Kant, Liberalism, and the Meaning of Life PDF
Preview Kant, Liberalism, and the Meaning of Life
Kant, Liberalism, and the Meaning of Life Kant, Liberalism, and the Meaning of Life JEFFREY CHURCH Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2022 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978– 0– 19– 763318– 2 DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780197633182.001.0001 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America For Sabine Contents Introduction: Liberalism and the Crisis of Meaning in the 21st Century 1 PART I. KANT ON THE MEANING OF LIFE 1. Kant’s Early Defense of the Contemplative Life 23 2. The Two Vocations of Human Nature in Kant’s Anthropology 29 3. The Worthlessness of Natural Human Life 53 4. Kant’s Genealogy of Morality 72 5. Kant’s View of the Meaning of Life 94 PART II. KANT ON RIGHT AS REALIZING THE MEANING OF LIFE 6. The Purposes of Politics (1): Culture 117 7. The Purposes of Politics (2): Civilization 142 8. The Purposes of Politics (3): Right 166 PART III. APPLYING KANT’S MEANINGFUL LIBERALISM 9. Kant’s Perfectionist Liberalism 197 10. Kant’s Political Liberalism 223 11. The Meaningfulness of the Liberal Project 249 Acknowledgments 269 Notes 271 Abbreviations of Kant’s Texts 307 Bibliography 309 Index 323 Introduction Liberalism and the Crisis of Meaning in the 21st Century Where does liberalism go from here? Liberalism no longer enjoys the tri- umphalism of Francis Fukuyama’s post– Cold War end of history proc- lamation. Instead, it finds itself besieged by illiberal forms of populism on the left and the right. As many commentators have described, the failures of liberal governance over the past forty years have aroused a populist back- lash.1 Liberalism in practice in the United States and Europe has been largely elite- driven, technocratic, and friendly to free markets, yet its cosmopolitan, impersonal, bureaucratic governance has caused an acute feeling of disem- powerment on the part of citizens. The neoliberal turn in many Western countries steadily evacuated moral language from politics, seeking to make it more pragmatic and materialistic, but attenuating the sense of communal purpose that holds all societies together. The ever- expanding inequality of wealth exacerbated the mistrust many populists have had with such elites who pretend to care for the welfare of all. Even though Western countries are now wealthier than ever, liberal governments nevertheless have be- come increasingly out of touch with the middle class and its moral needs for meaning, purpose, and belonging. These worries about the anomie and alienation of liberal politics are not new, of course. Many scholars have diagnosed these ills long before the cur- rent moment. In 1996, for example, Michael Sandel argued that “proce- dural liberalism,” in bracketing “morality and religion too completely,” soon “generates its own disenchantment. Where political discourse lacks moral resonance, the yearning for a public life of larger meaning finds undesir- able expression. The Christian Coalition and similar groups seek to clothe the naked public square with narrow, intolerant moralisms. Fundamentalists rush in where liberals fear to tread” (2005, 28). Sandel’s communitarian lib- eralism precisely aims to combat the atomizing tendency in contemporary liberalism.2 More recently, in an interview entitled “The Meaningless Politics of Liberal Democracies,” scholar Shadi Hamid observes that “many people, Kant, Liberalism, and the Meaning of Life. Jeffrey Church, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022. DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780197633182.003.0001
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