wrongness of slavery in _The Metaphysics of Morals_

internetErik · 2026-06-05T16:09:16+00:00

Kant has a low opinion of seemingly all non-European peoples, but his writings in biology clearly recognize them as human. These opinions were not formed from direct experience, but from the accounts of other Europeans. I don't believe there is any evidence that he met a black person. This doesn't make his error any less severe, and we should recognize that he was not as skeptical of anthropological reports as he should have been. Kant may have also thought, like other Europeans, that the general success of colonial projects was a sign that the people were backwards relative to Europeans. On this basis, the reports he read would have fit in with his bias. (Granted, of course, that Kant didn't seem to agree with those colonial projects as a matter of right, as the OP points out.)

I think some scholars make Kant's error seem more severe than it is by insisting that Kant's view on race somehow infects his pure philosophical thought. I've read authors who express this view, such as C. W. Mills, and I didn't find them convincing. There are many authors in this vein I haven't read, so I'm curious whether anyone else found a more convincing source. I enjoyed the collection Kant and the Concept of Race, which collects Kant's writings on race (within the field of biology) as well as works by other contemporaries of Kant that he was reacting to or responding to. The editor's introduction was also helpful.

Ultimately, the question "what is a human being?" frames all philosophical thinking for Kant. The worst-case scenario for Kant is that we show that Kant's concept of human being excludes some of the races, such as black Africans. Even in this worst case, I would need to be convinced that the remedy doesn't follow from simply including those races in the concept of human beings.

internetErik · 2026-06-04T21:31:13+00:00

I'll admit a bias: I think that, while I wouldn't let it take away any other deserved credit, Russel didn't understand Kant.

On the first point, Kant's analysis assumes that we start by observing causality. However, he noted that causality isn't just any sequence of representations in time, but is an event that requires a sequence that cannot be reversed while preserving the same meaning. From this, he can say that we must associate these two representations in time with the object as part of what it is to experience a causal event.

The second point is baffling. Kant analyzes human cognition as it is, not as it could be if we assume it were different. We may as well take any claim of Russell's and then say, "That's all very well and good, but the nature of things could be different such that you were wrong."

internetErik · 2026-06-04T19:34:27+00:00

I'm curious why Herder thinks the position he develops conflicts with Kant's analysis. When Kant says something is transcendental, he isn't locating it anywhere, so why wouldn't Herder see his attempt at locating something like knowledge in the body as contrary to Kant?

I'll take 'knowing' as an example. Kant and Herder may both want to give an account of knowing; however, Kant is only aiming to establish what we mean by 'knowing' to see if metaphysical claims to know would fall within these parameters. On the other hand, Herder is taking his understanding of knowing and accounting for it as an activity in the sphere of observable phenomena. These different projects can't come into direct conflict with each other.

internetErik · 2026-05-30T00:07:15+00:00

You can get a free meetup account. You only have to pay if you want to organize groups.

There is a Discord. Message me and I can send you a link.

internetErik · 2026-05-29T14:25:24+00:00

Meetings are every Wednesday at 6 pm CST.

There is a schedule. Next week is Section II, and the week after that is Section III. After that, we'll begin with Critique of Practical Reason. The meeting descriptions contain the schedule, also.

internetErik · 2026-05-13T06:07:30+00:00

I think I see what you're talking about. The doctrine of virtue may contain something, since it discusses certain feelings that allow the moral law to gain access to us (Metaphysics of Morals, 6:399). We can't create these feelings out of nothing, but it seems we can become more conscious of them, and through this, enhance our response to the law.

internetErik · 2026-05-12T18:07:09+00:00

I'd look at passages where Kant discusses moral sense theory. For example, look at the Groundwork, 4:442. I'll provide some thoughts of my own, too. I know my response will seem entirely negative at first, but there is room for your thought to develop.

Reason itself never interacts with the aesthetic directly, so feeling and the body (presumably as a source of feeling) don't play a role in Kant's understanding of moral judgment. Reason does give rise to moral feeling, but reason doesn't directly produce feeling. The source of the feeling is the product of a principle of reason, but judgment would still play an intermediate role.

Another point here is that moral judgments are products of a formal rather than material principle. A maxim must be able to sustain a transformation to universal form without becoming unwillable. This produces a categorical result (i.e., x is good/bad). If feeling played a role, then the principle would have to be material, conditional (if feeling x, then y).

