (pp. 259–274). Brill. Paley, W., Eddy, M., & Knight, D. M. (2006). Natural theology: Or, evidence of the existence and attributes of the deity, collected from the appearances of nature. Oxford University Press. Reath, A. (2006). Agency and autonomy in Kant’s moral theory. Clarendon Press. Reill, P. H. (2005). Vitalizing nature in the Enlightenment (p. 40). University of California Press. Robert, J. S. (2004). Embryology, epigenesis, and evolution: Taking development seriously. Cambridge University Press. Rölli, M. (2010). Person and character in Kant’s anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In S. Palmquist (Ed.), Cultivating personhood: Kant and Asian philosophy (pp. 447–454). De Gruyter. Said, E. W. (1993). Culture and imperialism. Chatto & Windus. Saito, N. T. (2010). Meeting the enemy: American exceptionalism and international law (p. 48). New York University Press. Scott, J. B. (2003). The Spanish origin of international law: Francisco de Vitoria and his law of nations (p. 151). Gaunt. Sensen, O. (2012). Kant on moral autonomy. Cambridge University Press. Shell, S. M. (1996). The embodiment of reason: Kant on spirit, generation, and community. University of Chicago Press. Shell, S. M. (2009). Kant and the limits of autonomy. Harvard University Press. Sloan, P. R. (2006). Kant on the history of nature: The ambiguous heritage of the critical philosophy for natural history. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 37, 627. Sloan, P. R. (2006). Kant on the history of nature: The ambiguous heritage of the critical philosophy for natural history. Studies in History and Philosophy of

266 Bibliography

Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 37, 633. Taylor, C. (1992). Multiculturalism and “The politics of recognition”: An essay with commentary by Amy Gutmann… [et al.]. Princeton University Press. Timmons, T. (2012). Makers of western science: The works and words of 24 visionaries from Copernicus to Watson and Crick. McFarland & Co. Tully, J. (2008). Public philosophy in a new key, Vol II: Imperialism and civic freedom. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol II: Imperialism and civic freedom (p. 145). Cambridge University Press. Tully, J. (2008). Public philosophy in a new key, Vol II: Imperialism and civic freedom. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol II: Imperialism and civic freedom (pp. 131–132). Cambridge University Press. Tully, J. (2008). Public philosophy in a new key, Vol II: Imperialism and civic freedom. Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol II: Imperialism and civic freedom (p. 147). Cambridge University Press. Tully, J. (2008). Public philosophy in a new key, Volume II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom (p. 19). Cambridge University Press. Williams, H. (2014). Colonialism in Kant’s political philosophy. An Online Journal of Philosophy Diametros [Online], 39. http://www.diametros.iphils. uj.edu.pl/index.php/diametros/article/view/570 Wilson, H. L. (2006). Kant’s pragmatic anthropology: Its origin, meaning, and critical significance (p. 2). State University of New York Press. Wood, A. W. (1999). Kant’s ethical thought (p. 3). Cambridge University Press. Young, I. M. (2011). Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton University Press. Ypi, L. (2014). Commerce and colonialism in Kant’s philosophy. In K. Flikschuh & L. Ypi (Eds.), Kant and colonialism: Historical and critical perspectives (1st ed., pp. 99–126). Oxford University Press. Zammito, J. H. (1992). The genesis of Kant’s critique of judgment. University of Chicago Press. Zammito, J. H. (1992). The genesis of Kant’s critique of judgment (p. 185). University of Chicago Press.

Index

A

Abstract, 66, 70 and physical truths, 69–71 Accurate, 70 Acquisition, 207 Active nature, 225 Activity, 153–155 Adaptations, 119 Addressees, 12, 190, 219, 225 Adopted virtues, 55 Affects, 22 Africa, 37, 113, 155 Africans, 52 African slaves, 205 Aim of history, 192 Air, 103 Alien, 225 Alkaline, 85 All-natural, 177 America, 113, 228

Anarchic, 196 Anatomy, 118 Ancestry, 52 Anger, 178 Animality, 48, 173 Animals, 71 Anthropological, 3, 8 Anthropological Charakteristik, 11, 19, 137, 140, 148, 182, 212 Anthropologist, 96 Anthropology, 4, 13, 42, 44, 112, 191, 192 Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798), 32, 142, 152, 173, 237 Anthropology, History, and Education, 219 Anti-colonialism, 12, 197 Antidote, 136 Anti-empiricist, 10, 90

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Yab, Kant and the Politics of Racism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69101-1

