Kant on Revolution and Political Change

Kant’s rejection of revolution has elicited confusion, from his immediate contemporaries down to the present day, because it has been thought to conflict either with his theory of the ideal state, or sometimes with the moral demands of the categorical imperative. The paper agrees with those who think the moral concern largely misplaced because of Kant’s clear distinction in his late works between demands of right and virtue (although it considers notable strictures against laws that would contravene ‘inner morality’). But the most interesting point concerns the supposed conflict between the prohibition on revolution and the need to realize Kant’s own political ideal. The paper argues that the key is understanding the role of practical principles in Kant’s critical philosophy more generally. These principles (such as the categorical imperative, in its formulation as the demand to treat oneself and others always as ends in themselves), were meant not to describe objects or states of affairs to be produced, but rather as negative limiting principles in contravention of which it was held impermissible to act. The point is that these ideals were not about things, but about actions, considered from the point of view of the actor. So when one correctly reasons out an ideal theory of a republican state, the point is not that one needs to build something corresponding directly to that ideal, but rather that none of the actions one takes should depend on maxims that would contravene the principles of such a state. Once one sees this, the supposed tension between Kant’s ideals and his view of revolution dissolves, and the status and role of his theory of historical progress also becomes clear. But what is most interesting is what else follows when one really thinks through the difference between considering institutional ideals in the more conventional way – as corresponding to objects – and in Kant’s way, which was radically new in the history of political thought. Now political theory could become not a theory of comparative regimes, but an analysis of political action from inside the standpoint of the actor, from which certain conclusions, including institutional ones, follow only indirectly. It refigured what had been understood as natural law principles describing an objective world order (and conflated with causal relations) as instead regulative principles that must be accepted among free political actors, if those actors are to be able to describe their actions to each other as defensible on principle. And that meant, in effect, putting reflection on the justifiability of relations among plural free actors, in their pursuit of justice and political change, before reflection on any imagined end or object political action might be destined to pursue. The full ramifications of such a shift perhaps remain to be explored, even today.