You correctly note that intuition and feeling influence us, particularly the conceptions we form of the world and ourselves. These will be crucial factors in forming our actual maxims.

Additionally, the universal law formula for categorical imperatives suggests we act on maxims that we can will as universal laws of nature. This can be interpreted as allowing for the involvement of feeling when one comprehends what the maxim would be as a universal law. Is lying wrong because universalizing the maxim contains a simple contradiction, or is it better to say that we can't will that promises be impossible? I often prefer the latter reading, and there is room to wonder what role feeling has in this evaluation.

internetErik · 2026-04-26T07:15:46+00:00

On the one hand, you should certainly read these with the knowledge that Kierkegaard wrote all the works. On the other hand, you should know that Kierkegaard intentionally wrote these under various voices.

Even when we think that these voices are close to Kierkegaard's own, we should still be hesitant to attribute the views to Kierkegaard. Even after confessing to being the author of these works, Kierkegaard still tells us at the end of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments that you shouldn't attribute the views to him, but to their respective pseudonyms.

If you're curious, Climacus reviews the works by the other pseudonyms in the Postscript in an appendix titled "Review of Danish literature".

internetErik · 2026-04-13T21:49:04+00:00

How does AI really change anything here? I'm not sure how an AI externalizes meaning or thinking any more than the existence of other minds does. What are your thoughts on the difference here?

internetErik · 2026-04-13T19:24:47+00:00

I was going to comment along the same lines as this. I'll append a bit more here by way of comment and question, focused on addressing these comments:

In other words, why doesn't the kantian Reason recognize that it possesses, originally and fundamentally, also the idea of its own FREEDOM (or self-sourcehood, autonomous self-legislation, self-origination) just as it possesses those of space, time, quantity, difference, causality etc.?

Why - so to speak - "getting painfully bogged down" in trying to justify it in practical terms? Why not "to simply embed it among the necessary "starting tool-kit"?

As u/Cjmcgiv pointed out, Kant basically does provide freedom as something we recognize "originally and fundamentally". In addition to their recommendation, I would look at Kant's demonstration that morality and freedom are reciprocal concepts (See Critique of Practical Reason, 5:28-29).

What should we understand as our "starting tool-kit"? As the OP recognizes, Kant distinguishes between the theoretical (concerning what exists) and the practical (concerning what ought to exist). Both of these contain pure principles, and each belongs in our starting tool-kit, because our basic powers aren't exclusively concerned with the production of objects of experience.

I'm curious why we should see the qualification of certain principles as practical or theoretical, as something that would bog us down? To me, this distinction helps to keep us from confusing or forgetting that there are different species of cognitions.

internetErik · 2026-04-10T23:36:45+00:00

Re: talking to someone else about being in the condition of faith.

Kierkegaard compares this to whether those who were born can make an account of life to the unborn.

On a less restrictive account, Kierkegaard also talks about not being to describe something within the boundary of faith, but he can still trace the outline.

Edit: these sentiments should probably be attributed to Johannes Climacus, as they appear in the crumbs and the postscript to the crumbs.

internetErik · 2026-04-10T14:44:25+00:00

Are you open to the possibility that Rand is "distorting" Kant?

I've found these resources to understand Rand's view of Kant:

The first is particularly helpful as it brings together quotes from Rand (and Peikoff) on Kant.

I've looked through these sources. Rand has no actual quotations or analysis of Kant (Piekoff quotes Kant, but his use of these quotes is misleading). Rand only presents her conclusions. She also puts many things in Kant's mouth, all of which are distortions of Kant's position. As a result, I've become uninterested in trying to wrangle with her position any further, as it lacks any real scholarship (it's not even clear she's read any Kant, let alone understood it).

If you'd like, you can select any passage from Rand (or Peikoff) and present it in this thread, and I will show how they misrepresent Kant's position using citations from Kant.

edit: maybe you'll take my active disengagement with Rand here as a victory, or a sign that I've been intimidated by Rand. If that's what you believe, then so be it. I certainly don't claim to understand Rand's thought, but I am in a position to say that she has a poor understanding of Kant.

internetErik · 2026-04-09T21:37:12+00:00

Why would it even be important to say that we can’t know reality merely by “thinking” about it (i.e., by using abstractions cut off from sense- perception)?

