I argue that in the Doctrine of Right Kant primarily offers an
idealized account of the civil condition that abstracts away from
human moral weakness. As such, this ideal can be thought of as the way
in which a community of morally perfect finite beings (holy wills or
angels) would our could constitute itself. On the other hand, Kant
thinks that, given enough time, a collection of perfectly rational
egoists (“a nation of devils”) could approach such a form of social
organization.
So where does this leave us imperfectly rational human beings? I arge
that in the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant’s only turns his focuses on to
the condition of imperfectly moral human being in the Doctrine of
Virtue, but that he does not provide a detailed account of the
possibility (or desirability) of a virtuous politics. For such an
account one must look at his discussion of ‘ethical community’ in the
Religion and his essay on Theory and Practice. I conclude this paper
with a brief discussion of these texts.
