Kant's Politics as an Expression of the Need for His Aesthetics

Steven M. Delue

Political Theory, Vol. 13, No. 3. (Aug., 1985), pp. 409-429.

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 KANT'S POLITICS AS AN EXPRESSION
OF THE NEED FOR HIS AESTHETICS

n
S T E V E N M. 1 ) E I ; U E
A4rcirnl U I I I L ~ C ~ T I I I

N KANT'S political thought, politics always is to bend its knee

before the moral law.' Riley is correct, then, in arguing that the proper
relationship between morality and politics is one in which the political
serves moral ends.2 And the essential end of moral life, in keeping
with Kant's moral imperative to treat persons as ends, is "respect for
persons." Thus, in order to understand the political forms that can
approximate Kantian rnoral ideas, it is necessary to conceptualize
"respect for persons" in a way that lends itself to incorporation into a
political scheme.
For Kant, this process is aided by the fact that respect for persons
is associated with respect for moral law. As Teuber says,

Each person I S unlque and ~rreplaceableonly Insofar a s each person has within
h ~ m s e l fsomethrng that I S unlque and for w h ~ c hthere can be no substitute.
What I S unlque and ~rreplaceableIn the person? Well, ~t 1s the moral law
and Instead of respect for the person a s such, we have respect for the moral
law a s such.3

In respecting the law, one demonstrates respect for others, and

puts oneself in a position in which one warrants respect from others as
well. The political must be devised in such a way that persons are
made to act as though they have respect for the moral law, whether or
not they in fact do. But in taking this view, one acts in a manner made

A U T H O H ' S N O T E . 1 w~ouldlike ro express tny rhunks l o the N E H f o r a summergranr

in I981 rhat allowed me rime ro do the milral research for rhrs project, to Professor
Richard Flarhman for rhe helpful comments he mcrde on an earlierdraft of rhrs arrrcle
delivered during hrs N E I I Semrnar on Polirical Liberty, and ro rhe revrewerfijr hrr or
her useful suggesrrons.

POLITICAL THEORY, Vat. 13 No. 3, August 1985 409429

@ 1985 Sage Publications, Inc.
410 POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

necessary by political scheme, and as a consequence, respect for

persons and respect for law may not emerge at all. Thus, even if in
acting as the political scheme requires one acts in keeping with the
moral law, one may not do so with an intent to respect other persons.
One may act as the law requires from fear or self-interest and have no
regard for the persons toward whom one is to manifest respect. But in
this case, respect for others might diminish or be nonexistent; and
when this occurs, the end that the respect for law makes mandatory
(that is, respect for persons) would recede in importance as well. But
how could the end that the moral law ordains recede in importance
without respect for the moral law receding in importance too? Thus, if
respect for law is to be a fundamental commitment, Kant must find
some way to maintain respect for persons, as a sirze qua non of his
entire effort. I will claim that Kant can repair this problem and achieve
respect for persons, as required by the idea of respect for law, only if
persons are viewed and appreciated for the particular persons they
are. A perspective that allows us to see persons as discrete, autono-
mous selves, with a wholeness that is based on aspects unique and
inherent to their existence, provides a sense of respect for others that
simultaneously enables us to treat others as ends whose lives must be
cultivated and preserved, the objective of Kant's moral philosophy.
When we view persons in this way, we plumb the depths of persons
and provide a more authentic foundation for the moral requirements
of treating others as ends in themselves. Moreover, this perspective
provides a view that is more readily useful as a basis for defining the
goals and horizons of Kant's politics.
The problem with which one is constantly faced in Kant's thought
is that respect for law does not guarantee a perspective that allows us
to understand persons in their unique and pal-ticularforms. Unless we
do, it is difficult to develop a basis in terms of which to act as the moral
law requires and respect others as ends. Thus, in order to make
possible the overall commitment to moral law, it is necessary to find
an additional point of view that helps us to understand persons as such
and not simply and only as caniers of moral law.
In the first part of this article I will explain the nature ofthe political
that arises from Kant's associating respect for persons with respect
for moral law. In the next section I will argue for a perspective that
incorporates Kant's aesthetic point of view into his ethical and moral
thought. In the concluding sections I will address the arguments that
 DeLue / KAN'T'S POLITICS 41 1

might be raised by Kant critics against my approach. Throughout, I

am indebted to Arendt's comments on how one might construe his
political thought if one incorporates Kant's view of aesthetics into the
rest of his political and ethical t h ~ u g h t . ~
The major difference between myself and Arendt on this question
is that she tends to view the Critique of Judgment as the basis for
Kant's reconstruction of a common world among diverse and pluralis-
tic selves. I accept this view of the Critique ofJudgment, but I take it
further by claiming that the aesthetic in Kant is best used as an
explanation for how diverse selves come to understand and to make
central the particular and unique forms of other selves, and this view
is the basis for treating other selves as ends and upholding Kantian
moral law.

