Rorty and Kant on Ethics

The shift from the modern to the postmodern is sometimes described in terms of movement away from foundations, away from an anchor for reality, knowledge, and ethics. Richard Rorty diagnoses a sharp contrast between two constellations of moral views, Kantians and Hegelians. In advancing his theory, Rorty sides with the Hegelians against the Kantians: "If the Hegelians are right, then there are no ahistorical criteria for deciding when it is or is not a responsible act to desert a community, any more than for deciding when to change lovers or professions" ("Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism," in Pragmatism [ed. Menand], 330). Rorty's framework oversimplifies Kant's moral philosophy on the "ahistorical" matter, but as a heuristic it captures well an impulse -- namely, to derive ethical criteria from the human condition -- that runs from the Enlightenment, including Kant, to Rorty and beyond.