¹ Kant, Immanuel, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, ed. and trans. Louden, Robert B. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 7: 277–8.Google Scholar

² Ibid., 7: 277.

³ Ibid.

⁴ See, for example, Beiser, Frederick, ‘Moral faith and the highest good’, in The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, ed. Guyer, Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Caswell, Matthew, ‘Kant's conception of the highest good, the Gesinnung, and the theory of radical evil’, Kant-Studien, 97: 184–209 (2006)Google Scholar; Engstrom, Stephen, ‘The concept of the highest good in Kant's moral theory’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 52 (4): 747–80 (1992).Google Scholar

⁵ The only exception that I am aware of is Cohen, Alix A., ‘The ultimate Kantian experience: Kant on dinner parties’, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 25 (4): 315–36 (2008).Google Scholar

⁶ For a defence of the claim that we should take it seriously, see Louden, Robert B., ‘The second part of morals’, in Essays on Kant's Anthropology, ed. Jacobs, Brian and Kain, Patrick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).Google Scholar

⁷ See, for example, Frierson, Patrick, Freedom and Anthropology in Kant's Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Jacobs, Brian and Kain, Patrick, eds., Essays on Kant's Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Louden, Robert B., Kant's Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Felicitas Munzel, G., Kant's Conception of Moral Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Sussman, David G., The Idea of Humanity: Anthropology and Anthroponomy in Kant's Ethics (New York: Routledge, 2001).Google Scholar

⁸ See Kant, Immanuel, The Metaphysics of Morals, in Practical Philosophy, ed. Gregor, Mary J. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6: 399.Google Scholar

⁹ Kant defnes ‘affection’ as ‘the inclination toward community with others’ in Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 268.

¹⁰ Ibid., 7: 276.

¹¹ Ibid., 7: 276–7.

¹² Kant, Immanuel, The Confict of the Faculties, in Religion and Rational Theology, ed. Wood, Allen and Giovanni, George Di (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 4: 79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³ See the ‘Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Virtue’ in Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 473–4.

¹⁴ Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 277–8.

¹⁵ See also Kant's argument for the indirect duty to pursue happiness in order to ward off temptations to vice in Kant, Immanuel, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in Practical Philosophy, ed. Gregor, Mary J. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 4: 399.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See Aristotle, , Ethica Nicomachea, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. McKeon, Richard (New York: Modern Library, 2001)Google Scholar, Bk I, Ch. 10. For an extensive discussion of the differing views of the ancients in regard to the relationship between virtue and happiness see Irwin, Terence, The Development of Ethics, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).Google Scholar

¹⁷ That is, as long as we are not forced into dilemmas, such as having to choose between committing perjury (which is unjust) and enduring torture (which, to put it mildly, ruins happiness). See Kant, Immanuel, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, in Religion and Rational Theology, ed. Wood, Allen and Giovanni, George Di (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6: 50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ This seems to undermine the existential tension between virtue and happiness that is at the heart of Kant's claims about the immortality of the soul and the existence of God as postulates of pure practical reason – see Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Practical Reason, in Practical Philosophy, ed. Gregor, Mary J. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 5: 122–32.Google Scholar This tension is central to Peter Dews's recent appropriation of Kant's thought in Dews, Peter, The Idea of Evil (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).Google Scholar

¹⁹ See the appealing account of the Kantian moral saint in Baron, Marcia, ‘Moral paragons and the metaphysics of morals’, in A Companion to Kant, ed. Bird, Graham (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 335–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁰ ‘The way of thinking characteristic of the union of good living with virtue in social intercourse is humanity’ – Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 277.

²¹ This point is also emphasized in Cohen, ‘The ultimate Kantian experience’.

²² Kant's detailed discussion of the dinner party in Anthropology is repeated in brief form in the Casuistical Questions for Article III of the duties to oneself as an animal being. There Kant again discusses the banquet which, though a temptation to immoral intemperance through overconsumption, nonetheless still ‘aims at a moral end, beyond mere physical well-being: it brings a number of people together for a long time to converse with one another. And yet the very number of guests … allows for only a little conversation (with those sitting next to one)’ – see Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 428.

²³ Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 280. Kuehn conjectures that the conversations between Kant and his friend Green followed this pattern in Kuehn, Manfred, Kant: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁴ Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 277.