267

268 Index

Anti-Herderian, 104 Antinomies of Race: Diversity and Destiny in Kant, 108 Apologetic methodology, 27 Apologetics, 4, 8, 20, 237 A posteriori, 95, 238 Appearance, 162 A priori, 21, 95 A priori conception, 238 A priori justification, 95 A priori knowledge, 46 A priori principle, 113 Aptitude, 155 Arab (Spaniard of the Orient), 34 Arbitrary, 70 Archimedes, 180 Architecture—poetry, 34 Aristocracy, 54 Aristotelian conception of Nature, 67 Arithmetic reason, 43 Arts, 36, 42, 54, 150 Arts & Sciences, 34 Asia, 33, 112 Asians, 52 Assimilation, 168 Association, 78 Assumptions, 7, 13, 27, 195 Attractive forces, 71 Autonomous, 25 B

Barbarians, 223 Beautiful, 34, 162 Beautiful and sublime, 37, 154, 206 Beauty, 37, 40, 153 Bellum iustum, 224 Beneficiaries, 220 Bernasconi, R., 22, 52, 169

Biological, 67, 77, 139, 208 Biological group, 51 Biological heritage, 181 Biological lineage, 88 Biology, 180 Black, 9, 73, 146, 221 Black African, 109, 168, 226 Black hair, 73 Black in Africa, 83 Blacks, 36 Blood, 108, 110 Blue eyes, 73 Blumenbach, 86, 121 Bodies, 67 Boxill, B. R., 25, 50, 137 Breeding, 172 Britain, 195 Buffon, 21, 67–71, 118 C

Caloyers, 161 Capacities, 36, 168 Capacities of mind, 155 Cape, 221, 228 Caprice, 73 Career, 7, 35 Careless, 73 Castilian conquista, 223 Categorical imperatives, 3, 23, 25, 27, 123 Category, 171 Catholic churches, 54 Causal, 168 Causality, 112 Causes, 82–87, 145 Celestial system, 72 Central claims, 4, 27, 191 Central ideas, 49

 Index 

Central/peripheral, 5 Character, 6, 34 Characteristic, 23, 202 Characteristic of human dignity, 142 Characterization, 150 Character of a nation, 104 Character of persons, 149, 152–153 Character of Races, 166 Character of the beauty and dignity of human nature, 203 Character of the feeling of beauty, 40 Character of the human being, 9 Character of the People, 171 The character of the races, 174 Characterological, 22 Charakteristik, 3, 5, 8, 19, 238 Chemical Revolution, 180 Chemistry, 180 Childish, 100 Children, 79 China, 196 Chinese, 34, 37, 163 Choleric, 19, 41, 55 Choleric person, 157 Choleric temperament, 156 Christian, 176 Citizens, 26 Citizens of earth, 220 Civil constitution, 193 Civilisation, 169, 201 Civilized, 159 Civil society, 196 Classifications, 21, 121 Classy, 7 Cleanliness, 109 Climates, 9, 123, 203 Coercion, 228 Cognition, 46

269

Cognitive, 208 Cognitive apparatus, 46 Cold-blooded, 155 Cold climate, 84 Colonial, 135 Colonialism, 26, 194, 195, 204, 205, 218, 221 Colonial rule, 205 Colonies, 205 Colonized, 223 Colonizers, 223 Colour of blood, 85 The Colour of Reason: The idea of “Race” in Kant’s Anthropology, 20 Colours, 6, 8, 36 Commands of reason, 123 Commerce and Colonialism in Kant’s Philosophy, 12, 207 Commercial, 193 Common ancestry, 52 Common descent, 52 Common origin, 138 Common phylum, 6, 88, 116 Communication, 196 Communicative, 193 Communities, 53, 102 Comparative perspective, 139 Competition, 207 Complaisance, 154 Completeness, 35, 81, 147 The completeness character of the white race, 13 The completeness character of the White race with its subsequent problem, the incompleteness character of the race of the natives of America, 5

270 Index

The completeness of the character of the White race, 8, 32–35, 97, 142, 204, 238 The completeness of the White race, 108 Completion, 149 Concept of race, 9 Condemnation, 205, 220 Confusions, 3, 42 Consistency, 137 Consistent egalitarian, 1 Constitutional, 194 Constitutive principles, 21 Contemporary, 190 Contemporary debate, 7 Content, 12, 219 Continents, 26, 160 Contingency, 39, 79 Contingent, 146 Contradictions, 42 Copernican revolution, 46 Copper-red Americans, 111 Cornerstone, 8 Cosmetic effect, 2 Cosmological, 169 Cosmopolis, 105 Cosmopolitan, 6, 160 Cosmopolitan addressees, 219 Cosmopolitan community, 105 Cosmopolitan condition, 202 Cosmopolitan content, 225–229 Cosmopolitan ideal, 216, 218 Cosmopolitanism, 3, 6, 7, 12, 52, 136, 190, 192, 194, 195, 214 Cosmopolitanism addressees, 222 Cosmopolitanism in the Anthropology and Geography, 192 Cosmopolitan law, 220 Cosmopolitan project, 7, 12

