Legacy and loss

Kant's ethical and political legacies have never been more widely revered than they are today. Yet central parts of that legacy are in danger of slipping beyond the understanding of many who claim to revere it, and are often equated with views that Kant would have rejected. This drift in standard readings of Kantian themes gives those who care about his philosophy good reason to pay close attention to its current reception.

This might be done in several ways. One approach – it may seem particularly appropriate in the year of the 200th anniversary of Kant's death – is to see ourselves as custodians of a precious heritage. We could make it our mission to clarify and present Kant's claims or arguments, to correct (mis)appropriations, to promote textual rigour, to rescue travestied arguments and to set them in their proper context. But a merely retrospective and corrective stance rejects or overlooks the efforts of colleagues who try to keep versions or descendants of Kant's ideas in wider circulation and in contention. A purely custodial approach to Kant's legacy might have little impact on contemporary debates and fail to keep Kant's thought alive.

A second, more constructive, way of engaging with contemporary (mis)appropriations of Kantian ideas would respond to their selective approach to topics and to texts by paying extra attention to those Kantian ideas that have the greatest contemporary resonance. In ethics and political philosophy this approach might lead us to concentrate selectively on topics such as ethical universalism, respect for persons, human dignity, autonomy and cosmopolitan justice. A selective approach needs a certain sympathy with work that is often not based on close reading of Kant. It will unavoidably do less than justice to topics that would be indispensable in a full treatment of Kant's claims and arguments, yet lack contemporary resonance.

Yet if the aim is to prevent a gulf opening between current work in philosophy and close engagement with Kant's writings, this sympathy with contemporary concerns must also be kept in check. After two centuries, a close relationship between contemporary would-be Kantian writing and the original texts must be cultivated rather than taken for granted. So much by way of preamble and excuse. My intention here is to explore some ideas that are central to Kant's practical philosophy and supposedly still resonant, yet frequently obscured and distorted.