Kant on the Human Animal: Anthropology, Ethics, Race

176 Pages·2022·3.159 MB·English

by  David Baumeister

Kant on the
Human Animal

Kant on the
Human Animal
Anthropology, Ethics, Race
David Baumeister
northwestern university press
evanston, illinois
Northwestern University Press
www.nupress.northwestern.edu
Copyright © 2022 by Northwestern University. Published 2022 by
Northwestern University Press. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Baumeister, David, author.
Title: Kant on the human animal : anthropology, ethics, race / David Baumeister.
Description: Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2022. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021046212 | ISBN 9780810144675 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780810144682 (cloth) | ISBN 9780810144699 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Kant, Immanuel, 1724– 1804. | Philosophical anthropology—
History— 18th century. | H uman beings— Animal nature.
Classification: LCC B2799.M25 B385 2022 | DDC 193— dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021046212
For Oskar, both human and animal

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 11
Animals, Human and Otherwise
Chapter 2 27
Animality and Morality
Chapter 3 49
Anthropologies of the Human Animal
Chapter 4 71
Animality Unfolded
Chapter 5 95
Animality and Race
Epilogue 119
The Animal- Rational Axis
Notes 123
References 143
Index 155

Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of portions of this book have previously appeared in print.
Specifically, a more compact version of chapter 4 appeared as “Animality in
Kant’s Theory of Human Nature,” in Kant and Animals, ed. Lucy Allais and
John Callanan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 105– 22; portions of
chapter 5 appeared in the article “Black Animality from Kant to Fanon,” in
Theory & Event 24, no. 4 (2021): 951–76; and part of the epilogue appeared
in the article “Kant, Chakrabarty, and the Crises of the Anthropocene,” in
Environmental Ethics 41, no. 1 (2019): 53– 67. I thank the respective publish-
ers for their permission to reprint these selections in revised form here.
Though this volume concerns a theme in the thought of someone long
dead, it would not have come about without the support of a broad range
of individuals living today. I am first of all grateful to my colleagues and stu-
dents at Seton Hill University for providing an environment in which to grow
as a scholar and a teacher, especially Christopher Anderson, Tasha Brown-
field, Jessica Brzyski, Christine Cusick, Kathryn Dzurik, Susan Eichenberger,
Debra Faszer-M cMahon, Lulu Joanis, Jennifer Jones, Marissa Kagarise, Fran
Leap, Jessica Lohr, Thomas Lopez, Daniel Martino, Kacey Murphy, Roni Kay
O’Dell, Ellie Oxley, David von Schlichten, John Spurlock, and Susan Yochum.
My editor at Northwestern University Press, Trevor Perri, was everything a
first- time author could hope for in an editor and more. I shall always be
grateful to Trevor for seeing the potential in this project, even when I doubted
that myself.
I was first introduced to philosophy by Thomas Gengler at Arapahoe Com-
munity College. For better or for worse, the story of my adult life in large
part begins with the Pandora’s box that Thomas opened in that dingy class-
room back in 2002. Copious thanks are likewise due to my earliest mentors
at the University of Colorado, Denver: Robert Metcalf, Candice Shelby, and
Mark Tanzer, the latter of whom first introduced me to Kant. Rob’s ceaseless
advocacy has proven indispensable over the years, particularly in encour-
aging me to return to graduate study in philosophy after a break between
degrees— again, for better or for worse!
This project would certainly not have come about without the expertise
and open- mindedness of my faculty mentors in the philosophy department
at the University of Oregon, among them Mark Johnson, Colin Koopman,
Bonnie Mann, and Erin McKenna. I would like to express my gratitude to
that department as a whole for providing a nurturing home for me and my
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