The morally autonomous person in Kant makes central the idea of

respect for moral law. Kantian persons attain a comprehension of the
moral law by a form of practical reason that seeks to make as the
motive for conduct only those rules that would be universally valid for
all rational p e ~ p l e .Kantian
~ moral reasoning is thus mostly con-
cerned with determining the worth of proposed or actual motives; it is
not a form of thought that determines, as in Aristotle, the best, most
prudential way to proceed, given a particular commitment to a
specific maxim.
The essence of Kantian moral reasoning is that it can determine
valid concepts of right because it is a process of thought that is free
from external influences that would cast morality in terms of particu-
lar experience and not universal norms. Thus, the key value that
makes practical reason possible is freedom. In this case, the idea of
freedom means a type of independence from external experiences
that would, if one were not independent of them, have adverse influ-
ence on shaping ideas of right. Here Kant follows Rousseau. As in
Rousseau, Kant seeks a society that permits individuals the inde-
pendence necessary to stand in relation to others in such a way that
others have no ability o r power to determine our destinies for us,
unless we give them our consent. Following this view, it is the case
412 POI-ITICAL THEORY / A U G U S T 1985

that Kant hopes for a state that will protect the basic rights of persons
to such independence. He describes the citizen as having the follow-
ing rights:

First, the lawful freedom to obey no law other than o n e to whlch he has glven
h ~ consent;
s second, the c ~ v i equality
l of havlng among the people n o superlor
o v e r hlm except another person whom he has just a s much of a moral c a p a c ~ t y
t o blnd jurldiclally a s the other has t o b ~ n dhlm; th11-d, the attribute of c ~ v i l
Independence that requlres that he owe hls existence a n d support, not to the
a r b ~ t r a r ywill of another person In the soclety, but rather to hrs own r ~ g h t sand
powers a s a member of the commonwealth."

For Kant, then, the state must guarantee that the "freedom of each
person will be coequal to the freedom of all others under universal
law."7 In this case, individuals are provided legal equality and social
independence so that the social world in which they live does not
tyrannize them in any way.
Of course, Kant realizes, practically speaking, that it is impossible
to reach the ideal ofautonomy on the basis ofthe termsjust described.
In point of fact, individuals when given their independence will not
invoke their power of practical reason to determine the moral basis of
their lives. "For from such crooked wood as man is made of, nothing
perfectly straight can be b ~ i l t . "People
~ will be motivated by private
and personal interests, and so morality will be used simply to justify
or to rationalize the choice of ends and life modes that are in keeping
with private interests. Kant's solution is quite practical. He argues
that even if it is the case that individual citizens do not actually form
their identities to an internal commitment to moral law, or a moral
will, it still is possible to organize life in society in such a way that they
are forced to act as if they had. Society should be formed so that the
different interests are put into balance, and then no single interest or
coalition of interests has the power to dominate the rest. This
Madison-like view of the political world would, in Rousseau's words,
"force people to be free"; more importantly, even a "race of devils" is
capable of such statecraft."

T h e problem IS: Given a multitude of ratlonal belngs I-equlrlng u n ~ v e r s a llaws

for t h e ~ preser-vation,
r but each of whom IS secretly Inclined to exempt hlmself
from them, t o establish a c o n s t ~ t u t i o nIn such a way that, although t h e ~ r
prlvate rntentions conflict, they check each other, w ~ t hthe result that therr
public conduct I S the same a s if they had n o such ~ntentions.'"
 Thus, in this scheme individuals may act as they are required to by
the moral law. This means in effect that persons may observe basic
limits and restraints placed on them by the society, but may observe
these restraints without cultivating the respect for persons that the
moral law also requires. The political form that makes persons civil
and respectful of the law may in fact be unable to create an environ-
ment in which persons manifest respect for others.
The key to overcoming this problem in Kant revolves around
another problem that this account of Kant's politics seems to raise,
the conflict between what appear to be two accounts offreedom. I will
argue that in reconciling these two accounts, Kant creates the need
for a concept of duty that can only be fully realized when we cultivate
an understanding of persons in their fullness and depth.

Kant's account of freedom seems to take two different turns. In

one account, freedom is associated with a person's moral stature as a
being able to use his or her own reason to determine laws of right. To
determine the worth of proposed maxims, one must be free from
external, distorting influences. But in the political maxim that governs
Kantian politics, (that the freedom of each should be coequal to the
freedom of all), there is an understanding of freedom as the grant to
persons of a right to define their own choices and to forge their own
lives in the external, empirical world, just so long as they do so in
keeping with moral right. In this view, one is one's own agent. As
such, one sees oneself as an empirical self who attempts to provide
the means necessary to determine one's own life in the external
world. But life as an agent is not life as we conceive of it when we look
upon it from the standpoint of practical reason. In the latter case, we
exist independently of the empirical world in order to be able to
determine principles of right that should be the basis of moral life. The
laws that emerge in this realm would be alien to the freedom of
persons, as the latter conduct their lives in the empirical world. And
this is precisely what Galston argues when he says that the two views
of freedom "lie in different ontological spheres because the dignity,
the infinite worth of Kantian moral freedom consists in its elevation
above the world of natural necessity whereas the external freedom
414 POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

(the freedom associated with agency in the empirical world) is an

aspect of that world.""
Kant resolves the contradiction only through the projective powers
of speculative thought. Understanding the linkage between these two
worlds is predicated upon our powers to imagine the possibility of a
real world that accommodates moral goals conceived by practical
reason without denying the nature of the world as it really is and must
be known at the level of experience. The imagination is involved as a
way to comprehend this possibility when we ask ourselves if we
would wish to conform our lives to the norms of morality within the
context of what we know as the practical and ordinary world of our
experience. Kant says,

