Kant, Politics, & Persons: The Implications of His Moral Philosophy

This essay focuses on Kant's understanding of politics and persons and is aimed at assessing the relations in his moral philosophy between human reason on the one hand and moral autonomy, political action, and social change on the other. "Any serious claim that Kant has on the attention of contemporary political theorists," the author says, "rests on the implications of his systematic philosophy for political thought." Professor Elshtain argues that to the extent Kant's philosophy fails to provide a plausible account of how human beings interrelate and engage in political activity, its status as a coherent political philosophy is called into question. It is a lucid and interesting statement of a fundamental problem in Kant; and as one of our reviewers remarked, lucidity when dealing with Kant is a considerable public service.