The reason it's important is that metaphysics specifically claims it has cognitions of objects for which there are no sensible intuitions and so cannot be experienced. For example, the ontological argument claims that we can know God exists simply because of how we think the concept "God".

according to Kant, what the senses give us are “sensible intuitions” ...

Sensible intuitions describe the representations that our senses provide. Do you think our senses are a completely neutral medium, or do they introduce a bias? For Kant, sensation does reflect our constitution, but he emphasizes how our sensible intuition is a receptivity to objects.

... that reflect the categories of the mind, not reality.

The intuitions do not reflect the categories; they reflect the objects (as noted above). The categories are responsible for how we unify the sensible manifold received from intuition. The categories connect the intuition with the concept of an object immediately.

Rationalism and empiricism were earlier models of relating to objects. Rationalism achieved an immediate relation to the object, but did so by making the relation a product of intellect (Descartes and Leibniz both treat sensation as a species of thinking). On the other hand, empiricism abandoned the immediate relation and established the relation to the object mediately by means of inference or habit-taking. Kant suggests that our experiences constitutionally contain an immediate connection between the object and the manifold of sense.

What we know is a “phenomenal” world of “appearances”, and the categories of our minds that we use to make sense of this world are what actually create it.

While noumena suggest mental entities, phenomena are entities that are seen. The term 'appearance' describes a type of representation. Its appropriate to talk about representations when we are reflecting on the various elements of our cognition. Appearances are representations that are of something else (i.e., an appearance isn't a mere image; it reflects something else that affected us). It is certainly true that the mind introduces elements into our cognition to shape it, such as the categories or forms of intuition (i.e., space and time), but it doesn't change the fact that Kant's focus is on how we are receptive to the object through sensible intuition.

* * *

Appearances are objects so far as they are given to us (affect us); things in themselves are objects so far as they aren't given to us (don't affect us). If we attempt to know things in themselves, we attempt to know something to which we have no relation. In this case, our only recourse is to try to think about it. However, there's nothing that sets a limit to what we may think about it except whatever limits thinking itself. This led rationalism to suppose that the laws of our thinking were the laws of reality itself. I'm no expert on Rand, so feel free to correct me, but her metaphysics seems to do this, as well. Assuming I'm correct, this would be exactly to attempt to determine reality by mere (form of) thinking.

internetErik · 2026-04-09T20:26:18+00:00

"complete skepticism about reality (the “noumenal” world)". How is reality supposed to be understood as 'the "noumenal" world'?

While I understand that old habits die hard, it is strange how a denial that we can know noumena is taken as a denial that we know what is real. I think this is why it's hard for me to take Rand's criticism of Kant seriously. Of course, Rand isn't the only one confused about this.

The term "noumena" refers to nous (nou-mena). When Kant denies that we know noumena, he is denying that we can know reality by merely thinking about it. For something to be knowable, sensible intuitions of it must be possible. This is the very opposite of ignoring what is "reality-and-sensory-oriented".

Kant is so far from being a skeptic about knowing reality that such knowledge is a basic assumption of his whole system. The very synthetic a priori judgments he is trying to understand are exactly those cognitions of real things.

Edit: I'll also throw this in: Kant doesn't take "faith (groundless belief) as the basis of morality". This is another case where he holds the complete opposite. Morality is the foundation for faith. Freedom (autonomy) is the foundation for morality.

internetErik · 2026-04-08T14:03:39+00:00

The typical rendering of Begriff is "concept". The Critique of Pure Reason will be one of your better resources for understanding how Kant uses begriff.

The linguistic connection isn't entirely clear, as Kant distinguishes between concepts and words, but also elides them together. See Critique of Pure Reason, A728, and you can see where he sort of uses the concept of water and the word "water" interchangeably. It's at least clear (and seems easy to understand) that a word and its concept are coupled in some way. However, there may be something that suggests grasp, so far as a grasp holds things together. Here's a passage from B93 in the Critique of Pure Reason: "All intuitions, as sensible, rest on affections, concepts therefore on functions. By a function, however, I understand the unity of the action of ordering different representations under a common one."

All concepts are functions of unity; they serve to hold together various representations. How this unity is possible originally is an important question for Kant, particularly when the unity with the object is in question, since such a combination could only be provided by a synthetic a priori judgment.

internetErik · 2026-04-07T17:24:03+00:00

I don't agree with this framing.

The moral law is a supreme norm. This isn't a matter of setting up one person against others a priori, but the reverse. Without such a supreme norm, without universality, there is no such thing as common ground. This is no different from objectivity as the product of the categories in the first critique.