Ask yourself whether, if the action w h ~ c hyou propose should take place by a
law of nature of w h ~ c hyou yourself wel-e a par-t, you could I-egard11a s possible
through your will. Everyone does, In fact, declde by t h ~ rules whether actions
are morally good o r bad. Thus people ask: If one belonged to such an order of
t h ~ n g sthat anyone would allow h~mselfto decelve when he thought ~t to h ~ s
advantage, o r felt justified In shorten~ngh ~ life
s as soon as he was thoroughly
weary of 11, o r looked with complete Indifference o n the needs of others,
would he assent to h ~ wills belng a member of such an order of thlngs?I2

Thus faced with a choice between a life that is in accord with moral
norms of practical reason or one that is not, we would as rational
persons choose the former. In this case, our freedom as empirical
agents, or as persons making choices for our lives in the world of
experience, can be made to be in harmony with our lives as moral
actors. We would prefer to govern our choices as agents by a point of
view that permitted us to understand the interest of practical reason.
In this case, we can envision the possibility as well as the necessity of
combining freedom as agency (in the empirical sense) and freedom as
moral autonomy (in the noumenal sense), and we would search for a
perspective on the world that would help to facilitate a political form
that might bring about the hope of making both types of freedom
compatible.
Embodied in this perspective, then, is first the view of persons as
self-choosing, self-determining beings who have the responsibility for
forming their life plans and objectives. Also found in this perspective
is the view of persons as holding obligations to moral law, and such
persons make personal choices only within the constraints of such
law. Both elements are contained in Kant's view of duty. We have a
 DeLue / K A N T S POLITICS 415

duty to ourselves in that we have a duty to protect our autonomy and

our capacities as free persons. At the same time, we have a duty to
others; specifically, we have a duty to their happiness or to those
activities on our part that promote the needs and interests of others.
For Kant in the Iloctrine of Virtue, it is clearly the case that our duty
to others' happiness does not conflict with any of our present inter-
ests, because we do not have a simultaneous duty to our own happi-
ness. Instead, we have a duty to promote our own perfection, which
for Kant means, among other things, our perfection as moral beings. '"
But our perfection as moral beings entails our treating others as ends,
or respecting them as persons, and this cannot be achieved unless we
maintain our duty to nurture their happiness. Thus, in acting for our
own goals under moral laws, we are free to promote our own objec-
tives as we choose them, but only if we do so in keeping with the need
to promote the freedom (or in this case) the happiness of others as
well. For Kant, I do not find myself in a situation in which, because I
have a duty to both mine and to others' happiness, my life and my
freedom conflict with the life and freedom of others. Instead, my
freedom as an agent is always to manifest itself as in harmony with the
freedom of other agents, and this is primarily the case because on all
accounts each of us subscribes to the duty to uphold the others'
happiness while maintaining a duty to our own perfection.
Thus, the idea of respect for law is made less abstract and more
comprehensive when it is defined in terms that support a society that
is hospitable to the merging of both agency and morality. In this
setting rights, as defined by Kant, are essential. We have a right to be
independent from the control of others, and these rights are especially
intelligible in the context of the duties we have; others have a duty to
promote our happiness, just as we have a duty to others' happiness.
Others must show respect for the life that I choose just as I must show
respect for the life they choose. In this context the right to independ-
ence receives strong backing.
In asking how the world can best be made to approximate the idea
of coequal freedom under universal law, we are asking how we can
promote conditions in the world that are receptive to a respect for
basic duties. In so doing, we would be protecting universal moral
right and, of course, respect for the moral law. The problem that Kant
is careful to avoid is that in defining his notion of duty, he does not so
narrowly define it that duty becomes so compelling an obligation that
the agency dimension to persons would be lost completely. For in this
416 POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

case duty would choke off freedom, and we would have achieved duty
at too great a cost. If in fact this were the case, it could be claimed that
Kant makes duty so essential to the foundation of personality that
other important aspects of persons, aspects critical to agency, would
be neglected or denied. Or, furthermore, it could be argued that Kant
understood no other dimension to selves than the moral qualities
derived from one's practical reason. In this case, what Kant has
produced is a form of moral asceticism in which any dimension of life
that is outside what is properly sanctioned by moral norms is
forbidden.
But Kant does recognize these other aspects of persons. It is true
he excludes many elements of what would constitute the fullness of
life in formulating moral imperatives, but this does not mean he
excludes them from being a part of one's life and as necessary to the
fullness of life itself. In the Doctrine of Virtue, duty is a command
from a conscience that cannot be disobeyed, but it is a command that
is to take place within a full appreciation for and recognition of the
complexity of persons. Kant says that such a duty is a "command of
man to himself to cultivate his natural powers [of the spirit, of the
mind, and of the body] as a means to all kinds of possible ends; man
owes it to himself. . . not to let his natural predispositions and
capacities . . . remain unused, and not to leave them . . . rust."I4
Thus, as Galston argues, "to treat rational nature as an end in itself
is to treat the development of human powers broadly conceived as a
d u t y . " ' T h e idea of a duty to a moral law cannot be fully com-
prehended if we do not understand it in the context of the need to
promote the fullness of persons (both myself and others). This means
at least that the duty to the moral law is an idea that must incorporate,
in addition to a respect for law, an understanding of the full range of
capacities and powers that people possess. The duty to persons as a
duty to uphold the moral law is a requirement to protect, nurture, and
develop all of what is involved in the fullness of persons.
Respect for persons implies a corresponding understanding of the
fullness of persons. But how is the latter to be understood? The
practical reason that commands us to be attentive to our duty does not
in itself describe or define the nature of human fullness. Yet we cannot
act in conformity with the duty that the practical reason requires
unless we understand and appreciate the fullness of persons. Clearly,
the type ofjudgment that enumerates the nature of fullness is different
from the type that elicits the moral law. The latter derives from a
 DeLue / K A N T S POLITICS 417

