Science and Racism - Kant's 'Anthropology' and the Need for Reorientation of Kantian Scholarship

Abstract

For a while, discussions of the relation between Kant’s views on race and his philosophical system relied on the assumption that the universality of Kant’s claims is inconsistent with his racist claims. Thus, on some accounts, Kant held both that, on the one hand, all human beings have equal moral worth, and, on the other, human beings have different levels of moral potentials depending on their race (racial hierarchism). (E.g., Mills 2019) On some other accounts, Kant changed his mind in the mid-1790s and abandoned racial hierarchism, in order to espouse an egalitarian position. (E.g., Kleingeld 2007) Both these interpretative positions share the view that racism contradicts Kant’s moral universalism and political egalitarianism. A relatively new direction in the debate claims rejects this view, and argues that the complexity of Kant’s system allows Kant to hold consistently both moral hierarchism and moral universalism. (Lu Adler 2023) Within the framework of these debates, this panel invites papers on a number of issues of concern: whether on the assumption of a contradictory stance Kant's later philosophy genuinely addresses the question of racism; whether, without the assumption of a contradiction, we can see Kant's racism as a misguided dictate of reason; whether the status of Kant's claims (published, unpublished but publicly presented in lectures or presented in notes) has implications for the question of racism.

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Methodological Approaches to Racism in Kant’s Anthropology	View Paper Details
Kant, Racism and the Dictates of Reason	View Paper Details
Does Kant have a Nachlass	View Paper Details