One of the great pleasures of reading and re-reading is encountering conceptual connections between authors and works that you may have never considered in common. I had one of these experiences recently while reading a short book about Dante. While working through the author's discussion of Monarchia and its relation to the Purgatorio, I found myself thinking that in some respects Dante's dualistic political philosophy anticipated important elements in Kant's short monograph Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and his essays "What Is Enlightenment?", "The Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent," and "Toward Perpetual Peace."
Dante's De Monarchia was probably composed around 1313, and it is perhaps Dante's most significant explicitly philosophical writing. (The Commedia has philosophical elements, but it is poetry first and foremost.) The subject is political philosophy in general and the relation between church and state in particular -- to wit, should there be a world monarchy? In Monarchia, George Holmes explains,
the purpose of the argument, to separate lay from spiritual authority, is quite different [from what it was similarly in Convivio]. The purpose of politics, Dante now argues, is to advance humanity towards its ultimate end. Since the specific purpose of man, as distinct from other parts of the created universe, is 'the state of apprehending by means of the possible intellect' (Mon I iii), the aim of political life must be to help men to exploit this intellectual potential. This must be done by the whole human race together, and for this work peace is above all essential. Dante argued that peace could best be secured by a single all-powerful monarch. (Holmes, Dante, pp. 66-67)
There are, it seems to me, three critical pieces to Dante's view:
- Dualistic conception in which imperial authority is distinct from religious authority. The state is distinct from the church; they are not commingled or conflated.
- Political authority promotes intellectual potential and human flourishing. The aim of the political apparatus is to help humans realize their intellectual, which is to say distinctly human, potential as humans, to flourish as humans by means of their defining characteristic.
- Coordinated pursuit of comprehensive peace. The collective task of humanity to work toward peace in order to provide a context in which the development of human intellectual potential may be realized or flourish.
In Monarchia, one of Dante's lines of inquiry is also free will. His thinking here as elsewhere is informed in part by Aristotle. "Free will," as Holmes once again explains, for Dante in Monarchia I.12 "is the exercise of rational judgement unimpeded by appetite, and is man's distinctive faculty and God's greatest gift to him. Bad political systems ... enslave men's wills and prevent them from being truly human. Only a world monarchy can be disinterested and, therefore, allow the free exercise of the will" (p. 67).
At this point Kant was echoing in my ear. One particular question that I then had was this: Did Dante anticipate Kant's central moral and political ideas by some 450 years? Let us consider material from and related to the four writings of Kant's that I noted above -- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, "What Is Enlightenment?", "The Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent," and "Toward Perpetual Peace" -- before returning to this question and seeking to frame an answer. The components that I wish to examine in turn are three: first, the distinction between spheres of authority in exercising reason that lay at the heart of Kant's view of Enlightenment; second, the central place that Kant gave to the process of moral maturity among humanity; and third, the collective political action that must be taken globally to foster the full realization of human moral and intellectual maturity. Together these three facets of Kant's thought will equip us to answer the question at hand.
1) Kant's View of Freedom and Enlightenment
In his essay "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" (1784), Kant articulates his view of Enlightenment as a process toward intellectual maturity. (I have previously written about Kant's view of Enlightenment in different connections here and here.)
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment.
(Kant, "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays [trans. Ted Humphrey], p. 33; Kant's gesammelte Schriften 8:35)
This maturing process requires a pre-condition for its success, namely, as he says "freedom to use reason publicly in all matters" (p. 42; 8:36). Kant's use of "public" and "private" in this essay is sometimes counterintuitive to what we might often think of as entailed by those terms. Without getting too far afield, he means by the term public use of reason the liberty to publish or express one's view in one's capacity as an individual distinct from a civil role to which one has been entrusted (which is the "private" use"). An author or scholar writing in one's capacity as an author may not be bound or prohibited from "us[ing] his own rational capacities and [speaking] his own mind" (p. 43; 8:38); however, an author who writes in one's official
role as, say, a pastor, government official, or military officer may not have unbounded license to express one's viewpoints because one is "acting under instructions from someone else" (p. 43; 8:38), or because to one extent or another he represents the viewpoint or institution or authority of another. A military officer must obey orders; however, "as a scholar he cannot be justly constrained from making comments about errors in military service, or from placing them before the public for its judgment" (pp. 42-43; 8:37-38).