practical reason that envisions by its own offices the nature of

morality. But practical reason cannot use its capacity to determine
fullness, for the latter is an idea that emanates from an understanding
of the nature of our experience as persons.
But owing to the fact that people may look at their experience from
diverse standpoints (from different places in society or different
points of time in life), people will provide diverse views of what they
see. But in this case, all views would be private and no comprehen-
sion of the other person's view would be possible. Although there
might be an infinite diversity of opinions on the fullness of persons, no
one would have the ability to understand anyone else's view on the
subject, and thus there would be no basis for agreement. As Hume
says in discussing the problem of communication in general,

Besldes, every p a r t ~ c u l a rman has a peculiar posltlon w ~ t hregard t o others;

and ~t IS ~mpossiblewe could e v e r converse together o n any reasonable terms,
were each of us to c o n s ~ d e characters
r and persons only a s they appear from
h ~ sp eculiar polnt of vlew. In order, therefore, to prevent those c o n t ~ n u e d
contradict~onsand arrlve at a more stable judgment of thlngs, we fix o n some
steady and general polnts of vlew, and always, In our thoughts, place our-
selves In them, whatever may be our present situat~on.'"

A common point of view would thus have to be created "in our

thoughts," and this viewpoint would have to help us to overcome the
obstacles to communicating with one another about the nature of
particular, individuated persons in general.

At first glance, this might seem to be a simple and even minor task,
well within the purview of Kant's view of human nature. After all,
even if Kant tends to view human nature on the level of experience as
fundamentally self-serving and narrow, he does nonetheless ap-
preciate the fact that human beings are characterizable in terms of
specific, but general powers and capacities. And the latter should be
discernible through an analysis of human experience. Kant's argu-
ments in the Critique of Judgment provide an analysis of the social
and historical forces that necessitate the development and evolution
of these powers. In the context of war and strife, a condition made
418 POLITICAL THEORY / A U G U S T 1985

likely by the selfish and narrow side of human nature, it is inevitable

that persons develop their capacities in order to ensure their survival.
War has the useful consequences then of helping to make possible a
form of human flourishing.
But for Kant to achieve the objectives of his moral argument, to
live by laws with universal validity, and, in particular, to treat persons
as ends in themselves, he must move to a view of fullness that
understands persons as such and not just as encompassing general
characteristics. If in Kant there were no possibility for such a project,
it would be clear that his critics (who claim that he cannot speak of
persons in these terms) would have a good case. But in the Critique of
Judgment, in his discussion of the beautiful, Kant does devise a way
to approach this task. If we were to look at people the same way Kant
looks at the beautiful, we would have a way of understanding the
fullness of persons as such. And there is no doubt that Kant can and
does look at persons in this way, for if he did not, he could not even
hold that the beautiful were itself possible. The beautiful is possible
only because we can look upon people as capable of understanding
persons as such, as persons with the capacity to understand the
particular and wholly unique dimensions to other people and to what
other people create.
The conditions necessary for the outlook that makes possible this
type of understanding are the conditions that the political must
preserve and nurture in its quest to make morality the basic end of all
political endeavors. Politics bends its knee to morality best when it
preserves a type of common sense that permit us to admire in others
(and in life generally) that which we recognize as a person's particular-
ity, uniqueness, and autonomy.
My view, then, is that Kant should devise a perspective, or, as
Hume would say, a "steady" and "general point" of view in our
thoughts, that will help us to look for the unique and enduring aspects
of persons that embody the qualities of autonomous persons. 'That is,
we must understand others as ends for their own particular lives,
and ourselves as ends for our particular lives, and these under-
standings are only possible from a standpoint that expresses the
way in which we exist in relation to others whom we know as persons
as such, and not just as persons whose identities are only defined
in terms of general and all-embracing concepts used to describe
classes of people.
 DeLue / KANTS POLITICS 419

The beautiful in Kant is universally adored. Unlike private feelings

that can be known only by the persons holding those feelings, the
beautiful is a shared sense that can be communicated to others. It is
the nature of persons as social beings that makes possible in fact an
ability to share with others our understanding of the beautiful. Still,
the bases of shared understandings are not concepts. The beautiful
does not exist by "reference to concepts."" In Kantian morality
there are universal concepts of right, and thus particular ideas of right
(e.g., do not lie) are comprehensible to all because these concepts
have universal validity for rational persons. But in matteis of the
beautiful, there are as many ideas of what the beautiful is as there are
understandings of the beautiful. Each person will have his or her own
view of what constitutes beauty. The object of what we deem beauti-
ful is never made intelligible then by placing it in relationship to
something external to itself that would help to provide us with the
meaning of the object.
People as dignified beings live in relation to an external moral law,
which at first is conceived internally but later is objectified and made
the basis of culture and external law. In this way human autonomy is
ultimately based on people's relation to externalized forms of moral
law. This fact permits Kant to place humankind in a political system
subject to just laws. But in the case of the beautiful, the object has its
own "inner contingency," which means that the beautiful object
(because it cannot be defined in relation to what is external to it) must
be understood (in our minds) as having its own unique features, its
own inner dynamic that leaves it free from any dependency on an
external concept. The beautiful object is a discrete, separate, and
unique entity that can be explained only in terms of its own internal
aspects that account for its existence, and even though it does not
participate in a universally valid concept of right, it still stands before
us in all of its particularity as having universal appeal.
As the beautiful does not arise as a consequence of any concept
external to it that we might share universally with others, to under-
stand something as having the qualities of the beautiful, we would
have to stand apart from external factors acting on our own lives that
tend to help provide us with our own identities. We may think of
ourselves in terms of various institutional affiliations, or moral
420 POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