²⁵ See Kant, ‘The metaphysics of morals’, 6: 428. Kant repeats similar advice in Anthropology, where he argues that ‘[a]ll silent intoxication has something shameful in it; that is, intoxication that does not enliven sociality and the reciprocal communication of thought’ – see Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 170.

²⁶ See Kant's account of our duties to ourselves as animal beings in Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 427–8. Also relevant is Kant's discussion in the Third Part of Kant, The Confict of the Faculties, 7: 107–9.

²⁷ Baier makes the amazing claim that Kant thinks that anything but ‘obligatory rejoicing‘obligatory rejoicing (whatever that means) in doing one's duty is morally inappropriate, as if Kant claims that there is something morally wrong with the sort of laughter and ‘genuine joy’ (Baier's term) that emerges from sharing a good meal in good company. See Baier, Annette C., Moral Prejudices (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 284.Google Scholar

²⁸ Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 265.

²⁹ See, for example, Kant, Immanuel, ‘An answer to the question: What is Enlightenment?’, in Practical Philosophy, ed. Gregor, Mary J. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Kant, Immanuel, Toward Perpetual Peace, in Practical Philosophy, ed. Gregor, Mary J. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8: 381–6.Google Scholar For Kant on public reason, see O'Neill, Onora, ‘The public use of reason’, in Judgment, Imagination, and Politics, ed. Beiner, Ronald and Nedelsky, Jennifer (Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefeld, 2001).Google Scholar The important role of public reason in relation to justice is also much emphasized by contemporary theorists strongly infuenced by Kant, such as Habermas and Rawls. See, for example, Habermas, Jürgen, Between Facts and Norms, trans. Rehg, William (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Rawls, John, ‘The domain of the political and overlapping consensus’, in Collected Papers, ed. Freeman, Samuel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 473–96.Google Scholar

³⁰ Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 281.

³¹ It is signifcant that the three vices (arrogance, defamation and ridicule) which violate duties of respect for other human beings are all social vices – see Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 465–8.

³² Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 128–30.

³³ See Arendt, Hannah, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Viking Press, 1968), pp. 234–5Google Scholar; Arendt, Hannah, Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, ed. Beiner, Ronald (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1982)Google Scholar. See also Munzel, Kant's Conception of Moral Character, p. 234.

³⁴ Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 281.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ Ibid., 7: 282.

³⁷ See Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 400.

³⁸ See, for example, Part One of Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason.

³⁹ See Schiller, Friedrich, ‘On grace and dignity’, in Schiller's ‘On Grace and Dignity’ in Its Cultural Context: Essays and a New Translation, ed. Curran, Jane and Fricker, Christopher (Rochester: Camden House, 2005).Google Scholar Schiller mistakenly takes himself to be disagreeing with Kant on this point because of his misunderstanding of Kant's account of moral motivation. See the discussion of Schiller in Wood, Allen, Kant's Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 28–30.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 83.

⁴¹ See Formosa, Paul, ‘Kant on the limits of human evil’, Journal of Philosophical Research, 34: 189–214 (2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴² Clark, Christopher, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600–1947 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 247.Google Scholar

⁴³ The Wednesday Society ‘dissolved itself on the basis of the royal edict of 20 October 1798 “For the prevention and punishment of secret societies which could be detrimental to public security”’ – Birtsch, Gunter, ‘The Berlin Wednesday Society’, in What Is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions, ed. Schmidt, James (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 248.Google ScholarIn the light of this we might tentatively read Kant's 1793 attempt to square ‘secret societies’ with his principle of publicity, by arguing that such societies would not be necessary were the state to govern in accordance with the ‘spirit of freedom’, as a defence of the Wednesday Society (among others) – see Kant, Immanuel, ‘On the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice’, in Practical Philosophy, ed. Gregor, Mary J. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8: 305.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Clark, Iron Kingdom, p. 248.

⁴⁵ See ibid.

⁴⁶ The number of such societies increased rapidly at the height of the Enlightenment from the approximately ffty that existed in the German states in 1780 to about 200 by 1790, with membership totalling some 15,000–20,000 people. See ibid., pp. 248–50.

⁴⁷ Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 278.

⁴⁸ Kant, An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?, 8: 35.