 |
| Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) |
This is important to note because Kant realizes that freedom for persons individually or humanity collectively (his use of "man" in his definition is ambiguous) to emerge from self-imposed immaturity requires political and religious institutions that allow for it. This is why he is so much at pains to underscore in the essay that a pastor can express views publicly without compromising his representation of the church whose doctrines he has pledged to uphold and promote. It is also why he goes out of his way to flatter Frederick and sketch the outline of what a nurturing political government can do for "man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity":
A prince who does not find it beneath him to say that he takes it to be his duty to prescribe nothing, but rather to allow men complete freedom in religious matters--who thereby renounces the arrogant title of tolerance--is himself enlightened and deserves to be praised by a grateful present and by posterity as the first, at least where the government is concerned, to release the human race from immaturity and to leave everyone free to use his own reason in all matters of conscience. ... This spirit of freedom is expanding even where it must struggle against the external obstacles of governments that misunderstand their own function. Such governments are illuminated by the example that the existence of freedom need not give cause for the least concern regarding public order and harmony in the commonwealth. If only they refrain from inventing artifices to keep themselves in it, men will gradually raise themselves from barbarism. (p. 45; 8:40-41)
Kant sees the larger result of this historical progression: "A greater degree of civil freedom seems advantageous to a people's spiritual freedom; conversely, a lesser degree of civil freedom provides enough for all fully to expand their abilities" (p. 45; 8:41).
The essay ends with its accent on the development of human capabilities when unencumbered by various authorities to think only in certain ways and when encouraged or enabled by the civil government to grow into -- to become mature, we might say -- in their humanness by way of "the inclination to and vocation for free thinking, [so that] the kernel gradually reacts on a people's mentality (whereby they become increasingly able to act freely), and it finally even influences the principles of government, which finds that it can profit by treating men, who are now more than machines, in accord with their dignity" (p. 46; 8:41-42). Enlightenment requires freedom in thinking, which, Kant supposes, prompts greater freedom in acting when the political state realizes that liberty of conscience, of thought, and of action may do two critical tasks: further (i) the ends of the state itself and (ii) the greater end for which the state exists, namely, to advance the attainment of the ends proper to humans as such. Such a viewpoint stems from, or at least reflects, Kant's basic moral vision as expressed in particularly one formulation of the categorical imperative, to which I now turn.
2) Kant's View of Moral Maturity
In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals Kant articulates what he takes to be the fundamental principle of morality in three distinct formulations. The formulation that is most germane for our purposes is the second formula, the formula of humanity as an end in itself: "So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means" (trans. Gregor, p. 38; 4:429). It will be worth quoting at length the larger context from which this formulation is taken. The reason is that the fuller passage brings out the interconnection between treating human beings as ends in themselves and not as means, on the one hand, and doing so because of their rationality as essential to, and characteristic of, them as humans, on the other hand. Human will and human rationality go hand in hand in legislating how humans ought to treat one another as humans, that is to say as beings who possess an autonomous will and intellectual capabilities.
Now I say that the human being and in general every rational being exists as an end in itself, not merely as a means to be used by this or that will at its discretion; instead he must in all his actions, whether directed to himself or also to other rational beings, always be regarded at the same time as an end. ... rational beings are called persons because their nature already marks them out as an end in itself, that is, as something that may not be used merely as a means, and hence so far limits all choice (and is an object of respect). These, therefore, are not merely subjective ends, the existence of which as an effect of our action has a worth for us, but rather objective ends, that is, beings the existence of which is in itself an end, and indeed one such that no other end, to which they would serve merely as means, can be put in its place, since without it nothing of absolute worth would be found anywhere; but if all worth were conditional and therefore contingent, then no supreme practical principle for reason could be found anywhere.
If, then, there is to be a supreme practical principle and, with respect to the human will, a categorical imperative, it must be one such that, from the representation of what is necessarily an end for everyone because it is an end in itself, it constitutes an objective principle of the will and thus can serve as a universal practical law. The ground of this principle is: rational nature exists as an end in itself. The human being necessarily represents his own existence in this way; so far it is thus a subjective principle of human actions. But every other rational being also represents his existence in this way consequent on" just the same rational ground that also holds for me/ thus it is at the same time an objective principle from which, as a supreme practical ground, it must be possible to derive all laws of the will. The practical imperative will therefore be the following: So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means. We shall see whether this can be carried out. (trans. Gregor, pp. 37-38; 4:428-29)
For persons, then, according to Kant, there is an aspect of life whose exclusive foundation is free rationality -- the moral life -- and its own goal is to further the interests of free rationality; in turn, the interest of free rationality is to protect and revere this quality in all who possess it, to provide for it the circumstances in which to develop. (Humphrey, "Translator's Introduction," in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, p. 10)
The key phrase is "to provide for [this quality of free rationality] the circumstances in which to develop." Aware of what moral maturity entails, we now may turn to the third strand of idea in Kant: collective action in service of moral maturity in humanity.