categories, or interests, and predicate our identity and point of view

on these factors. But if we look upon objects of beauty from the
standpoint of these dimensions that give identity to our life, we would
tend to see the object in relation to something that is external to it. In
this case, we would fail to understand the object a s having its own
internal, autonomous aspect that constitutes its own existence. To be
able to view objects a s beautiful, then, it is necessary that we obtain a
neutral point of view on the world, a point of view removed, as Kant
says, from all interests, moral o r thenv vise.'^ Thus, we must create
for ourselves the position of a detached and neutral spectator, and this
point of view would enable us to stand at adistance to an object in the
hope that we can grasp it in its wholeness and integrity.
The faculty of imagination makes possible the spectator role. The
"free play" of the imagination allows us to recall to mind the object
after it has passed through our experience the first t i m e . ' V n this
manner, we stand as spectators in relation to our experience, and we
can d o so because we are able to arrange our perspective on the object
so that the biases and distortions of particular interests d o not effect
our view of what is before us. Our concern is to understand the object
on its own terms and not on terms that we would import into our
consideration of the object's existence from outside the object. Thus,
from the general point of view that we erect through the free play of
the imagination, we must understand the object in the context of its
wholeness, not simply taking into consideration its various parts as
we know them, but also considering the possibilities and potential
that is a part of what we recognize. The object must be plumbed for
what appears to be its "guiding threads," which tie the various as-
pects of the object together into a unity and that explain both the
object's common appeal and its inherently autonomous foundation in
itself and not in any source external to it.""
The free play of the imagination creates a mental state that permits
us to envision the object in its wholeness, but in a context that is in
keeping with the basic nature of the world, as that world appears t o us
through the faculty of understanding. The congruence then between
the world a s it really is and the object as we recognize it (existing a s it
does in terms of its own autonomous devices) makes for a sense of
unity that is pleasing to the mind."
In constructing this viewpoint, we recognize the capacity to make
possible a basis for communication among persons. No single person
has the power to understand the nature of an object's autonomy. That
 DeLue / KANTS POLITICS 421

task is simply beyond the power of any single person, because in

creating the neutral spectator role, a person would inevitably put him-
o r herself in a position in which he o r she would see only part of what
is before him o r her and not the whole of it. Thus, t o see all of what is
there, one must rely on the judgments of others, who like oneself are
attempting to understand the nature of an object's autonomy, and who
like oneself realize that a s neutral spectators they too can only see a
part of what is there. By sharing points of view, persons attempt to
gain a sense of the whole. In the process, persons may disagree a s to
what they see. Consequently, a s Arendt says, persons would try to
"woo" one another over to their own view of the object.22
This dialogue is only imaginary for Kant, but a s commentators
have argued, one must assume that this imaginary dialogue is the
basis for real dialogue and for a common sense among people, a
common understanding that is the basis for persons sharing their
opinions with one another and testing them, a s Kant says, against the
"common reason of humanity. " 2 W i t h o u t the participation of others,
we cannot know o r understand what is before us; our understanding
will only be partial and our efforts t o understand an object's whole-
ness will be frustrated. Thus, we must assume the possibility of a
common world to which each of us can repair, and find there the basis
for constructing, with the help of others, an understanding of the
beautiful. Even though each of us may end up with a different expla-
nation for a n object's beauty, each of us shares a n understanding of
the beautiful a s the search for a n object's autonomous grounding in
factors particular to itself. We each would share with one another the
yearning to understand what is s o attractive and enticing, and we
would always make a s a means t o this end the maintenance of the
bonds of community. Without this possibility, the beautiful would
never be deemed important:

A man abandoned by hlmself o n a desert ~ s l a n dwould adorn neither h ~ hut

s
nor h ~ person,
s nor would he seek for flowers, still less would he grow plants,
In order to adorn h ~ m s e l fw ~ t h . ~ ~