⁴⁹ See Hamann, Johann Georg, ‘Letter to Christian Jacob Krause (18 December 1784)’, in What Is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions, ed. Schmidt, James (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ As Garrett Green notes, the English reader tends to miss not only the specifcally legal nature of Unmündigkeit, but also its common root with Vormund (guardian) in Mund (mouth). See Green, Garrett, ‘Modern culture comes of age: Hamann versus Kant on the root metaphor of enlightenment’, in What Is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions, ed. Schmidt, James (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 292–3.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Although Kant also understands enlightenment in this way – see Kant, Immanuel, Critique of the Power of Judgment, ed. Guyer, Paul, trans. Guyer, Paul and Matthews, Eric (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5: 294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵² Both Hamann and Kant agree that immaturity and guardianship are the central terms here. However, Hamann sees Kant as laying the blame for their ‘self-incurred’ state of immaturity on the victims (namely women and other groups without a public voice), rather than on their so-called ‘enlightened’ guardians. Hamann argues that it is the latter, who keep the former under their guardianship, who ought to incur the blame. The guilt is thus not self-incurred by the immature – see Green, ‘Modern culture comes of age’, pp. 291–8. Hamann's criticism of Kant on this particular point is valid, for it takes more than sheer courage (although courage is often also required), but also resources, opportunities, self-confdence and education, among other things, for a voiceless group, under the yoke of guardianship, to begin to speak publicly for themselves. However, Kant seems to have revised his views on this matter by 1792, and while he then mentions the importance of education (but not courage) for progress and enlightenment, he pessimistically puts more stock in progress occurring through war than education, because ‘the state’ has ‘no money left’ for the ‘salaries of teachers … since it uses all its money for war’ – see Kant, The Confict of the Faculties, 7: 92–3; Kant, ‘On the common saying’, 8: 310.

⁵³ Kant, Immanuel, ‘What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?’, in Religion and Rational Theology, ed. Wood, Allen and Giovanni, George Di (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8: 144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁴ I discuss this claim in detail with regard to both Arendt and Kant in Formosa, Paul, ‘Thinking, conscience and acting in times of crises,’ in Power, Judgment and Political Evil: In Conversation with Hannah Arendt, ed. Schaap, Andrew, Celermajer, Danielle and Karalis, Vrasidas (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 91–3.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Habermas, for example, approvingly quotes Thomas McCarthy's summary: ‘Rather than ascribing as valid to all others any maxim that I can will to be a universal law [Kant on Habermas's reading], I must submit my maxim to all others for the purpose of discursively testing its claim to universality [Habermas's own view]’ – quoted and discussed in Finalyson, Gordon, ‘Does Hegel's critique of Kant's moral theory apply to discourse ethics?’, in Habermas: A Critical Reader, ed. Dews, Peter (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 30.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ For a relevant discussion of the relationship between identity and participatory parity see Fraser, Nancy, ‘Rethinking recognition’, New Left Review, 3: 107–20 (2000).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ See Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 130; Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, 5: 295.

⁵⁸ See §140, where Hegel argues that the moral standpoint, with its abstract conception of the good, ends up at ‘the view that subjective conviction, and it alone, decides the ethical character of an action’ – Hegel, G. W. F., Philosophy of Right, trans. Knox, T. M. (Chicago: William Benton, 1952).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁹ For an understanding of Hegel broadly along these lines, see Pippin, Robert B., ‘Hegel, ethical reasons, Kantian rejoinders’, Philosophical Topics, 19 (2): 99–132 (1991)Google Scholar; Westphal, Kenneth R., ‘Hegel's critique of Kant's moral world view’, Philosophical Topics, 19 (2): 133–76 (1991)Google Scholar; Wood, Allen, ‘Hegel's ethics’, in The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, ed. Beiser, Frederick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ A similar point is made by Arp, Robert, ‘Vindicating Kant's morality’, International Philosophical Quarterly, 7 (1): 5–22 (2007), pp. 7, 14–15.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 436, 440.

⁶² See Wood, Allen, ‘The supreme principle of morality’, in The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, ed. Guyer, Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).Google Scholar

⁶³ Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 434.

⁶⁴ Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, 8: 357.

⁶⁵ Ibid.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 8: 358.

⁶⁷ For a critical discussion of these issues, see Caze, Marguerite La, ‘Not just visitors: cosmopolitanism, hospitality, and refugees’, Philosophy Today, 48 (3): 313–24 (2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁸ Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, 8: 358.

⁶⁹ Ibid.