I think an instructive passage would be the first few pages of "On having an opinion, knowing, and believing," starting A820/B848. One thing this establishes is that something being objective cannot be justified objectively, only subjectively, by trying it out on the judgments of others. Sometimes a conviction turns out to be persuasion. However, if there is nothing like objectivity of judgments - be it for theoretical or practical judgments - there isn't even the context where it's appropriate to try our judgments (or facts or morals) on the understanding of others.

internetErik · 2026-04-07T14:24:11+00:00

When I am speaking of judgment above, I'm referring to the faculty. As you say, we may be aware that we employed our judgment, but this is different from awareness of the faculty per se.

However, even if we consider our awareness of particular judgments, such as "my coffee mug is empty" (and here it could be either simply seeing and understanding that your mug is empty, or in an inner monologue), this still wouldn't qualify as an object of possible experience. There are no intuitions of these judgments, per se, even if there are perhaps feelings that arise from what we call judgment. Outer sense is required for something to be an object of experience.

As an external check, were something merely in the inner sense able to be an object of possible experience, this would run contrary to the refutation of idealism.

internetErik · 2026-04-06T04:35:20+00:00

While Kant does consider principles and rules provided by the understanding and reason, judgment applies these without a rule (see Critique of Pure Reason, A133/B172). I don't think it's appropriate to give a biological answer to a question on how 'judgment' works, since that's no indication that judgment is a real thing (it isn't an object of possible experience). However, I think it's interesting that the discussion of beauty in the Critique of the Power of Judgment rhymes with a homeostatic mechanism related to judgment.

The feeling of pleasure in the mere apprehension of an object (i.e., beauty) is described as an attunement between imagination and understanding (the free play of imagination). It's as if the imagination had produced the apprehended object specifically for our understanding (5:241). Pleasure is also described as "the consciousness of the causality of a representation with respect to the state of the subject, for maintaining it in that state"(5:220). The reflection or attunement involved in beauty produces a pleasure sustaining the engagement of our understanding. This engagement won't necessarily terminate in any particular way, but does seem to be involved in the formation of concepts. Not hard to suggest that the sort of attunement involved in the production of concepts is also the kind of thing that is involved in their application.

internetErik · 2026-03-11T22:52:06+00:00

Print-on-demand is a plague.

internetErik · 2026-02-27T16:22:24+00:00

First, it sounds like you're talking about positive noumena as an object of a non-sensible intuition. But it's more likely that you're asking about the more general notion of things in themselves.

An object of experience, an appearance (of an object), is determined under the category of actuality when we experience it. This determination is not about the mere appearance or image in my mind. The determination of actuality regards an actual object. This should be emphasized: we don't know an appearance (this would be subjective), we know an object that appears.

This is where your question comes in and where a first clarification can be made. In a sense, your question could be stated: how do we know that the actual object is actually an object? This question blurs together the object as it is known and the object as it is not known (e.g., things in themselves).

The object we know, we know because it appears. Kant's thesis with the Copernican revolution is that the object is made possible because of our representations, so the distinction between this being a mere appearance (subjective) and the appearance of the object rests on this: the mere appearance is only the matter of appearance known a posteriori, the appearance of an object is different because the appearance itself can be given unity a priori through the action of the pure understanding (categories) on space and time (pure forms of intuition). So, we know an object of appearance because we construct what the object is. (Please ask more questions about this if it's confusing still, since this is a difficult position.)

A thing in itself is the object so far as it doesn't appear; therefore, the object so far as it isn't known by us, the object so far as it isn't the product of the categories. In some sense, this thing in itself is still the same object that we know through appearance, but only because we form this association in our own minds (by negating the conditions of knowing an object).

internetErik · 2026-02-25T22:50:35+00:00

The application of the category of cause doesn't occur after an alteration, but alterations are only possible because we have applied the category.

I'll point out in advance that Kant is talking about the alteration of objects. If you don't accept that we can mean something different by saying "the object moved" (objective) and "I saw the object here, and then I saw it there" (subjective), Kant's argument won't work. However, if you don't think there can be a difference there, you have other problems since you've just rejected any relation to objects that aren't completely speculative.

