Kant on Morality and Cosmopolitanism

In the Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim (1784), Kant refers for the first time in his critical writings to “cosmopolitanism”, and defines it as the “perfect civil union of the human species” (8: 29). According to Kant’s conception of teleology in the mid-1780s, one has to understand cosmopolitanism “(…) as the womb in which all original predispositions of the human species will be developed” (8: 28). In a broad sense, this teleological approach to cosmopolitanism in history seems to allow two possible interpretations. The first grounds cosmopolitanism on facts. The second, on norms. According to the first interpretation, the “perfect civil union of the human species” results from the ideal of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. According to the second, it results from the unity of reason and its critique by itself. In my view, if one tries to understand Kant as he understood himself, it is necessary to refer his commitment to the ideal of Enlightenment back to the architectonic of his system, not the opposite. From this perspective, cosmopolitanism cannot be grounded empirically on facts. It can only be conceived of according to the unity between theory and practice. Otherwise, Kant’s whole system would fall apart, as well as the alleged unity of Kantian reason in its different uses. It is true, on the one hand, that my approach to cosmopolitanism might dissociate Kant from the current debate on contemporary political philosophy. Yet, on the other hand, by stressing the grounding role of Kant’s concept of reason, my approach to cosmopolitanism might indicate one of the challenges political philosophers have to face today. By conceiving reason according to Logic, Kant connects the ideal of Enlightenment to the fate of this science. It seems one cannot finish in the twenty-first century the unfinished project of the eighteenth century neglecting the development of Logic after Kant. So, the conflict between a unitary concept of reason and the current plurality of logics is a problem political philosophers should also consider. My paper is divided into two parts. First, I justify my claim that cosmopolitanism is grounded a priori on reason drawing on the connection between the Idea for a Universal History and the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). I explain in what sense the third formulation of the categorical imperative, namely the formula of autonomy and its variant formula of the kingdom of ends, expresses the norm grounding Kant’s doctrine of teleology in history and cosmopolitanism. Second, as a consequence of this argument, I explore the hypothesis of connection among politics, right and morality. Briefly, the puzzle to be solved is whether cosmopolitanism should result from the moral development of humanity or should condition the moral development of humanity.