Kant Lecture Notes
Race in the History of Political Thought:
● Greeks vilified non-Greeks as ‘barbarians’
● Natural Law Tradition => Spanish vs South American Indians
● John Locke was an investor in the Royal Africa Company
● Montesquieu helped lay the foundation for theories about race by arguing that nature
(e.g., differing weather systems etc.) led to differences in the human condition of
different people
Kant the Cosmopolitan:
● Perpetual Peace: Civilized states have been ‘inhospitable’ in their ‘conduct’ of
pursuing colonialism
● PP: Natives were wrongly “counted as nothing” during the European missions of
‘discovery’
● HOWEVER, in On Feelings of the Beautiful and Sublime: “this fellow was black from
head to toe- clear proof of the fact that what he said was stupid”
Was Kant a Racist individual?
Robert Bernasconi has argued Kant was racist
Paulin Kleingeld: if Kant was a racist, he probably did not know that he was (I.e., he probably
assumed racial hierarchy was a fact)
Was Kant’s philosophy racist?
Allen Wood: No, to assume Kant’s philosophy was racist would be to suggest that racism was
the primary basis for Kantian theories
Allen Wood: Kant’s personal prejudices (however strong they might have been) can be divorced
from the nature of his philosophical positions; the legitimacy of his main theories ought to be
viewed separately from anything else Kant might have said/ done
Kant and Scientific Race Debate:
● Polygenesis- different human races have different origins
● Monogenesis- All humans descend from the same ancestral stock
● Determination of the Concept of a Human Race –> Kant defended monogenesis
Kant felt there were different classes of human beings defined by distinguishable features such
as skin color; however, different classes did not mean different species
Kant- Differences in species can be identified through procreation; those beings which cannot
procreate are different species (the fact that a white person and black person can procreate
means they are of the same species)
Phlogiston: 18th century scientific concept referring to what was believed to be harmful matter
contained in combustible bodies and released during combustion processes
Phlogiston: if you live in tropical parts of the world with lots of trees, you are likely to be exposed
to greater levels of phlogiston which the body must process
Phlogiston: Absorption of phlogiston -> darker skin tones
Kant’s work largely appears to accept the concept of ‘phlogiston’
Accepting racial differences ought to be contrasted with racism; racism is the belief that some
humans are superior to others whereas theories of racial difference merely acknowledge that
nature gives way to discernable features
Race in the History of Political Thought:
● Greeks vilified non-Greeks as ‘barbarians’
● Natural Law Tradition => Spanish vs South American Indians
● John Locke was an investor in the Royal Africa Company
● Montesquieu helped lay the foundation for theories about race by arguing that nature
(e.g., differing weather systems etc.) led to differences in the human condition of
different people
Kant the Cosmopolitan:
● Perpetual Peace: Civilized states have been ‘inhospitable’ in their ‘conduct’ of
pursuing colonialism
● PP: Natives were wrongly “counted as nothing” during the European missions of
‘discovery’
● HOWEVER, in On Feelings of the Beautiful and Sublime: “this fellow was black from
head to toe- clear proof of the fact that what he said was stupid”
Was Kant a Racist individual?
Robert Bernasconi has argued Kant was racist
Paulin Kleingeld: if Kant was a racist, he probably did not know that he was (I.e., he probably
assumed racial hierarchy was a fact)
Was Kant’s philosophy racist?
Allen Wood: No, to assume Kant’s philosophy was racist would be to suggest that racism was
the primary basis for Kantian theories
Allen Wood: Kant’s personal prejudices (however strong they might have been) can be divorced
from the nature of his philosophical positions; the legitimacy of his main theories ought to be
viewed separately from anything else Kant might have said/ done
Kant and Scientific Race Debate:
● Polygenesis- different human races have different origins
● Monogenesis- All humans descend from the same ancestral stock
● Determination of the Concept of a Human Race –> Kant defended monogenesis
Kant felt there were different classes of human beings defined by distinguishable features such
as skin color; however, different classes did not mean different species
Kant- Differences in species can be identified through procreation; those beings which cannot
procreate are different species (the fact that a white person and black person can procreate
means they are of the same species)
Phlogiston: 18th century scientific concept referring to what was believed to be harmful matter
contained in combustible bodies and released during combustion processes
Phlogiston: if you live in tropical parts of the world with lots of trees, you are likely to be exposed
to greater levels of phlogiston which the body must process
Phlogiston: Absorption of phlogiston -> darker skin tones
Kant’s work largely appears to accept the concept of ‘phlogiston’
Accepting racial differences ought to be contrasted with racism; racism is the belief that some
humans are superior to others whereas theories of racial difference merely acknowledge that
nature gives way to discernable features