⁷⁰ Kant understands civilization mainly in economic rather than moral terms. Kant understands the ‘state of nature’ to refer to nomadic-pastoral or hunter-gather societies. The move to civil societies begins with the shift to agricultural production, which creates surplus value and both allows for the rise of towns and cities and also creates the need for a strong state to enforce property rights and contracts. See the insightful discussion in Wood, Kant's Ethical Thought, pp. 244–9. In a civil condition the arts and culture, along with civilized norms of refned politeness, tend to fourish. However, this civilized ‘European’ condition is not necessarily more moral than the uncivilized state of nature, but simply replaces the types of vice and evil found in the state of nature (i.e. among largely non-European peoples at the time) with a different set of vices and evil, as well as large-scale wars between states. See Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, 6: 32–3. Although neither social condition is particularly moralized, Kant sees progress as arising not by reverting to an earlier pre-agricultural state but by moralizing the current cultural and economic order. See Kant, Immanuel, ‘Conjectural beginning of human history’, in Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. Zöller, Günter and Louden, Robert B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8: 118–20Google Scholar; Kant, Immanuel, ‘Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim’, in Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. Zöller, Günter and Louden, Robert B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8: 26Google Scholar. Thanks to one of the journal's anonymous referees for assisting me to clarify this point.

⁷¹ Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, 8: 358. The above italics are my own, not Kant's.

⁷² Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 294. Further, Kant does not forget to chide the ‘inhospitable behaviour of civilised, especially commercial, states in our part of the world’ for the ‘injustice they show in visiting [distant] foreign lands and people (which with them is tantamount to conquering them)’ – Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, 8: 358.

⁷³ Unfortunately, Kant's discussion here is marred by his view that the characters of peoples are ‘innate, natural character[s] which, so to speak, lies in the blood mixture of the human being, not characteristics of nations that are acquired and artifcial’ – Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 319. In an excellent discussion of the development of Kant's views on race, Kleingeld argues that somewhere around 1792 Kant dramatically changes his mind, for the better, on issues of race and in particular drops his earlier conception of a racial hierarchy with whites at the pinnacle – see Kleingeld, Pauline, ‘Kant's second thoughts on race’, Philosophical Quarterly, 57 (229): 573–92 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But while Kant's discussion of the character of peoples in Anthropology is not posed in racial terms, since racially similar peoples (i.e. the English and the Germans) have quite different characters, his claim that the moral characteristics of peoples have a blood origin is troubling. Even so, I am only using Kant's discussion of the character of peoples to make explicit a particular aspect of Kant's understanding of cosmopolitanism, and thus Kant's troubling discussion of the blood (rather than acquired) origin of these characters does not render problematic the use I make of this text here.

⁷⁴ Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 311.

⁷⁵ Ibid., 7: 312.

⁷⁶ Ibid., 7: 313.

⁷⁷ Kant complains that ‘even in his own country the Englishmen isolates himself when he pays for his own dinner’, preferring to eat in a separate room rather than at ‘the table d'hôte, for the same money: for at the table d'hôte, some politeness is required’ – ibid., 7: 315.

⁷⁸ Though the English have great ‘benevolent institutions’, ‘the foreigner who has been driven to England's soil by fate and has fallen on hard times can die on the dunghill because he is not an Englishman, that is, not a human being’ – ibid., 7: 311, 315.

⁷⁹ Kant sees many of these English and French characteristics combined in the Germans, whom he considers to be ‘too cosmopolitan to be deeply attached to his homeland’. Germans ‘more than any other people … learn foreign languages’ and in their ‘own country … [are more] hospitable to foreigners than any other nation’ – ibid., 7: 318.

⁸⁰ See also Kant's discussion of the ‘ancient customs’ whereby, as a result of sharing food at the same table, one becomes ‘safe from all snares by the right of hospitality’. Sharing food formalizes a ‘covenant of safety’. See ibid., 7: 279.

⁸¹ Benhabib, Seyla, Another Cosmopolitanism, ed. Post, Robert (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸² Jeremy Waldron, ibid., p. 90.

⁸³ Ibid., p. 149.