Cosmopolitan right, 1, 3, 52, 135, 190, 192, 196, 197, 201, 219–222, 225 Cosmopolitan universalism, 197 Courtly, 34 Crafty, 73 Creole Negroes, 226 Critical period, 135 Critical philosophy, 75 Criticism, 239 Critique of Judgment, 2, 49 Critique of Practical Reason, 2, 123 Critique of Pure Reason (1781), 2, 45–47, 96, 105, 110, 112 Critique of Pure Reason (1788), 75 Critique of Teleological Judgment, 49 Critique of the Power of Judgment, 176 Critiques, 2, 191 Cultivation, 150, 201 Cultural development, 168 Cultural distinctiveness, 159 Cultural diversity, 240 Culture, 102, 150, 181 Culture of skill, 176 D

Dark eyes, 73 De facto, 12, 229 De facto exclusive form of right, 240 Defenders, 23, 27 Definitive articles, 225 Degenerated, 74 Degenerated adventurous, 34 Degeneration/regeneration, 80 De generis humani varietate nativa (On the Natural Variety of Mankind, 167

 Index 

De Indis Noviter Inventis, 223 De jure form of right, 240 Democratic freedom, 240 Demonstrative, 70 De-philogistise, 110 De-phlogiston, 85, 108 Derogative comments, 2–4, 191 Descartes, René, 124 Description of nature, 120, 121 Determinate principle, 121, 122 Determination of the Concept of a Human Race (1785), 32, 96, 107, 108, 209 Determination of the Concept of Race, 9 Development, 165, 182 of human diversities, 148 of human natural predispositions, 201 Dialectic, 179 Different sexes, 150 Dignity, 37, 40 of human, 90 of human nature, 40 Dimension, 140 Discipline, 48 Discipline of preferences, 177 Dismissive comments, 27 Displeasure, 154 Dispossession, 37 The dispossession of human dignity of the Negro race, 36, 206 The dispossession of the character of human dignity of the Negroes Race, 36, 97 The dispossession of the character of the beautiful and human dignity of the Negroes race, 5, 13

271

The dispossession of the character of the beauty and dignity of human nature of the Negro race, 110 The dispossession of the character of the beauty and dignity of the Negro race, 8, 204 The dispossession of the character of the beauty and human dignity of the Negro race, 32, 142, 238 The dispossession of the character of the beauty and the dignity of human nature in the Negro race, 108 Dispossession of the character of the “feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature,” 241 Distinctiveness, 161 Division, 113 of Kant’s philosophy, 5 Doctrine of the temperaments, 149 Domesticity, 159 Dominant interpretations, 7 Drifters, 155 Drive to activity, 155 Drive towards activity, 9 Dutch, 34, 222 E

Early races, 88 Earth, 102 East India, 221 Eccentricities, 3, 42 Economic interdependency, 194 Education, 42, 178 Effects, 156 Egalitarian, 2, 12, 135 Egalitarianism, 22

272 Index

Egalitarian Universalism, 4 Embarrassment, 2 Empirical, 179 Empirical character, 112 Empirical knowledge, 40 Enchanting, 34 Encyclopaedia, 44 End, 123 Endorsement, 204 Endurance, 157 Enemy, 222 England, 125, 195 English, 34, 55 Englishman, 33, 38, 160 Enlightenment, 201, 216, 218 Enlightenment tradition, 196 Environment, 87, 109 Environmental factors, 122 Epigenesis, 125, 143 Epigenesism, 124 Epistemic, 66, 68–75 Essential ideas, 4 Essential parts, 51 Eurocentric, 240 Europe, 83 European civilisation, 158 European colonialism, 26, 204, 220, 221, 240 European colonisation, 223 European continent, 165 European imperial, 224 Europeans, 24, 222, 224 European’s physiognomy, 162 Evolution, 24 Exchange, 226 Exclusion, 179 Exclusive, 12 Exclusive form of right, 229

Exegetical, 8, 238 Experience, 111 Explanation, 122 Explorers, 106 Exterior, 5, 140 Exterior of the human species, 6 Eze, Emmanuel, 20–22 F

Facial, 162 Facts, 121 Faculties, 178 Faculty of desire, 149 Famine, 218 Fanon, F., 239 Father Labat, 36 Federation, 193 Feeling, 34, 36, 37, 153, 154 Feeling of the beautiful, 156 The feeling of the beautiful and sublime, 37 Feeling of the beauty, 37 Feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature, 171, 241 Feeling of the sublime, 156 Feeling which mixes English and French, 34 Feeling which mixes Spaniard and French, 34 Few marks, 34 Fichte, G., 244 Final aim, 99 Final end, 3, 6, 39 Final end of history, 190, 196 Financial, 193 Finer feeling, 37, 157 Fine taste, 34

