Kant’s Racism

Abstract

After a long period of comparative neglect, in the last few decades growing numbers of philosophers have been paying attention to the startling contrast presented between Kant's universal moral theory, with its inspiring enlightenment ideas of human autonomy, equality and dignity and Kant's racism. Against Charles Mills, who argues that the way to make Kant consistent is by attributing to him a threshold notion of moral personhood, according to which some races do not qualify for consideration under the categorical imperative, I argue that Kant cannot be made consistent on race, and that rather than trying to make him so, we should use the example of Kant's racism to tell us something about the nature of racism. I argue that Kant's own moral philosophy and moral psychology in fact give some materials for thinking about his racism, and about racism.

Epistemology and Domination: Problems with the Coloniality of Knowledge Thesis in Latin American Decolonial Theory

“…Las Casas -to be inferior because incapable of rational thought and hence more akin to children and therefore effectively non-autonomous "objects". While such a view is infamously to be found in Kant (see Allais, 2016), there is no evidence of it in Descartes.…”

wâhkôtowin: A nehiyaw Ethical Analysis of Anti-Indigenous Racism in Canadian Nursing

“…Although racism is widely recognized as an afront to basic ethical principles such as justice and fairness, many famous ethicists in history, such as Immanuel Kant, have defended racism and even written lengthily on the subject of racial superiority and inferiority (Kant, as cited in Allais, 2016). For nurses, the presence of racism in our practice is somewhat of a paradox, because if we accept the assumption that most nurses want to do the right thing and that they also believe that racism is wrong, then why do so many instances of racism still exist in healthcare?…”

“…Within Western epistemologies exist "epistemic and moral limitations" (Seawright, 2014, p. 558) that lead to viewing the world fundamentally in a hierarchical fashion with white males at the top of the social structure. Indeed, the inherent hierarchical nature of Western epistemology made it possible for theorists like Kant and Locke to legitimize domination as a just social order (Allais, 2016;Seawright, 2014). To avoid having to treat 'othered' humans with principles of equal respect, these theorists and settler societies simply dehumanize certain groups and accept the proposition that some classes of human are less than (Allais, 2016;Seawright, 2014).…”

Intersectionality as a Regulative Ideal

“…There are several reasons why Kant is such an extremely unlikely resource for thinking about intersectionality. Most significantly, Kant endorsed explicitly racist positions, including a theory of race that claimed that certain races are permanently inferior (see, e.g., Allais 2016;Kleingeld 2007;Mills 2017), as well as explicitly sexist positions, including that women are "immature in civil matters" (Kant 2006 Ak7:209) and merely "passive" citizens who cannot vote (1996 Ak6:315). (We use the standard Academy pagination for all references to Kant.)…”