⁸⁴ Pauline Kleingeld develops an account of six different forms of cosmopolitanism that are prevalent in German thought around 1780–1800. They are (1) moral (e.g. Christoph Martin Wieland and Kant), (2) political, (3) legal (e.g. Kant and, prior to 1800, Fichte), (4) cultural (e.g. Georg Forster), (5) economic or free market (e.g. those inspired by Adam Smith, such as Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch) and (6) romantic (ideals of love and faith, e.g. Novalis) cosmopolitanisms – see Kleingeld, Pauline, ‘Six varieties of cosmopolitanism in late eighteenth-century Germany’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 60 (3): 505–24 (1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kant develops a moral, political, legal and economic version of cosmopolitanism. The social cosmopolitanism I refer to above is not so much a different type of cosmopolitanism as it is an elucidation of the specifcally social aspect of moral cosmopolitanism as Kant understands it.

⁸⁵ An aspect much emphasised recently in Derrida, Jacques, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, trans. Dooley, Mark and Hughes, Michael (London: Routledge, 2001).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ This does not mean, Kant notes, that we must increase the world's ills by sharing the pain of others from compassion – see Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 456–8.

⁸⁷ Kant's views on the relation of aesthetics to morality are far more complex than the account I give here, which is intended only to identify a single aspect of this relation. For a relevant discussion see, for example, Guyer, Paul, ‘Beauty, freedom, and morality: Kant's Lectures on Anthropology and the development of his aesthetic theory’, in Essays on Kant's Anthropology, ed. Jacobs, Brian and Kain, Patrick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 152–3.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 244.

⁸⁹ Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, 5: 267.

⁹⁰ See Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 399.

⁹¹ Ibid.

⁹² See Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, 8: 366.

⁹³ See Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 236–7.

⁹⁴ See Timmermann, Jens, ‘Kant on conscience, “indirect” duty, and moral error’, International Philosophical Quarterly, 46 (3): 293–308 (2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹⁵ See also Baron, Marcia, ‘Love and respect in the Doctrine of Virtue’, in Kant's Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretative Essays, ed. Timmons, Mark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).Google Scholar

⁹⁶ See Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 403.

⁹⁷ This is the sort of respect we feel for others when we recognize them to be ends in themselves.

⁹⁸ This is the sense in which respect grounds all duties and results from the effect of practical reason on feeling. Respect, in this sense, is ‘morality itself subjectively considered’ and is the ‘sole and also the undoubted moral incentive’ – Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 75–9.

⁹⁹ ‘Hence only the love that is delight (amor complacentiae) is direct. But to have a duty to this (which is a pleasure joined immediately to the representation of an object's existence) … is a contradiction’ – Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 402.

¹⁰⁰ See Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 83.

¹⁰¹ Kant gives a fner-grained account in The Lectures on Ethics where he differentiates ‘love that wishes well’ from ‘love that likes well’. The former involves wishing others well, and also that they be worthy of happiness. The latter can be intellectual or sensuous. If sensuous, then sexual inclination is an example. If intellectual, then this gives rise to a disposition of benevolence. Kant claims that we are obligated to love others with well-wishing and well-liking (where this is of the intellectual kind and directed toward the humanity in the person, not necessarily the person themself). See Kant, Immanuel, Lectures on Ethics, ed. Heath, Peter and Schneewind, J. B., trans. Heath, Peter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 27: 417–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This kind of intellectual well-liking directed toward humanity is approximately equivalent to the delight in the mere representation of humanity that Kant discusses in The Metaphysics of Morals.

¹⁰² Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 402.

¹⁰³ See Kant's arguments against moral sense theorists who do make the presence of feelings, such as sympathy, the condition of action in Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 442–3. For Kant's own early moral sense theory, see Kant, Immanuel, ‘Observations on the feeling of the beautiful and sublime’, in Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. Zöller, Günter and Louden, Robert B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 2: 217.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ See Kant, Lectures on Ethics, 27: 431; Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 402.

¹⁰⁵ The misanthrope proper is not someone who merely hates, dislikes or avoids most humans, perhaps because he considers them to be ‘common’. Such a person hates not humanity per se, but only certain types of humans. The misanthrope proper dislikes humanity per se, in whatever forms it takes – including, presumably, in themself, and so they must also engage in a sort of self-loathing.

¹⁰⁶ See Kant, The Confict of the Faculties, 4: 79–94. See also Kant, ‘On the common saying’, 8: 307–12.

¹⁰⁷ I discuss these issues in my paper Formosa, Paul, ‘Kant on the radical evil of human nature’, Philosophical Forum, 38 (3): 221–45 (2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰⁸ We shall ignore here the complexities that arise from special relationships, such as those of a parent to their child.

¹⁰⁹ Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 455.