 Index 

Finns, 217 First phylum, 86 First Supplement, 215 Fitzpatrick, P., 223 Flat faces, 73 Flat noses, 73 Flattened nose, 115 Flikschuh, K., 194, 196 Fluids, 85 Foolishness, 150 Forces, 227 Form of right, 12 Formulation, 26, 222 Forster, Georg, 9, 10, 90, 96, 117, 138, 210 Foundations, 9, 13, 27 Four temperaments, 19, 41 Freedom, 23, 141, 153 of the press, 201 under laws, 170 French, 34 French Academy, 164 Frenchman, 33, 38 French philosopher, 118 French vivacity, 159 Frivolity, 178 Full development, 6 Full of talents, 147 Fundamental, 24, 32 G

Gambia, 207 Gambia river, 206 Gender, 11 Genealogy, 6 General Natural History of the Heavens of 1755, 69

273

General principles, 39 Generations, 6, 78, 103, 122 Generative power, 78, 82, 84, 85, 115 Genetic, 84 Genetic character, 104 Genus Homo, 66 Geographical, 37, 83 Geography, 42, 106, 139, 192 Germans, 34, 38, 55, 157, 160, 164 Germs, 13, 76, 82, 143, 211, 238 Germs and natural predispositions, 9, 116 Gifts, 41 Girtanner, Christoph, 139, 211, 212 Global commerce, 196 Globe, 168, 227 God, 47, 71, 72, 84 Good-hearted, 156 Good poet, 34 Gothic, 217 Government, 194 Great adventure, 34 Great services, 34 Greeks, 161 Grotesque painting, 34 Grotesqueries, 34 Grounds, 144 Groundwork, 40, 123 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), 46, 96, 100 H

Half-breeding, 9, 83, 85, 238 Half-breeds, 79, 113 Half-race, 81

274 Index

Handbook of Natural History (1779), 86 Happiness, 47 Happy mixture of beautiful and sublime, 34 Harmony, 215 Harvey, David, 192 Heavy-blooded, 155 Heidegger, Martin, 164 Herder, J. G. (1744–1803), 9, 101, 105, 113, 117, 138, 239 Hereditary, 111, 113, 210 Heredity, 79, 151 Heritage, 87 Herz, Marcus, 243 Heterodox analysis, 7 Heterodox reading, 4, 5, 7, 13, 237 Hierarchical disposition, 182 Hierarchy, 37, 195 Hierarchy of races, 53, 136 High blondes, 87 Higher principles, 39 Highest purpose of nature, 189 Hill, T. E., 25, 50, 137 Hindu, 81 Hindustan, 221 Hindustani, 81 Histoire Naturelle (1749), 69 Historical, 198 Historical analysis, 241 Historical approach, 237 Historical Notes and Interpretive Questions about Kant’s Lectures on Anthropology, 112 Historicity, 76 Historiographical, 104 History, 42 History of nature, 100

History progress, 99 Höffe, Otfried, 198 The Homo sapiens Afer, 73 The Homo sapiens americanus (Native Americans), 73 The Homo sapiens Asiaticus, 73 The Homo sapiens Europeaeus, 73 Honesty, 159 Honourable origin, 34 Hospitable, 34, 160 Hospitableness, 221 Hospitality, 221 Hot-blooded, 155 Hot-tempered, 156 Human autonomy, 2 Human beings, 3, 5, 141, 221 Human destiny, 11 Human dignity, 147 Human diversity, 89 Human history, 12 Humanity, 23, 33, 173, 228 Humanity formulations, 31 Humankinds, 36, 155 Human nature, 5, 26, 40, 202, 241 Humanoid, 1, 23 Human predispositions, 211 Human rational faculties, 202 Human reason, 71 Humans, 26 Human species, 5–7, 9, 120, 151 Human temperaments, 154 Hume, David, 41 Hungarians, 217 The Hunnish (Mongolian or Kalmuckian), 81 Hybridisation, 169 Hypothetical imperatives, 177

 Index  I

Idea for a Universal History, 190, 192, 193, 195, 214 Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim (1784), 12, 96, 99, 193 Ideas, 105, 106, 117 Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Humanity, 101–102 Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784–1791), 89 Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1787), 83 Impassive, 73 Imperial, 240 Imperialism, 194, 195, 218 Imperial rule, 195 Imperial wars, 194 Inability, 178 Inactivity, 41 Incentives, 33 Incipient races, 81 Incomplete, 88 Incompleteness, 35, 81 The incompleteness of the character of the race of the natives of America, 32 Incomplete race, 55 Inconsistencies, 3, 136, 137, 239 Inconsistent, 12 Inconsistent universalism, 26 Independent, 126 India, 155, 205 Indian (Native of America), 34 Indian natives, 224 Indians, 37, 126, 226 Individuals, 74 Inegalitarian, 42, 127

