Consenting to Inequality: Kantian Reflections on Autonomy, Subordination and Servility Within Marriage

My paper focuses on a tension in Kant’s practical philosophy concerning autonomy: the tension between, on the one hand, its legitimation of unequal relations within the family (in the Doctrine of Right) and, on the other hand, its condemnation of the vice of servility or false humility (in the Doctrine of Virtue). More specifically, it seeks to determine to what extent the relation of subordination that Kant advocates between spouses can be reconciled with the fundamental demand of autonomy, according to which every human being has a duty never to accept becoming the servant (Knecht) of another and never to allow others to violate their rights with impunity. To this end, it examines the Kantian notion of perfect duties to self as duties to preserve one’s autonomy, and uses this framework to clarify the limits Kant places on what a human being may juridically and ethically consent to. It argues that even if Kant’s conception of the “character of the sexes” is now largely discredited, his appeal to duties to self, far from blaming women who are victims of oppression, offers a valuable tool for emancipation.