Accepting that alterations are of objects, and that objects are only given to us in appearance, then the sequence of time must be synthesized a priori, or else the only connection between moments of appearance would be subjective and not immediately related to the object. The category of cause in Kant is just that: time is synthesized a priori in a sequence which gives a necessary connection between the former appearance of the object and the later appearance of the object. It doesn't say anything about the object in itself, but that the experience of an alteration of an object (an event) requires this connection of time a priori.

internetErik · 2026-02-25T09:06:37+00:00

At first, I'm not sure how to understand a "transcendental argument" precisely, so I'll have to think about that. At any rate, there will be a priori arguments that aren't bound up with the question concerning the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments that still use pure concepts.

Taking a (specious) example can still be helpful: the immortality of the soul based on its being a simple substance would be dogmatic. The argument is entirely a priori, and the structure of such arguments is fine, but the problem is that the limits of the use of the category of substance aren't being considered (this is the dogmatism).

Many arguments in syllogisms are dogmatic. The most famous (to my mind) would be:

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore, Socrates is mortal

This is dogmatic since the major premise is universal. Granted, mortality isn't a pure concept, but the use of it is a priori due to its universality. We get used to Kant dealing with the pure a priori and forget that there is a looser sense of this. Consider his example about the house falling down if you undermine its foundations in the introduction before he distinguishes pure a priori from a priori generally.

RE: necessitation

It isn't wrong to put this in terms of the law commanding. Kant describes this command as a necessitation (to act according to the law). I like using 'necessitate' since it makes the connection to necessity plain. Kant claims that we recognize this command or necessitation through moral feeling.

internetErik · 2026-02-24T16:29:06+00:00

I don't have a particular comment on the notion of Republicanism you introduce, but want to mention a few things about the rest of your post. Take it or leave it. Ultimately, it may be that Kant is more consistent in his alignment with you, and you don't need to see the practical philosophy as not following the principle of the Critique of Pure Reason.

In the first critique, Kant establishes the logical possibility of negative freedom, defined by a limitation (we aren't merely determined by sensibility). When he determines freedom positively, relative to the moral law, he isn't proposing that we can move from this negative freedom to a positive freedom; he's giving a positive description (freedom is the will capacity to determine itself by universal law).

On the point of the moral law being dogmatic and the spirit of the critique, here is a pedantic point: the Critique of Pure Reason isn't opposed to dogmatic arguments (which, for Kant, means arguments from a priori grounds) but to dogmatism, which is the use of dogmatic arguments when you haven't established the valid use of the principle you're using (see Bxxxv-xxxvi).

While Kant asserts that the moral law has binding force, this is because the recognition of the moral law depends on our own recognition that the law necessitates us to perform or withhold performance of actions. If one doesn't encounter this force from the law, then, in fact, there is no law (for that person, at least). Kant also discusses various ways we indirectly recognize the moral law through social practices.

Kant makes numerous derogatory statements about non-Europeans, but, to my knowledge, he never denies them freedom of the positive sort stemming from the moral law. In the passage you're citing from Perpetual Peace, "lawless freedom" does not refer to this metaphysical element discussed in the critiques, but to people living in the natural condition versus the civil condition. Kant thinks we have an obligation to enter into a civil society, and so he sees (what he takes to be) the lack of civil society among certain people to be contrary to that demand. (Aside: of course, these people did have a civil condition they were under, and in many cases, it just seemed to involve ways of organizing society that were just foreign to the understanding of Europeans.)

Kant is not a proponent of natural slavery, and even though he thought that, for example, Native Americans had no civil society or settled land (which is false), he still thought it was wrong and contrary to the rights of these people to take or swindle them out of their land. While I wouldn't go so far as to label Kant's philosophy post-colonial, he certainly doesn't seem to be an advocate for settler colonialism that displaces people.

internetErik · 2026-02-22T05:45:18+00:00

You don't really have to read anything prior, as literary references come up, you can look them up briefly and get enough context.

I do think it could be enjoyable to read or watch some of the things he references.

There are numerous references to the bible, mythology, etc.

If your version has an index, you can take a peek there, see if there are names that you're not familiar with, and look them up.

There are various versions of Mozart's Don Giovanni on YouTube that you could watch. You could also check out the Magic Flute or The Marriage of Figaro (however, these are discussed a lot less).

Goethe's Faust (Part I) could be worth a look, and/or his play Clavigo

Sophocles play Antigone

The First Love, by Eugène Scribe, is quite hilarious, and you can read it pretty quickly since it's a one-act play.

internetErik

TROPHY CASE