Inegalitarianism, 127 Inegalitarian Universalist thinker, 243 Infallibly, 83 Influences, 82, 109 Informal imperial, 195 Informal techniques, 195 Inhabitants, 105, 170 Inheritable alterations, 144 Inheritance, 88, 109, 143 Inhospitable, 228 Injustices, 26 Inner, 6, 11 Inorganic, 71, 72, 89 Inorganic matter, 71 Insects, 72 Insecurity, 196 Intellectual, 70, 166 Intellectual capacities, 165 Intellectual character, 37 Intelligent, 164 Intelligible character, 112 Interbreeding, 67, 74, 76, 85 Interior, 5, 140 Intermediate principles, 26 International jurisprudence, 223 International laws, 194, 200 International right, 201, 220 Interpretations, 27 Intersection, 141 Inventor, 2 Investigation, 11 Italian, 34 Ius communicationem, 224, 228 J

Japan, 196 Japanese (English of Asia), 33, 34

275

276 Index

Judgement, 6 Judy, Ronald, 20 Juridical, 135 Justice, 156 Just war, 224 Juxtaposition, 25, 142 K

Kames, Lord, 66, 78 Kant, Immanuel, 1, 79 anthropology, 1 defence’s side, 4 ethics, 24 philosophy, 13 racialism, 6, 22, 42–58 racial theory, 1 universalism, 42–58 Kant and Colonialism, 12, 195 Kant and the Negro, 20 Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Racism, 169 Kant on Colonialism, 194 Kant’s Impure Ethics, 198 Kant’s Pragmatic Anthropology, 48 Kant’s Second Thoughts on Colonialism, 204 Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race, 26, 108, 136 Kant’s Third Thoughts on Race, 52, 136 Karakulpacks, 81 Keime, 209 Kersting, Wolfgang, 198 Kind, species, 74 Kinship, 79 Kleingeld, P., 7, 12, 110, 190, 198, 202, 240

Knowledge, 46, 111 Konigsberg, 101 L

Lands, 221 Lapland, 79 Laplander, 79 Lapps, 217 Larrimore, M., 35, 41, 89, 113, 139, 157, 166, 167 Latin America, 195 Laughing, 34 Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent de, 180 Law, 112 Law of nature, 112 Laws of Reason, 105 Laziness, 148 Lazy, 73 League, 193 Lecturer, 43 Lectures, 44 Lectures in Logic, 45 Legacy, 12 Legitimate, 123 Lessons of anthropology, 177 Light-blooded, 155 Lineage, 77, 79 Linear, 218 Linnaean concept, 67 Linnaeus, C., 21, 66, 73, 77 Linne, Carl von, 118 Little, 34 Little feeling in fine arts and sciences, 34 Living beings, 170 Loads, 126 Logic, 44

 Index 

London, 164 Long flowing hair, 73 Louden, R. B., 24, 50 Love, 52, 178 Lowest rank, 37 Lungs, 110 M

Magnificent, 34 Malebranche, Nicolas, 124 Mallon, Ron, 22 Man, 83 Mandinka, 206 Mankind, 52, 102, 218 Maritime commerce, 159 Masters, 126 Mathematical proofs, 69 Mathematical truths, 69 Mathematics, 44 Matter, 71, 124 Maturity, 179 Maxim of reason, 114, 115 Maxims, 23, 31, 78 McCarthy, Thomas, 192 Means, 123 Mechanical description, 66 Mechanical laws, 71–73, 79 Mechanics, 44 Mechanistic, 66 Meeting the Enemy, 223 Melancholic, 19, 41, 156 Melancholic person, 55 Memory, 78 Mental capabilities, 168 Mere predispositions, 210 Meta-narrative, 193 Metaphysical, 90, 127 Metaphysics, 21, 44, 58, 119

277

Metaphysics of Morals, 46, 52, 136, 197, 228 Methodological, 6, 13 Methodology, 115 Middle East, 195 Migrations, 216, 226 Military, 193 Military intervention, 195 Mills, Charles, 1, 23 Mills, C. W., 22 Mind, 36 Mineralogy, 44 Miniature individual, 83 Misleading, 7 Missionaries, 106 Mixed couples, 119 Mixed races, 81 Mixing, 113 Mixture, 145 Modern Western philosophy, 2 Modes, 168 Monogenesis, 87, 104, 121, 143, 181 Moral, 23, 44 achievement, 10 attributes, 181 character, 23, 39, 120 claims, 9 considerations, 108 development, 191 experience, 154 features, 167 incapacity, 110 law, 174 maturity, 24 philosophy, 5 potentialities, 203, 211 predispositions, 10, 153, 173, 207 principles, 190