¹¹⁰ Ibid., 6: 449. See also Kant, Lectures on Ethics, 27: 406–7; Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 458.

¹¹¹ Baron, ‘Love and respect in the Doctrine of Virtue’, p. 396.

¹¹² ‘Respect is without doubt what is primary, because without it no true love can occur, even though one can harbour great respect for a person without love’ – Kant, Immanuel, ‘The end of all things’, in Religion and Rational Theology, ed. Wood, Allen and Giovanni, George Di (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8: 337.Google Scholar Wood also argues that for Kant, ‘without respect, no true love can occur’ – Wood, Allen, Kantian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 179.Google Scholar

¹¹³ Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 458.

¹¹⁴ Ibid., 6: 466.

¹¹⁵ Ibid., 6: 458.

¹¹⁶ Ibid., 6: 473.

¹¹⁷ Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 78–9.

¹¹⁸ Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 473.

¹¹⁹ Kant differentiates between ‘respect in the practical sense’, as it is used here and throughout this paper, and respect ‘understood as the mere feeling that comes from comparing our worth with another's (such as a child feels merely from habit toward his superior)’ – ibid., 6: 449. Although this distinction is not developed by Kant in any great depth, the latter sense of respect seems similar to what Darwall calls ‘appraisal respect’ (the positive appraisal of a person's particular qualities), in contrast to ‘recognition respect’ (taking the status of the other into account when deliberating about what to do). See Darwall, Stephen L., ‘Two kinds of respect’, Ethics, 88 (1): 36–49 (1977), pp. 38–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar While recognition respect is central to Kant's normative project, whether or not he sees any legitimate role for appraisal respect is debatable. On this point see Wood, Kantian Ethics, pp. 179–81.

¹²⁰ Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 449.

¹²¹ Ibid., 6: 455.

¹²² Ibid., 6: 459.

¹²³ Ibid., 6: 455.

¹²⁴ The passage reads in full: ‘What makes such a vice [i.e. ingratitude] possible is misunderstanding one's duty to oneself, the duty of not needing and asking for others’ beneficence, since this puts one under obligation to them, but rather preferring to bear the hardships of life oneself than to burden others with them and so incur indebtedness (obligation); for we fear that by showing gratitude we take the inferior position of a dependent in relation to his protector, which is contrary to self-esteem (pride in the dignity of humanity in one's person)’ – ibid., 6: 459.

¹²⁵ We shall return to this point later.

¹²⁶ Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, 6: 27.

¹²⁷ Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 463.

¹²⁸ See Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, 6: 27. Elsewhere, Kant calls these three vices the ‘vices of hatred for human beings, directly (contrarie) opposed to love of them’ – Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 458.

¹²⁹ See Kant's discussion of these three manias (or passions) in Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 272–4.

¹³⁰ Kant's point here is that simply understanding our well-being in terms of what we have in comparison with others is a mistaken conception of well-being. This does not mean either that what we have relative to others cannot form a valid basis for claims about social justice or that such considerations are completely irrelevant to a proper conception of well-being.

¹³¹ See, in particular, Parts Two to Four in Kant, Religion Within The Boundaries Of Mere Reason.

¹³² In a curious passage Kant seems to deny this point. He writes: ‘For, the relation of a protector, as a benefactor, to the one he protects, who owes him gratitude, is indeed a relation of mutual love, but not of friendship, since the respect owed by each is not equal’ (italics are mine) – Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 473. However, given Kant's considered moral view that we owe equal respect to all persons, and given what he says elsewhere about gratitude and friendship, the above italicized passage should read: ‘since the obligations owed by each are not equal’. We can take Kant here to have made a simple error, to be talking about appraisal rather than recognition respect, or to be talking about the mistaken views (formed by corrupt social conditions) of the two parties involved.

¹³³ Ibid., 6: 458.

¹³⁴ Ibid., 6: 469.

¹³⁵ Kant, Lectures on Ethics, 27: 425–6.

¹³⁶ Ibid., 27: 425–6.

¹³⁷ This provides another angle from which to approach the much disputed status of social justice in Kant's political philosophy. Asymmetries of respect are created whenever adult persons are forced to appeal to the benevolence of their friends or fellow citizens, rather than to justice, to secure the basic necessities of life, in cases where they cannot secure it for themselves. Therefore, some form of substantive social justice, not just procedural equality, is necessary to ensure that the conditions for the possibility of friendship between all citizens as social equals are not undermined.

