Abstract
Immanuel Kant (b. 1724–d. 1804) is best known for the Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 2d edition 1787), which revolutionized theoretical philosophy and laid the foundations of the modern research enterprise. Although the basis for Kant’s contributions in political philosophy may be found in this first Critique (see O’Neill 1989, cited under Kant’s Philosophical Project), the works most relevant to political philosophical questions are the Metaphysics of Morals (1797) and a series of shorter essays on various political topics that Kant published between 1784 and his death in 1804. Also important to understanding Kant’s political philosophy are his works on ethics, on History, on religion, on education, on anthropology, and on the scientific method. Contrary to a popular misconception of him as a detached philosopher concerned only with abstractions, Kant was deeply engaged in the concrete politics of his day. He criticized traditional social hierarchies, religious dogmatism, political authoritarianism, and educational conservatism, while championing Freedom in its many modes. Kant has been rightly criticized for inconsistently applying his theory of human dignity (barring, for example, women from active citizenship). Despite such shortcomings, the legacies of Kant’s political theory are so pervasive that it is hard to imagine the present without them. Kantian conceptions of human rights, Cosmopolitanism, republicanism (what we would call democratic accountability), international federalism, rule of law, the public sphere, and justice underlie early-21st-century institutions from the local to the global level. More than two hundred years after his death, however, Kant’s Enlightenment ideals represent widely held aspirations that are only very incompletely realized in practice.