The idea of a “moral world” has taken many forms in Kant’s
philosophy. In 1784, he describes history as the
progression from a “pathologically compelled agreement to form
a society” to a “moral whole” (IaG, AA 8:21).
Nearly a decade later, in Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere
Reason, this idea takes the form of an “ethical community”, evoking
the possibility of the Kingdom of God on earth (RGV, AA 6:93). While
these concepts emerge at different levels of Kant’s discourse, both
represent the realization of morality in history.
If we take seriously the parallel between the “moral whole” of
Idea for a Universal History and the “ethical community” of the
Religion, Kant’s 1793 articulation of the relationship between
the moral community and the political community may be seen as a
reformulation of the enduring question concerning the relationship
between moral progress and the development of political institutions. This article explores this idea by
drawing an analogy between the two types of community and the two forms
of progress they embody. If this analogy holds, it will provide a
conceptual framework for three interpretative hypotheses regarding
Kant’s philosophy of history. The first asserts that political progress
logically precedes moral progress. The second posits a virtuous circle
between ethical and political development: just political institutions
foster the formation of moral citizens, while moral citizens contribute
to the establishment of just political institutions. The third
hypothesis suggests that establishing a well-ordered political community
is a significant part of fulfilling the duties of virtue.
This article is structured as follows. Section I examines the concept
of analogy and its applicability to the relationship between communities
and types of progress. Sections II and III investigate the relationship
between the ethical and the political community in light of this
analogy: the second section focuses on the ethical community’s relation
to political goals, while the third considers the role and impact of the
political community in shaping the ethical community. Finally, Section
IV argues that the very act of constituting a community is both a duty
and a fundamental human predisposition.
1. Analogy as a
means of understanding progress
In §58 of the Prolegomena, Kant defines analogy as “a
perfect similarity between two relations in wholly dissimilar things”
(Prol, AA 4:357). Thus, establishing an analogy between A and
B involves indicating that while they are distinct, they bear a
similar relation. Analogy, in this sense, serves as an
instrument for conceptualizing a relationship where none was previously
evident. Kant illustrates this in the Prolegomena with an
analogy between the juridical relations governing human actions
and the mechanical relations governing moving forces (Prol, AA
4:358n). He formulates this analogy as follows: “I can never do anything
to another without giving him a right to do the same to me under the
same conditions; just as a body cannot act on another body with its
motive force without thereby causing the other body to react just as
much on it” (Prol, AA 4: 358n). This analogy does not equate
right with moving forces; rather, it allows us to
comprehend the structure of juridical relations by comparing them to the
familiar concept of mechanical causation.
A similar analogical structure appears in the third part of the
Religion, where Kant introduces the concept of an ethical
community by analogy with a political community, “with regard to
which the ethical community can also be called an ethical
state, i.e., a kingdom of virtue (of the good principle)”
(RGV, AA 6:94). Keeping Kant’s explanation in the Prolegomena
in mind, this analogy states that even though the two types of community
are different in principle, they bear a certain structural similarity.
The fundamental difference between them is that while the political
community is governed by public laws backed by external coercion, the
ethical community must dispense with external coercion altogether, for
it unifies human beings “under laws free from coercion, i.e., bare
laws of virtue” (RGV, AA 6:95). Yet despite these differences,
there remains something constant across both: the ethical community and
the political community represent types of “civil state” within their
respective domains (ethics and right). Their shared structure,
highlighted by the opposition between the civil state and the
state of nature, enables Kant to apply a common theoretical
framework to both. It allows him to formulate a duty to leave the state
of nature, to discuss the role of the legislator, and to consider the
law’s publicity in both contexts. Indeed, Kant takes this analogy so
seriously that he extends the notion of an “international state of
nature” (the condition preceding the establishment of a federation of
nations) to the realm of religion, conceiving of a conflict among
particular ethical societies (i.e. visible churches) as analogous to a
conflict between states (RGV, AA 6:96).
With this noted, my aim in this paper is not to shed light on the
structural similarities between the ethical and the political community
as such. Rather, my aim is to draw on the analogy between the ethical
and the political community to illuminate the relationship between moral
and political progress. This analogy operates on a different
level: it seeks to clarify how the ethical and the political community
influence one another and, by extension, the extent to which moral and
political progress are interrelated.
