Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Reason, I , We

In Kant's Moral doctrine, a collective of Rational beings is conceived in two ways--as subjects under universal laws, and as ends not to be treated as mere things.  Thus, each Rational being is both an abstract I, and either a Me, a Him, or a Her.  Furthermore, according to the Fourth Thesis of his Idea for a Universal History, the value to an individual of association with others is that the context is one of "antagonism", a "means employed by Nature to bring about the development of all capacities", as one withdraws into isolation.  However, he ignores ample evidence, e. g. in collective sports or artistic events, in which collective activity is the occasion of the positive enhancement of one's abilities.  Such examples illustrate how, as governed by Progressive Reason, the involvement of an I in a We can constitute an amelioration of its given conditions.  So, the absence of a Rational We in Kant's system could explain that of a concrete Political Philosophy in it.

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