3) Collective Effort "Toward Perpetual Peace"
Because of the Enlightenment's seeming emphasis on the individual, and because of the language that Kant uses when speaking of "one's" moral duty is often in the singular, sometimes the reciprocity implied by the various formulations of the categorical imperative can be overlooked. But, in a way not entirely dissimilar from the role of reciprocity in Aristotle's ethics, reciprocal thinking and action lies at the core of Kant's particular form of ethical teleology. As Allen Wood succinctly observes, "For Kant, in fact, all ethical duties whatever are grounded on ends. In that sense, Kant's theory of ethical duties is entirely teleological ... To treat myself as an end, I must in general honor and promote my rational capacities to set ends and develop the skills useful in furthering those ends. To treat others as ends, I must honor their rational capacities to set ends, and I do this by promoting some of the ends they set, the collective name for which is their 'happiness'" (Wood, Kant, p. 147).
In fact, Christine Korsgaard's very fine book of essays on Kant is titled Creating the Kingdom of Ends. That is the task. Morality directs our individual and collective duty because we are all human persons with the same essential, defining faculties, and, as ends in themselves, persons must be encouraged and allowed to pursue their ends and similarly to encourage and allow other persons to pursue their ends as human persons with a free rationality and will.
It is, therefore, the political authority or sovereign's duty as both human person and as political sovereign to do what is in his power for "granting people the external freedom that is needed for a meaningful use of their capacity to set ends according to reason." The moral principle of the formulation of humanity as an end in itself in the nature of the case should, when adopted and implemented, lead to an alteration in the structure and aims of the state, on the one hand, and the relation between different states, on the other. Enlightenment, which is the process of emerging from self-imposed immaturity in the use of free rationality, is at the heart of the movement toward change.Respect for humanity requires granting people the external freedom that is needed for a meaningful use of their capacity to set ends according to reason. That is why Kant says that the "innate right to freedom," which is the sole ground of all of our rights, "belongs to every human being by virtue of his humanity" [Metaphysics of Morals 6:237]. (Wood, Kant, p. 144; my emphasis)
For this reason, in "The Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent" (1784), Kant writes in the Eighth Thesis: "One can regard the history of the human species, in the large, as the realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about an internally, and for this purpose, also an externally perfect national constitution, as the sole state in which all of humanity's natural capacities can be developed" (in Perpetual Peace, p. 36; 8:27). Only when justice reigns among human beings, and only when peace reigns among different political states, can "humanity's natural capacities...be developed" without hindrance, constraint, and frustration by violent forces that threaten their external freedom.
Toward this end, Kant speculates in "To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophic Sketch" (1795), a special league may need to come into existence to coordinate the collective action to secure the conditions for, and promote the flourishing of, humans' distinctive capabilities as human persons: "This league does not seek power of the sort possessed by nations, but only the maintenance and security of each nation's own freedom, as well as that of the other nations leagued with it, without their having thereby to subject themselves to civil laws and their constraints (as mean in the state of nature must do). It can be shown that this idea of federalism should eventually include all nations and thus lead to perpetual peace" (in Perpetual Peace, p. 117; 8:356)
In one very important sense, Kant's moral principle, based on the formula of humanity as an end in itself, entails that humans, because they share common humanity and defining faculties, are all citizens within a single world kingdom of ends, a single world community. The reciprocity in the pursuit of human ends and the promotion of humans as ends requires in theory also the pursuit and promotion of peace within this single world community.
Returning to the Question
The question with which I began this essay was: Did Dante anticipate Kant's central moral and political ideas by some 450 years? To answer this question, or to get clarity about it, I should be more precise in what I mean by "anticipate." I do not mean that Kant replicated Dante's exact arguments or ideas nearly half a millennium later. Kant did not merely repackage them. I also do not mean that Dante was an early Enlightenment thinker. Kant is a central philosophical voice of the Enlightenment; Dante was not. Moreover, Dante's and Kant's sociopolitical and historical contexts were different in significant ways that bear on their viewpoints.
 |
| Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) |
Dante was writing in reaction to a situation in Europe and the Italian states in which, on the one hand, the Roman Catholic Church was convulsing with corruption, schism, and political intrigue. It was the time of the Avignon Papacy (1309-1376). Questions about the church's moral and spiritual purity and authority abounded. On the other hand, it was the time of essentially civil war in Florence between the Guelphs (supporting the pope) and the Ghibellines (supporting the Holy Roman Emperor). This sometimes lethal conflict was a factionalism that dated back to the Investiture Controversy (1075-1122) and that was as economic as it was political and religious. The Ghibellines represented landed wealth, who feared encroachment on their interests by expansion of the territory of the paper states; the Guelphs represented mercantile wealth, who feared encroachment on their interests by imperial expansion of local control. Conflict also characterized the broader landscape of the Italian city-states at the beginning of the 14th century.