There are two key aspects of the relationship between the ethical and
the political community that must be taken into account, both of which
concern the analytical starting point one adopts. By this I mean that
the answer to the question “How are the ethical community and the
political community related?” necessarily involves considering the
bidirectional nature of their interaction. Each community exerts an
influence on the other—and neither remains unaffected by the idea or
presence of the other. However, it is crucial to remember that thinking
about the interplay between the ethical and political communities does
not implytheir unification. Instead, Kant sees the ethical and political
communities as separate units that serve different purposes and are
grounded on laws with different natures.
To examine this relationship, I will proceed in two
stages. First, I will consider the ethical community as a starting point
to explore its potential impact on the political community. In doing so,
it is crucial to avoid reducing the ethical community to a mere
instrument for achieving political ends.
Second, I will reverse this perspective, examining how the political
community conditions the possibility and development of an ethical
community. Here, care must be taken not to subordinate moral autonomy to
political contingencies.
2. The ethical
community and political goals
Interpretations that seek to understand the role of the ethical
community within the political community typically rest on the premise
that members of the ethical community are virtuous
and that political institutions benefit from having virtuous citizens. If there is no fundamental conflict
between the duties of virtue and the duties imposed by the political
constitution—if instead, there is concordance between them—then virtuous
individuals have an additional motivation to obey the law: not merely
out of respect for its legality, but out of respect for its moral
legitimacy. In such a state, citizens would refrain from theft and
murder not out of fear of punishment but because they regard it as their
moral duty to do so. Kant himself acknowledges that political
communities may desire “a domination over minds according to laws of
virtue” for a simple reason: “for where the coercive means of dominion
are not sufficient, because a human judge cannot see through the inside
of other human beings, there the virtuous attitudes would bring about
what is required” (RGV, AA 6:95).
Something very similar is at stake when, in the sixth proposition of
Idea for a Universal History, Kant emphasizes the importance of
a good will prepared to accept the political
constitution (IaG, AA 8:23). Likewise, in the Metaphysics of
Morals, he suggests that decency facilitates the government’s task
of guiding the people by means of laws (MS, AA 6:325). This notion also
resonates in Kant’s well-known reference, in Towards Perpetual
Peace, to a state of demons endowed with understanding (ZF, AA
8:366). Notably, Kant does not posit a republic of demons, only
that even such beings could form a state.
While the problem of establishing a state could be solved even among a
nation of demons endowed with understanding, the formation of a perfect
republic is possible only among a nation of angels. The refinement and
effectiveness of juridical laws themselves is closely linked to both the
morality of legislators and the ethical disposition of the citizens who
obey them.
Yet, despite the advantages a state may derive from the existence of
an ethical community, it cannot actively create one. Unlike the duty to
leave the juridical state of nature, which can be enforced through
coercion, the duty to leave the ethical state of nature cannot be
fulfilled by means of coercion, since the defining characteristic of an
ethical community is precisely the absence of external compulsion. Kant
explicitly warns that a state that forces its citizens into an ethical
community would be a contradiction in adjecto (a contradiction
in terms) (RGV, AA 6:95). The principles of virtue cannot be subject to
external enforcement. Instead, the cultivation of moral behavior, which
is essential for fostering an ethical community, must arise from the
voluntary choices of each individual. Coercion can only ensure the
legality of actions, rather than their moral standing. True morality
requires a voluntary commitment to act according to one’s duties, rather
than merely adhering to them out of obligation. Moreover, from a purely
political perspective, such an approach would be not only ineffective
but counterproductive. As Kant states unequivocally: “But woe to the
legislator who sought to bring about through coercion a [public]
constitution directed to ethical purposes! For he would thereby not only
bring about precisely the opposite of the ethical purposes, but would
also undermine his political ones and render them insecure” (RGV, AA 6:
96). Thus, the moral formation of citizens emerges not as a direct aim
of political legislation but as an unintended consequence of laws that,
while not explicitly designed to cultivate virtue, nonetheless create
conditions conducive to its development.
Differently, if the analysis centers only on the ethical community as
a mere idea of reason, it is possible to assess the implications of such
an idea on the direction of a political community. As noted by some
scholars, the idea of an ethical community
can guide humanity toward more cosmopolitan societies, as it is founded
based on humanity as a whole governed by the same laws of virtue.