278 Index

Mora (cont.) problems, 11, 13 requirements, 101 status, 1 system, 3 talents, 123 theory, 25 universalism, 123 Moralisation, 201 Morality, 22, 48 Motivation, 2 Mulato, 113 Multiplicity, 103 Music—painting, 34 Muthu, S., 196, 197 N

Nagajens, 81 National characters, 33 Nationalities, 11, 33, 34 Nations, 104 Nation-states, 200 Native Americans, 10, 52 Native Indians, 223 Natives of America, 23 Natural aptitude, 149, 153 Natural beings, 141 Natural character, 32 Natural classification, 78 Natural division, 77 Natural economy, 86 Natural history, 66, 68–75, 120 Natural laws, 78, 121, 200 Natural phenomena, 89 Natural predispositions, 3, 6, 8, 12–13, 76, 82, 141, 142, 149, 153, 171, 219, 238

of morality, 239 to morality, 181 Natural purpose, 182 Natural sciences, 120 Natural talents, 216 Necessity, 138 Negation, 35 Negroes, 23, 34, 36, 37, 41, 107, 111, 112, 224, 226 Negroes of Africa, 36 Negro race, 35, 81, 112 Negro’s breast, 55 Neugebauer, Christian, 20 Newton, Isaac, 2, 180 Newtonian laws, 70 Nineteenth centuries, 195 No, 34 Noble, 34, 55 Noch etwas über die Menschenrassen (1786), 90, 118 Non-colonial, 195 Non-conventional, 239 Non-enforceable right, 224 Non-essential parts, 51 Non-universal, 190 Non-Universalist, 12, 190 Non-White, 20 Non-White nations, 204 Non-White races, 2 Normative theory, 195 Northern, 126 No talent, 34 Noumena, 198 O

Objection, 43–50 Object of experience, 21

 Index 

Observation, 9, 121 Observations, 126 Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (1764), 8, 10, 19, 27, 32, 140, 149, 156, 237 Obstructive approach, 43 Of the Different Races of Human Beings (1775), 8, 75, 96, 144 Olive-yellows, 87 “On the Character of Races,” 138, 174 On the Character of the Person, 174 “On the Character of the Species”, 171 On the Different Races of Human Beings (1775), 32 On the Qualities of the Sublime and the Beautiful in Human Beings in General, 153 On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy(1788), 9, 32, 56, 96, 119, 135, 147, 159, 178, 210 Ontological argument, 32 Operative powers, 102 Opportunities, 96 Orderly, 34 Organic generation, 124 Organisms, 67, 72, 74 Origin, 83, 146 Original phylum, 82, 87, 116, 122, 181, 206, 210, 216, 238 Original predispositions, 147 Orthodox, 2 Orthodox reading, 4, 7, 8, 95, 117, 190–192, 196, 207, 221, 237 Outer, 6, 11

279

P

Pacifist, 217 Painstaking and decorousness, 34 Passions, 22 Patriotism, 53 Pedagogy, 44 Peoples, 24, 33, 148, 151 Peoples of Africa, 165 Perception, 111 Perfection, 33 Perfectly, 9 Peripheral, 7, 21, 24 Peripheral claims, 4, 27, 191 Peripheral ideas, 49 Permanent, 86, 145 Perpetual peace, 217 Perpetual Peace, 190, 191, 193, 195 Perpetual Peace in 1795, 128 Perpetuity, 101 Persian (French of Asia), 34 Persians, 33 Person, 11, 148, 151 Personality, 159 Personhood, 23 Perspective, 162, 220 Phenomena, 112, 198 Philosopher, 23 Philosopher of history, 104, 116 Philosophical, 9 Philosophical notion, 239 Philosophical principles, 49 Philosophical system, 43 Philosophy, 1, 4 Phlegm, 157 Phlegmatic, 19, 41, 55, 155 Phlogiston, 109 Phosphoric acidic, 109 Phyla, 86

280 Index

Phyletic origin, 121 Phyletic species, 87, 209 Phylum, 9, 120, 121, 143 Physical, 22, 141, 151, 166, 208 Physical appearances, 118 Physical characteristic, 122 Physical characters, 81, 116 Physical features, 13, 166, 209 Physical geography, 44 Physical Geography, 122 Physical truths, 66, 68, 70 Physics, 44 Physiognomy, 161, 162, 165 Physiological, 138, 213 Plants, 71, 102 Play of nature, 163 Pleasure, 154 Plucking beard, 115 Poland, 161 Political, 199 Political philosophy, 7 Political system, 3 Political theory, 13 Political thought, 1 Politics, 2 Polygenesis, 21, 116 Polygenism, 66 Portugal, 195 Possibilities, 139 Potentialities, 6, 145, 182, 227 Practical principles, 114 Practical reason, 25, 46, 179 Pragmatic, 10, 58, 140, 173, 179 Pragmatic account, 165 Pragmatic anthropology, 138 Pragmatic character, 76 Pragmatic concept, 141 Pragmatic dimension, 139, 182

