Ideals in Kantian Political Philosophy

All politics must bend its knee before right. (TP 8:380) The idea of a civil constitution as such, which is also an absolute command that practical reason, judging according to concepts of right, gives to every people, is sacred and irresistible. (MdS 6:372) In the past decade or so, a methodological debate has dominated political philosophy. The debate is over the place of ideals in normative, particularly political theorizing. For some, the so-called “ideal theorists,” articulating principles that are uncontaminated by empirical contingencies is the principal task of political philosophers. Such theorizing is in certain respects “fact-insensitive,” for only then can it gain sufficient distance from the unjust facts on the ground to describe a fully just world. For others, the “non-ideal theorists,” facts about what’s feasible crucially inform the articulation of action-guiding principles. Only if such principles take into account what’s feasible do they meaningfully apply to our world. For reasons that this abstract’s epigraph makes clear, and that his preoccupation with the faculty of “Pure Reason” makes clearer still, Kant has been historically associated with ideal theory. This is not wrong. But it is misleading. For, as we argue here, Kant has considerable sympathy with non-ideal theorists as well. Much like his transcendental idealism seeks to steer a middle course between the rationalisms and empiricisms preceding it, Kant’s political philosophy aims to provide a conception of politics that does justice to both it’s a priori and aspirational elements and its a posteriori and pragmatic elements. Kant’s hybrid approach allows him to avoid the objection (raised by Charles Mills) that philosophers engaged in ideal-theory are blind to and do not adequately theorize injustice and oppression. Or so we will argue. We begin (in § 1) with a richer characterization of the dispute between ideal and non-ideal theory so far as it concerns us, with full awareness that the debate has splintered into many smaller debates. After isolating the aspects of the disputes that are relevant for our purposes, we isolate the organizing principles of each side. Then, in § 2, we sketch explain how Kant’s political philosophy is organized around the rule of law, which plausibly contains both ideal and non-ideal elements. In particular, so far as the rule of law is prescribed to realize our innate right to freedom given structural problems in the state of nature, it is a norm that captures non-ideal elements. But so far as the rule of law finds its grounds in an innate right that is prior to it, it is governed by norms that do not reduce to non-ideal facts. We argue in § 3 that Kant’s view has a plausible claim to satisfying both ideal and non-ideal theorists, and raise doubts regarding the capacity of “pure” theories (theories falling into just one of these camps) to do justice to our considered judgments about politics. In § 4, we consider and reply to a series of objections.