What role does the political community play in relation to the
ethical community? As established in the previous section, a political
community cannot compel its citizens to form an ethical community. The
direct consequence of this is that the political community does not play
the role of creating or founding an ethical community.
Yet, with scant elaboration, Kant asserts at the beginning of the third
part of the Religion that the ethical community could not be
brought about by human beings at all “if the political community did not
lie at the basis (zum Grund liegen)” (RGV, AA 6:94). In other
words, Kant affirms that the political community is a
precondition for the ethical community.
However, it is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
This raises two crucial questions: What exactly does Kant mean here? And
how can this be true, given that Kant explicitly rejects the idea of a
political community’s intentionally creating an ethical
community?
First, it is important to clarify that Kant is not suggesting that
the concept of an ethical community in general depends on that of a
political community. Rather, he is arguing that if human beings
wish to establish an ethical community, then a political
community must lie at its foundation. This implies that something in
human nature makes political organization necessary for the realization
of morality. As sensible beings, humans do not possess a holy will and
are often tempted to act out of self-love rather than respect for the
moral law.
Kant’s idea of the state of nature helps to clarify what is
at stake in the constitution of a political community. Particularly in
the Religion and contemporaneous writings, his reference is the
Hobbesian state of nature. Kant draws on Hobbes’s
formulation of the state of nature as a status belli—a “state
of war of everyone against everyone” (RGV, AA 6:97). Both the juridical
and the ethical state of nature share a fundamental deficiency, on
Kant’s view: the absence of a unifying principle that binds individuals.
As Kant puts it: “In both [states of nature] each person legislates to
himself, and there is no external law to which he, along with everyone
else, might recognize himself to be subjected” (RGV, AA 6:95).
Throughout the third part of the Religion, Kant claims that
it is possible to leave the juridical state of nature while remaining in
the ethical state of nature: “In an already subsisting political
community, all political citizens are, as such, nonetheless in the
ethical state of nature and are entitled also to remain in it”
(RG, AA 6:95). Furthermore, given that a state can be founded even among
a nation of demons with understanding (ZF, AA 8:366), it follows that
leaving the ethical state of nature is not a necessary
condition for establishing a political community. Notably, Kant never
claims the opposite—that one can leave the ethical state of nature while
remaining in the juridical one. This suggests that such a possibility is
not viable. Indeed, the very nature of the juridical state of nature as
a state of imminent war presupposes that those living within it would
have little incentive to act morally. On the contrary, their actions
would likely be dictated by self-interest.
Whereas the juridical state of nature is a fiction,
the ethical state of nature is nothing more than the name Kant gives to
the social order of his time. He describes this
state in empirical terms, emphasizing the antagonistic passions inherent
in social life. At the outset of the third part of the
Religion, Kant identifies dissent among human beings as a given
and presents the ethical community as an ideal towards which humanity
must strive but which, as an idea of reason,
cannot ever be fully realized. “Envy, lust for power, greed, and the
hostile inclinations linked with these” (RGV, AA 6:94) arise inevitably
from human coexistence, since comparison is inherent to social life. Given the conditions imposed by
sociability among human beings, the transition out of the juridical
state of nature must logically precede the transition out of the ethical
state of nature. Indeed, in Towards Perpetual Peace, Kant
describes the establishment of a political state as a first step towards
morality, though not yet a moral step (ZF, AA 8:376n). This
first step is significant because the formation of a political state
provides the conditions for the moral development of its citizens. Yet,
the idea that establishing a political community is a precondition for
forming an ethical community raises a challenge concerning the
relationship between autonomy and external laws. Some interpreters argue
that external laws enable the development of autonomy. Such a claim risks implying that
moral action is conditional on the existence of a political community—a
conclusion that would undermine Kant’s foundational concept of
autonomy.
James DiCenso’s interpretation provides a useful illustration of this
issue. In a footnote in his Kant, Religion, and Politics, he
states—following Terry Pinkard—that “without law in some form, there
would be no autonomy, only the anarchic condition classical theorists
called the state of nature” (DiCenso 2011, 190f.). This claim
suggests that human beings in the state of nature would lack autonomy
altogether. Such a view goes beyond acknowledging the influence of
social and political contexts on moral agency. Rather, it asserts that
the human capacity to act morally is historically contingent.