But although it is inevitable that persons would disagree over the

nature of the beautiful, still there would be agreement as to the need
for cultivating a sense of taste o r a respect across society for the
beautiful. This type of assent for cultivating a sense of taste (and this
agreement assumes the dimensions of an original contract in Kant) is
422 POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

necessary to keep alive the importance of the beautiful and its signifi-
cance for appreciating the autonomous nature of the things of our
world. Moreover, because the beautiful can only be comprehended
amid community, insofar as we cultivate a sense of taste, we as a
community of diverse persons engage in a common quest to under-
stand the autonomous nature of the various aspects that constitute
our world and that give our world its beauty.
That which we revere for its autonomy and its enduring character
as a particular object, with its own unique features and self-sustaining
qualities, is something that we admire not only for the pleasure it
brings us, but for the fact that it exists, and that it should be treated as
an end in itself, worthy of our respect without need for further
explanation. For this reason, respect for the beautiful symbolizes a
good soul or a predisposition to morality in Kant, because in ap-
preciating what is beautiful, we make possible and mandatory a
common world that helps us to define a thing's autonomy and that
thus allows us to nurture our respect for the autonomy of the things
before And when this attitude is carried over into our view of
persons, we would seek a world in which we would accord others the
status a s unique and self-perpetuating beings, who deserve our re-
spect without question. Thus, if we were to look upon persons in a
similar way to the way we look upon the beautiful, we would find an
independent point of view o r a common framework that permits us to
view persons as such, and not simply a s we know them when they are
bearers of broad and general characteristics.
When we look upon people in the same way we look upon objects
of the beautiful, we look beyond the general qualities and characteris-
tics of persons to the real persons that we can recognize amid these
qualities. In this way we attempt to establish the "whole" that consti-
tutes the particular and unique configuration of qualities that we
"see" in the person before us. The perspective that makes it possible
for us t o know persons in this way must be nurtured, and the condi-
tions that contribute to this approach to persons must be supported by
the political realm.
Certainly persons exist in terms of the categories in which we find
them. They are members of social classes, ethnic groups, occupa-
tional groups, and so on. But in addition from the standpoint of
aesthetic judgments, they are persons with their internal forms of
unity and dimensions of life that force us to recognize these persons
not as ends for any external category, but as beings who in themselves
 DeLue KANTS PO1,ITICS 423

possess an inner dynamic that expresses the foundation of their lives.

As we look upon persons in this manner, we can determine the nature
of each person a s a discrete, separate, and completely free being,
whose essence depends entirely on our ability to protect persons a s
such, a s they are in their particular humanity. This does not mean that
all spectators who look upon persons in this way will necessarily
agree that the person they are viewing should be understood only in
one way and no other. We, the spectators, will n o doubt disagree as t o
the meaning of the inner dynamic of the person we see. But what we
will agree upon is that the person before us can be a discrete and
self-sustaining person, a person whose existence does not depend on
an external category into which he o r she is made to fit. Instead, the
person is an end in his- o r herself, o r a being in terms of which aspects
of the world fit into one's life because they are in keeping with one's
own particular form a s aperson, aform that while unique to himself o r
herself, nonetheless because it exists in this way allows us, the
onlooker, to agree that the form of the person represents an aspect of
universality that we have a duty to protect and nurture. In this way a
cluty t o respect others a s persons seems reasonable in the context of
an attitude that permits us to have an understanding of and respect for
the fullness of human life.

Some commentators on Kant claim that although there is a tempta-

tion t o understand persons the same way we understand the beautiful,
it is a temptation to be avoided. Teuber says that although it is
tempting to link the beautiful t o the moral, "Kant does not link the
notion of respect with the concept of beauty."" Principally, t o link a
view of a person to the beautiful would be t o "presuppose aconcept of
a purpose which determines what the thing is to be."" In this way we
would risk attributing t o persons a purpose from outside of them-
selves, and thus make them relative to something else, something that
does not emanate from within their own selves a s does, for instance,
the idea of moral law.
But the importance of looking a t persons from the standpoint of an
aesthetic form of judgment is that we seek t o discern the unique
internal shape of the person, the qualities of people that explain their
wholeness and fullness a s persons. Thus, in looking at them a s we
424 POLITICAL. THEORY I AUGUST 1985

look at the beautiful, we see in persons what we see in the beautiful

(namely, the person a s such) and, in consequence, we see the person
as an autonomous being whom we must treat as an end in keeping with
Kant's moral law. Thus, the perspective of aesthetical judgment looks
upon the world a s a form of "purposiveness without purpose"; this
perspective specifies no overwhelming plan o r design into which
people are placed o r subordinated. Instead, in this vision we recog-
nize the fullness of persons and are more able to treat persons a s ends
in themselves because we know them a s persons in their integrity and
fullness.
Viewed in this way, persons are not products of nature or its grand
design. Instead, they are freed from the powers of nature to place
them in a position in which they are forever means to some overarch-
ing chain of events to which each person must conform. Rut a s
autonomous beings, persons are in a position to make nature serve
their own ends, ends that they a s humans ordain during the process of
expressing their own humanity.2n
Another argument against viewing persons in the same way a s we
view the beautiful is that Kant, in fact, refused t o d o so. 'Tueber says,

Kant does not link the notion of respect w ~ t hthe concept of beautiful. In splte
o f t h e numerou\ parallels that c a n be drawn, the u n ~ q u enature of a work o f a r t
and the lntrlns~cworth of a person, for Kant respect has much \tronger
a f f i n ~ t ~ wlth
e s another Idea: the s u b l i ~ n e . ~ "