¹³⁸ See Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 459.

¹³⁹ Ibid.

¹⁴⁰ Kant mentions the need, when undertaking the application of the metaphysical frst principles of a doctrine of virtue, to consider specifc ethical duties that arise from particular conditions and relationships. Such an account, though important, can ‘only be appended to the system’ since we can provide only a fragmentary and not a systematically complete account of such special cases. See ibid., 6: 468–9.

¹⁴¹ In discussing self-love and love of one's neighbour, Kant argues that ‘in wishing I can be equally benevolent to everyone, whereas in acting I can, without violating the universality of the maxim, vary the degree greatly in accordance with the different objects of my love (one of whom concerns me more closely than another)’ – ibid., 6: 452. Kant's claims here about self-love can equally well be applied to all those who are near and dear to us, including family and friends.

¹⁴² My point here is only to mention that differing debts of obligations can provide a moral ground for partiality that is not normally considered by either Kant's defenders or detractors. I have not attempted to provide here any details about when, and to what degree, partiality and impartiality are morally appropriate. For a wider discussion of some of these issues, see Herman, Barbara, ‘Agency, attachment, and difference’ in The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 184–207.Google Scholar

¹⁴³ Kant cautions, owing to his views about the moral frailty of humans, against trusting our friends, at least initially, with too much personal information. However, in true moral friendship, which ‘actually exists here and there in its perfection’, the ‘judicious and trusted friend’ is one to whom you can reveal who you are without having to hold anything back – see Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 471–4.

¹⁴⁴ Ibid., 6: 471.

¹⁴⁵ Ibid., 6: 474.

¹⁴⁶ See Kuehn, Kant: A Biography.

¹⁴⁷ Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 472–3.

¹⁴⁸ Ibid., 6: 473. Kant repeats this same point in the fnal paragraph of §88 in Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 282. See also my discussion of the morality of ‘white lies’ and untruthful social niceties in Formosa, Paul, ‘“All politics must bend its knee before right”: Kant on the relation of morals to politics’, Social Theory and Practice, 34 (2): 157–81 (2008), pp. 160–7.Google Scholar Frierson discusses politeness in more depth and develops the distinction between deception and illusion in Frierson, Patrick, ‘The moral importance of politeness in Kant's anthropology’, Kantian Review, 9 (1): 105–27 (2005).Google Scholar

¹⁴⁹ Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 473–4.

¹⁵⁰ Although it is not the fnal step, which requires a revolution in our disposition – see Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, 6: 47.

¹⁵¹ ‘It is quite certain that through this propensity to conceal themselves as well as to assume an appearance that is advantageous for them humans have not merely civilized themselves but gradually moralized themselves to a certain degree … [but] later, when the genuine principles have fnally been developed and incorporated into his way of thought, that duplicity must gradually be vigorously combated, for otherwise it corrupts the heart, and good dispositions cannot grow among the rampant weeds of fair appearance’ – Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, ed. and trans. Guyer, Paul and Wood, Allen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. A748/B776.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵² See Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 7: 324–5.

¹⁵³ Korsgaard, Christine M., Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵⁴ See Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism, in Utilitarianism, On Liberty, and Considerations of Representative Government, ed. Acton, H. B. (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1972), pp. 24–30.Google Scholar For a discussion of Mill along these lines, see Donner, Wendy, ‘Mill's utilitarianism’, in The Cambridge Companion to Mill, ed. Skorupski, John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 273.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁵ See also Kant's discussion of the Socratic dialogue method for teaching ethics in Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 477–84.

¹⁵⁶ Kant allows that we may dislike or disrespect the person of a vicious character, even if we grant that their humanity (which they misuse) entitles them to be treated with a certain level of love and respect – Kant, Lectures on Ethics, 27: 418.

¹⁵⁷ See Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 6: 405–6.

¹⁵⁸ This point is central to Kant's rejection of those moral theories that attempt to justify moral obligations on the basis of prudence. See Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 442.

¹⁵⁹ This brings to mind the Stoic idea of expanding concentric circles of affection around the self, the family, the state and all of humanity, with the cosmopolitan goal of drawing the outward circles in – see Nussbaum, Martha C., ‘Kant and Stoic cosmopolitanism’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 5 (1): 1–25 (1997), p. 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶⁰ I wish to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Marguerite La Caze and the two anonymous referees for the Kantian Review for their very helpful comments.