Cosmopolitanism, Feminism, and Imperialism. A Kantian Approach

At a time like ours, when identity politics and demands for the recognition of differences have taken on increasing importance, has cosmopolitanism and its defense of allegedly universal values such as individual freedom become untenable or even unacceptable? I propose to examine this question through the lens of feminist debates related to global gender justice and relational autonomy. Feminism has indeed a sometimes strained relationship with individual freedom: although it is typically animated by a willingness to liberate women from male domination, when it tries to extend this liberation across cultures and borders, it is often accused of slipping into paternalism and arrogance, and of perpetuating and reinforcing imperialist domination. What are we to think of this tension? Might the individual freedom cherished by cosmopolitans not after all be a universal value? Is it possible for a feminist to be a cosmopolitan without being an imperialist? In this paper, I will answer this question in the affirmative and mobilise Kantian practical philosophy to support my position. This may come as a surprise for Kant’s conception of individual freedom has often been criticised by feminist philosophers for being too abstract and too rational, and for promoting an ideal of independence that overlooks the care and dependence relations that mark the human condition. It is also well known that Kant, far from combating gender inequalities, rather tends to justify them, as shown by his refusal to grant women the right to vote on the ground that they are naturally unfit to be active citizens. Notwithstanding these limitations, I believe that Kantian practical philosophy contains original and fruitful resources to envisage a cosmopolitan feminism that is not imperialist. My argument will proceed in four steps. I will start by presenting certain feminist debates related to global gender justice and relational autonomy in order to illustrate the difficult relationship feminism has with individual freedom when it unfolds in a context of cultural diversity. I will then show that the positions of the different protagonists of these debates ultimately rely on a shared recognition of the unconditional value of individual freedom. Thirdly, I will argue that the unconditional value of individual freedom implies certain duties to self, which set limits to what human beings are morally authorised to consent to, and more specifically, to the public laws they are juridically authorised to enact and to the preferences they are ethically authorised to embrace. Finally, I will show that far from inviting paternalism and arrogance, duties to self and the unconditional value of individual freedom that underlies them, require cosmopolitan feminists to do everything they can to preserve the juridical and moral personality of the women they address, notably by refraining from imposing on them ends that are not theirs and by refraining from eroding their self-respect.