Tueber's position is unassailable if we simply chose to remain with

the conventional view of Kant that derives directly from his moral
theory. In this view what is most important is respect for the moral
law, and in the sublime we can imagine the grandeur of a life lived in
accordance with reason, but we cannot imagine ever attaining such a
lofty status. Thus, there is a gap between what we want and what we
can have, and a s we look at the "starry heavens" above, we realize
that our nature a s beings of reason provides us with a sense of awe and
reverence, but a s we descend to the world of sense we are humiliated
and chastened to realize our severe limitations.
Still, even with this tension between what we can be and what we
are, there is no reason why we cannot, from Kant's own account of
morality, imagine ourselves moving closer in the direction of what we
can be. 'The tension will always exist; it is part of humankind's
 DeLue 1 K A N T S POLITICS 425

existential dilemma. Rut we recognize that if the goal of freedom, a

life in accord with moral law, is to be believed, it must be approxi-
mated; and to do so we must move to close the gap between the ideals
of morality and the experiential world in which these ideals are to be
played out. Kant says,

The concept of freedom I S rneant to actualize In the world of sense the purpose
proposed by ~ t laws,
s and consequently nature must be s o thought that the
conformity t o law of ~ t forrn
s at least harrnon~zesw ~ t hthe possibility of the
purposes to be effected I n ~t according t o laws of freedom. There must,
therefore, be a ground of the unrty of the supersensible, whrch lies at the b a s ~ s
of nature and the concept of thrs ground makes possible the transition
fr-orn the [node of thought according to the prlncrples of the one to that
according to the prrnclples of the other.:lo

In bridging the gap between the realm of ideas and the realm of
experience, one may assume as Kant does that the world can be
imagined as though it did move itself in the direction of a moral order,
an order that is rationally desirable. Kant's writings on history and
politics are designed for this objective. In history we assume, as Kant
says, a hidden purpose to nature, a purpose that drives toward mor-
ality, even if the people who live in that world would not be aware of
that mission in their own lives. Moreover, we can, as political per-
sons, imagine the world as serving the ends of morality; politics must,
as I have already said, bend its knee before morality. And that means
that we expect a world in which people act in accordance with moral
law. Rut as I have already said, to make this goal practical from within
our own vantage points, it is necessary to provide the background
conditions in terms of which duty to others is considered in the
context of the fullness of persons. For this to succeed, we must define
fullness not solely in terms of a respect for moral law, but in terms of
the specific persons that are owed such respect; and this can be done
only if we imagine the possibility of a common sense that looks at
persons as autonomous beings driven by a unique configuration of
qualities that together make comprehensible the "whole beings" that
they are. In imagining the possibility of such persons, we make
necessary both a common sense perspective and the conditions that
support it, and we thus define as part of politic's and history's quest
the mission to establish the conditions of an ability to know persons as
such.
426 POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

'The Critique qf'Judgment can be read as providing a corrective t o

Kant's ethics. If we view others a s we view the beautiful, it is possible
to conceive of other persons in terms of their fullness and potential.
Within this framework of understanding, the domain is established for
acting from a good will or a desire to respect others as ends. Advo-
cates of a more traditional reading of Kant might point out that Kant's
statements in the Critique qfJud<:ment eschew a direct link between
morality and distinterested love for the beautiful. Kant says in this
regard that moral feeling

~ r e q u ~ r econcepts
s and presume\ not free purposlvene\s, but purposiveness
that I S cornforlnable t o law; it [moral feeling] therefore adln~t.;of b e ~ n gunlver-
sally c o m m u n ~ c ~ t t eonly
c l by ~ n e a n s o rf e a w n [whereas] the pleasure ~nthe
beautiful 1s ne~thel-a pleasure of enloylnent nor of law-ab~dingactlvlty, nor
even of r a t ~ o n a lcontelnplat~onIn accordance w ~ t hIdeas, 1x11of mere r-eflec-
t~on.?'

Still, it is only in the context of the framework in which we understand

others in terms of their fullness as persons that respect for moral laws
makes any sense at all. When we are successful in charting a disin-
terested mental framework that permits us to understand the fullness
of persons, we provide the domain in which respect for moral law as a
motive for conduct is practical and, in fact, can be practiced.
Can respect for persons be made the foundation of Kant's politics
too'? Kant argues that people, even from motives of self-interest, can
realize ends that are morally worthy. Even though in Kant'5 political
realm people act from the standpoint of nonmoral motives, it still is
possible for them to attain a social environment that on the whole has
moral value and that they would accept had they made moral motives
(or in this case, the ideal of Kant's republican state) their chief
objective." Implicit in this view of the relationship between politics
and morality is that the political order has worth only when it is moral.
This assumption suggests on Kant's part, and presumably on the part
of Kantian citizens a s well, that the distinguishing feature separating a
worthy social arrangement from an unworthy one is whether or not
the society is moving toward a condition in which respect for others a s
ends is fundamental to the life of the regime. Thus, although the basis
 DeLue / K A N T S POL,ITICS 427