Kant lived in northern Europe in Königsberg, Prussia (modern-day Kaliningrad, Russia), and he was most philosophically productive in the last third of the 18th century. By the time that he was writing and also because of his writing, the Reformation had already continued to press questions about the moral and spiritual purity and authority of the Roman Catholic Church. The various Reformation religious movements and the wider culture had answered those question in ways that resulted effectively, if not always completely, in a dualistic scheme that distinguished the secular sphere from the spiritual. The papacy could no longer realistically aspire to, in essence, monarchical control throughout Europe. Wars were raging still in Europe and across the globe, not least in North America over, among other things, economic encroachments onto mercantile endeavors by imperial powers and persons. One only needs to read the American Declaration of Independence (1776) to acquire a vivid sense of this. These religious, political, and socio-economic aspects are similarities in broad strokes to Dante's context, but what is most different is the phenomenon of the Enlightenment within which Kant must be situated and of which he was a contributing participant.
By "Enlightenment" here I mean what John Robertson has described as "a distinct intellectual movement of the 18th century, dedicated to the better understanding, and thence the partial advancement, of the human condition on this earth" (Robertson, Enlightenment, p. 13). Kant himself, as we saw in the course of explaining in his famous essay what Enlightenment is, emphasizes the unique place for human reason that among other features lay at the core of Enlightenment as an historical process. And here it may be helpful to recall that "Enlightenment" was both an historical movement in Robertson's primary sense and a cultural process.
Another distinction deserves to be highlighted, not socio-cultural and temporal but governmental. Dante advocated a sort of monarchy as a way of achieving the civil and religious peace without which he did not believe that it would be possible for humans fully to develop their potential intellect. In contrast, Kant advocated a sort of special federation, or voluntary league, that would be tasked with ensuring the security of each individual member nation and the peace that would allow for humans, individually and collectively, to develop their distinctive capacity to will and to reason.
In short, Dante was wrapped up in and was responding to the late medieval European and local political and religious questions, particularly how to resolve the conflict between imperial and papal power and the related socio-economic concerns. Kant was wrapped up in and was responding to the humanistic questions characteristic of the end stage of the early modern period, particularly one what basis and toward what end, in the absence of church authority, humans were to act morally and politically.
It strikes me that Dante's diagnosis of the ailment and his prescription for its relief was personally and historically motivated than Kant's, whose motivation seems to me more philosophically driven than personally driven. Kant was certainly aware of the political upheaval that was ravaging Europe and its colonial territories in the late eighteenth century, but in somewhat remote Königsberg he was not personally entangled or threatened by factionalism as Dante was, nor was Kant ever exiled from his homeland. Dante saw a single monarch as a means to secure the peace there and then; Kant avoided monarchy and traditional government in favor of something else that would help to fulfill the unfolding of humanity's inevitable maturation.
Motivations may have differed between Dante and Kant. Socio-cultural and political contexts may have differed. At the same time, it must be admitted that Kant nearly half a millennium after Dante envisions a clear distinction between political and religious authorities and their policing mechanisms. Second, Kant, like Dante, articulated a vision for humans to have liberty of conscience in certain matters and for political authorities to promote the development of human free rational capacities. Third, Kant, like Dante, affirms a collective task and the need for a single "governing" entity to secure the background conditions, including peace, necessary for the flourishing of human intellectual potential.
Perhaps these similarities between Dante and Kant owe to what they both inherit from Aristotle's ethics. In some respects Dante's and Kant's ideas are applications of Aristotle's function argument and view of friendship, characterized by reflective reciprocity for an other self, as a prime embodiment of justice. Although these points of contact between Dante and Kant may be little more than that, I suspect that there is more significance attached to the echoes. At the very least the significance that I suspect exists pertains to the oscillation between church and state and the fracturing or fractured legacy of Christendom in western Europe that occurred over so many hundred years. The legacy of that oscillation and fracturing remains today in the ever-elusive questions that remain about securing peace between states, on the one hand, and, on the other, about how to promote human flourishing of free rationality without external constraints on religious liberty or freedom of both expression and conscience. These concerns remain vital.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Brief comments to this post are welcome; however, please respect the civil tone of conversation that I wish to cultivate in this forum.