Pragmatic physiognomic dimension, 162 Pragmatic physiognomy, 162–166 Pragmatic position, 239 Pragmatic predispositions, 48, 173, 180–181 Pragmatic project, 12, 158, 182, 191, 241 Pragmatic understanding, 175 Pre-conditions, 6, 203 Pre-critical, 20 Pre-critical writings, 42 Predisposition of personality, 173 Predisposition to humanity, 172 Predisposition to the animality, 172 Preformationism, 82, 124, 125 Preformationist, 88, 124, 143 Preformed, 124 Prejudices, 1, 22, 24 Preliminary articles, 225 Premise, 148 Preponderance, 43–45 Prerequisites, 165, 204 Prescriptive articles, 199 Prescriptive recommendations, 191 Preservation, 147, 150 Prima facie, 190 Primitive, 86 Primitive temperaments, 156 Principia praetor necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda, 115 Principle of morality, 100 Principles, 21, 25, 55, 98, 150 Principles of action, 23 Problematic, 57 Prognosis, 179 Propagation, 172 Propensity to inactivity, 157

 Index 

Property, 207 Protestant churches, 54 Prototype, 103 Providence, 157 Prudence, 48 Prussia, 195 Pseudo-silence, 207 Psychological, 22, 37, 141 Public Philosophy in a New Key, 192 Public right, 52 Pure reason, 98 Purposive, 144 Purposive nature, 120 Purposiveness, 49, 105, 110, 113 Q

Quaelibet natura est conservatrix sui, 115 Quality, 36 R

Race, Empire and the Idea of Human Development, 192 Race-neutral, 26 Races, 11, 13, 79, 151, 209 Race thinking, 2, 6 Racial character, 9, 10, 79, 181 Racial characteristics, 1 Racial comments, 2, 4, 27, 49 Racial differences, 33, 209 Racial hierarchy, 1, 3, 11, 26, 135, 137, 142, 158, 203, 239 Racial inequality, 96 Racialism, 22, 137 Racialism believers, 22–23 Racial problems, 25

281

Racial theory, 25 Raciology, 162 Racism, 13, 25 The racism of Kant and Hegel, 20 Racist, 1 Racist comments, 20 Racist thinker, 13 Rank, 204 Rational, 196 Rational animal, 176 Rational beings, 51, 101 Rational faculties, 211 Reading, 3 Realm, 200 Reason, 39, 105, 141, 201 Rébarbatif, 164 Rebellion, 218 Rebirth, 8 Red, 9, 112, 146 Red American, 109, 226 Redemption, 26 Red in America, 83 Reductio ad absurdum, 83 Refined, courteous and complaisant, 34 Refugees, 197 Regulative principles, 21 Reill, P. H., 70 Relationships, 78 Religion, 22, 34, 47, 54, 173 Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, 172, 182 Reports, 106 Reproduction, 75 Republican, 159, 192 Republican constitution, 193, 200 Repulsive forces, 71 Resemblance, 121

282 Index

Residence, 112 Respect, 155 Revolutions, 201 Rhetoric, 34 Ridiculous, 41, 154 Right of hospitality, 193, 201, 220–222, 225 Rights, 23 Right to hospitality, 224 Romanticism, 105 Roots, 102 Russia, 161 S

Said, E., 239 Saito, N. T., 223 Saline acidic, 85, 109 Sanguine, 19, 41 Sarmatic, 217 Scepticism, 89 Scholars, 3 Scholastic classification, 78 Sciences, 36, 42, 54 Scientific, 9, 22, 58 Scientific approach, 10 Scientific conception, 239 Scientific investigation, 96 Scientific observation, 146 Scientific revolutions, 2, 179 Sculpture—architecture, 34 Second thoughts, 35 Secretion, 113 Security, 218 Self-determination, 23 Self-government, 159 Self-love, 172 Semesters, 44

Sense experience, 98 Senses, 98 Sentiment, 153 Serenity, 178 Serious, taciturn and truthful, great actions, 34 Sexes, 148, 151 Sexism, 150 Siep, Ludwig, 198 Silky skin, 73 Simulacrum of virtue, 154 Single phylum, 76, 88, 116, 143 Six Sketches on the History of Man (1774), 66 Skill, 177 Skin, 6, 110 Slavery, 23, 26, 126, 135, 205, 222 Slave trade, 205 Sloan, Phillip R., 66, 68 Social contract, 200 Social theory, 193 Soil, 103 Sovereignty, 200 Spain, 195 Spaniards, 34, 55, 223, 224 Species, 73, 76, 79, 152 Specific character, 209 Speculative, 40, 119 Speculative employment, 39 Spice Islands, 221, 228 Spirit of freedom, 159 Stark, Werner, 112 States, 200, 216 Steadfastness, 34 Strains, 79 Strong phlegm, 41 Stupid, 34 Subjective, 114