for individual action in a regime may be nonmoral motives, the

foundation for judgments of that regime is moral.
'The Critique of Judgment helps to explain how and why such
judgments are possible even in a society in which action is interest
based. It does so by attributing certain capacities to persons. Kantian
persons are not simply beings of self-interest who orchestrate their
lives to achieve their desires within the context of legal and social
constraints. Kantian persons also have the capacity for reflection,
and, as reflective beings, they both desire and are able to remove
themselves (in their minds as they make judgments) from the swirl of
life to determine if the society of which they are a part contains moral
worth and significance. 'The model of reflective persons is the enlight-
ened and cultured individual who, "influenced by [the] refinement of
society," is "civilized" and thus seeks to place "reason" (or morality)
above "sense" (or the pushes and pulls of self-interest).33From the
standpoint of enlightened and refined persons, politics must work for
a society in which people are treated as ends. And it must be
presumed that experience in a society in which persons are able to
understand the fullness of persons will be an experience that substan-
tiates the basic principles of judgment that enlightened people use
when they assess the moral worth of their social arrangements.
The consequences for liberal political order are clear. From the
standpoint of modern liberalism, persons have diverse qualities and
powers that governments and social institutions must help protect
and nurture. But in emphasizing the general qualities of persons and
the institutions that protect them, our gaze is never toward the per-
sons that embody these qualities. As a consequence, the idea of duty
to others loses ground. In its place is a notion of rights that we are
owed and that we owe others. And these rights protect, supposedly,
the general characteristics of persons. But the fullness of persons that
is to accompany a notion of duty is never a part of a person's outlook
and consequently duty is viewed with suspicion and often even as an
impediment to "rights." The political can find room for aduty toward
others, in which we see others as ends, by building conditions that
encourage persons to understand persons as such, as the particular
persons that transcend and incorporate the particular qualities that
constitute their lives. In this way, liberalism can strive notjust for the
legitimacy of rights, but for the legitimacy of duties too, and, finally
 428 POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

and most importantly, for a politics that self-consciously bends its

knee before morality.

N O TES

I . lrninanuel Kant, "Perpetual Peace," in I.ewls Beck W h ~ t e e, d . , Otr History

(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957). p. 134.
2. P a t ~ c kRiley, "On Kant a s the Most Adequate of the S o c ~ a lContract
T h e o r ~ s t s , "Politic(11 Theory I ( N o v e m b e r 1973). p. 468.
3. Andreas 'I'euber, "Kant's Respect fol- Persons," Politic(11 T h ~ ~ Ir1 y(August
1983), p. 375.
4. Hannah Arendt, I . ~ c t u r ~011 . s h'c~nt'vPolirrcrrl Philosophy, Robert R e ~ n e r ed.
,
( C h ~ c a g o :Unlvel-s~tyof Chlcago Press, 1982).
5. Immanuel Kant. Crrriqur ofPrrrctict11 R P ~ I S O II.ewl.; I. Beck W h ~ t e ed.
, (In-
dianapolis: Robbs-Merrill, 1956).
6 . Iininanuel Kant, Mercrphys~ccrlEl'mentv o f J u v t ~ c e . John L a d d , trans. (In-
dianapolis: Robbs-Merrill. 1965). pp. 78-79
7 I b ~ d . p. , 35.
8. Iininanuel Kant. "Idea fol- U n ~ v e r s a lHistol-y," In I . e w ~ sHeck White, e d . ,
Ohlo Hisrorv, pp. 17-18.
9. Kant. "Perpetual Peace," p. 112.
10. Ibid.. p. 112.
I I. Williain Galston, " Defending I.ibe1-alisin." A I I I ~ I - IPolit~ctrl
~ ~ I ~ I Scrence Re,-
vrerr. 76 (September 1982). p. 622.
12. Kant, Crrrrqrrc, of Prc~ctrccrlRP(ISOII,p. 72.
13. Irnrnanuel Kant, "Metaphysical Prlnclples of Vil-tue," in Jaines Ellington,
e d . , A Thrrd Philosophy (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983), pp. 50-53.
14. I b ~ d .p. , 108.
15. William (;al\ton, "Moral Pel-sonality a n d 1.ibe1-al Theol-y," 10 (Novernbel-
1982). o , 509.
16. Davicl Hurne, Hunze't Mort11 cind Politicc~lPhilo.sophy, Hen[-y D. Aiken, ed.
( N e w York: Hafner, 1948), p. 137
17 lrnin:~nuel Kant, Critique ofJu(l,qniet~t, J . H . Barnard, ed. ( N e w York:
Hafner, 1951). pp. 17, 52-53.
18. I b ~ d . p, . 38.

19 Ibid., pp. 52, 77

20. I b ~ d . p, . 22.

?I. I b ~ d . p. . 32.

22. Arendt, Lectur-c,.s on Kot~t'sl'oliticrrl Philo.tophy, p. 72.

23. Kant, C'rrtrc/u~ofJu(l,gm~nt,p. 136.
24. Ibid., p. 139.
25. Ibld., p. 139

26..I'euber, "Kant's Respect for Persons," p. 373.

27 I h ~ d .p. , 373.

 De1,ue / K A N T S POL,ITICS 429

28. Kant, Crrtrquc~of.ludgment, pp. 28-83.

29 Teuber, "Kant's Respect for Persons," p. 373.
30. Kant, C r r t i q u ~o f J u d g n l e ~ ~p.t , 12.
31. Ibld., p. 134.
32. Kant, Mefcrphysrcrrl E1ernenf.r of~.ruvtlc', pp. 1 1 1 - 1 I3
33. Kant. Crrtrc/ue of.rudgmenr, p. 284.

Sfe~venM . L)eLue rs Profi,ssor citrd Chulr o f f h e Depcrrtrnent of~Politrccr1SCI(,IICP

at Micrmr Unrver.rifv. His puhliccrrio~rs lnclude crrficles I I I Polity, Journal of
Politics, crnd the Arner~canPolitical S c ~ e n c eKev~ew.He currently rs working
on cr srudv ofpolitic'crl ohligcltion.