 Index 

Sublime, 34, 156 Sub-persons, 1, 2, 23, 51 Subspecies, 79 Sugar Islands, 222 Superior, 33 Supplements, 154 Surinam, 145 Sympathy, 39, 154 Synthetic a priori knowledge, 46 System, 3 Systema Naturae (1735), 73 Systematic, 6 Systematic categorisation, 73 Systematic racism, 13 System of classification, 74 System of Nature, 66, 81 T Tahiti, 105, 106 Talents, 33, 36, 54, 219, 227 Tautology, 149, 212 Taxonomy, 75 Taylor, C., 239 Technical, 173, 219 Technical intelligence, 176 Technical predispositions, 48, 176, 179 Technical skills, 48 Teleological, 10, 227 Teleological arguments, 122–123 Teleological judgements, 48, 168 Teleologically, 204 Teleological principles, 127 Temperament of the phlegmatic, 157 Temperaments, 41, 42, 141, 142, 149, 152–155, 158 Temperaments of feeling, 155 Terminology, 137 Terrestrial existence, 113

283

Terrifying, 34 Theology, 83 Theoretical, 6, 95 Theoretical analysis, 122 Theory, 2 of human nature, 241 of race, 3, 8 Thin beards, 73 Third race Blacks (Senegambia), 87 Thomistic natural law, 223 Time, 73 Towards Perpetual Peace (1794–1795), 12, 26, 135, 189, 193 Traditions, 104 Tragedy, 34 Traits, 115 Transcendental, 4, 20, 21 Transcendental idealism, 43, 46 Transcendentally, 21 Transcendental philosophy, 21 Transmission, 9, 181 Transplantings, 145 Travel documents, 113 Treachery, 218 True virtue, 55, 154 Tully, James, 12, 192, 193, 215, 224 Tumid lips, 73 Turkey, 161 Twentieth century, 195 Typology, 33 U

Ugliest, 164 Understanding, 8, 39 Understanding, resolute and steadfast, 34

284 Index

Unfailingly, 113 Unity of the human species, 95 Universal community, 190 Universal history, 100 Universal History, 193 Universal hospitality, 192, 228 Universalism, 4, 135 Universalism’s defenders, 24–26 Universalist, 1 Universalist—egalitarian, 217 Universalist principles, 127 Universality, 21, 224 Universal law, 31, 123 Universal Natural History, 72 Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, 70 Universal norms, 200 Universal principle, 26 Universal respect, 40 Universe, 72 University of Konigsberg, 43 Unnatural, 34 Unsociability, 215 Unsocial-sociability, 207, 215, 216 Untermenschen, 23 Upper category, 33 V

Variations, 79 Varieties, 66, 68, 79, 95 Vessels, 85 Violation, 135 Virtues, 154 Virtuous, 42 Vitoria, Francisco de, 222–224 Voltaire, 78 Vulgar sensuality, 37, 154

W

Wakeup call, 20–22 Warfare, 194, 216 Wars, 194, 217 Weakness, 154 Weak phlegm, 41 Weaponry, 202, 216 Well-mannered, 176 Western colonial law, 228 Western Europe, 37 Western philosophy, 1 Western Universalist, 2 Westphalian, 200 What can I know?, 5, 21 What is a human being, 47 What is human being?, 13 What is Man?, 5, 13, 21, 47 What may I hope?, 5, 21 What ought I to do?, 5, 21 White, 9, 83, 112, 146 White audience, 175 White brunette, 86 White Europeans, 109, 159, 220, 226 Whiteness, 35, 89 White persons, 23 White phylum, 86 White race, 1, 33, 81, 106, 112, 171, 181 Whites, 36 White skin, 73 White superiority, 89 Wilson, H. L., 45 Wilson, Holly, 48, 49 Wise nature, 149 Wit charming and nobler, 34 Wood, Allan, 24 Wood, A. W., 24, 50

 Index  Y

Yellow, 9, 109, 112, 146 Yellow Asian, 226 Yellow Asian Indian, 109 Yellow in Asia, 83 Yellow skin, 73 Yes but not dominant, 34

285

Yovel, Yirmiyahu, 198 Young, I. M., 239 Ypi, L., 12, 190, 194, 196, 202, 240 Z

Zammito, John, 107