Yet Kant is explicit in the Groundwork that the moral worth of
an action depends solely on the maxim adopted by the agent. From the
perspective of virtue, the agent’s political and social context is
irrelevant. As Kant sees it, autonomy must be possible in all
contexts—otherwise, moral responsibility itself would be incoherent and
moral imputation impossible. Thus, moral action must be possible even
for pre-political agents or those living in the state of nature.
In his extensive commentary on Kant’s Religion, however,
DiCenso takes a more nuanced position: “Just as subcommunities or
non-state political entities can influence the mores instituted on the
juridical level, reciprocally, the capacity to realize moral laws
collectively is affected by political conditions” (DiCenso 2012, 134).
This formulation draws a crucial distinction: rather than asserting that
there would be no autonomy without external laws, it suggests
that the collective realization of moral law is shaped by political
conditions. It is possible to defend the latter without advocating
the former. Thus, Kant’s affirmation of moral progress does not commit
him to the view that the moral capacity (autonomy) itself has developed
throughout history. Rather, it should be understood as an affirmation of
our collective improvement in the use of reason.
Thus, what is really at stake here is the possibility of a
collective realization of morality. The political community is
not a precondition for individual moral action but for
establishing an ethical community. Establishing an ethical community is
not a duty that can be fulfilled individually. Kant’s description of the
ethical state of nature strongly suggests that the realization of a
collective moral order requires more than a mere aggregate of individual
good wills. Kant explicitly states that human beings corrupt each other
reciprocally “even with the good will of each individual human being”
due to “the lack of a principle uniting them” (RGV, AA 6:97). Hence,
fulfilling the duty to leave the ethical state of nature requires the
adoption of a collective end and is characterized by Kant as a duty
sui generis—a duty “not of human beings toward human beings,
but of humankind toward itself” (RGV, AA 6:97).
In this sense, the political community serves as a necessary
condition for the ethical community insofar as it provides the
conditions that make moral progress, and thus the establishment of an
ethical community, possible. Just political institutions are conducive
to moral progress as they enable peace and
interaction between human beings (VARL, AA 23:353–354).
These elements, in turn, enable the flourishing of culture, the
development of natural predispositions, the refinement of social
virtues, and the formation of citizens through the public use of
reason. Each of these factors contributes
to the revolution in one’s Denkungsart (mode of thought) that
is a precondition for moral progress.
4. Community: a duty and
a predisposition
The idea that establishing a community is a duty appears in various
ways throughout Kant’s work, both explicitly and implicitly. The most
direct expression of this duty is the obligation to leave the state of
nature. Entering a civil state is so
crucial that Kant acknowledges it may be enforced through coercion. Even
if some individuals resist, Kant argues that coercion to leave the state
of nature is legitimate because it is grounded in a moral duty. Similarly, the duty to obey the
sovereign is a moral duty (TP, AA 8:305; MS, AA 6:318), as obedience
serves to maintain the established political order and prevent
regression to the state of nature. The transition to a civil state is
therefore not merely instrumental but essential, for it is only within a
political community that human beings can fully develop their natural
predispositions.
As early as Idea for a Universal History, Kant presents the
development of our natural predispositions as a collective task. Unlike
other animals, whose capacities are realized within the lifespan of the
individual, human beings can only fully develop their natural
predispositions at the level of the species (IaG, AA 8:18). This does
not mean that development is restricted to a particular group of
individuals who share certain characteristics. On the contrary, the full
realization of humanity’s potential requires a collective effort. The
development of reason, in particular, depends on trial and error,
practice, and instruction (IaG, AA 8:19), necessitating a prolonged
historical process of learning, refinement, and intergenerational
transmission.
Beyond the duty to leave the juridical state of nature, there is also
the duty to leave the ethical state of nature (RGV, AA 6:96). Much of my
argument in the previous section sought to show that Kant provides
strong grounds for concluding that the transition out of the ethical
state of nature—and thus the establishment of an ethical community—is
only possible within the framework of a civil state.
A closer reading of Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue reveals that
even duties towards oneself are inseparable from the constitution of a
community. In the introduction to this work, Kant presents two
fundamental principles from which duties to oneself derive. The first is
encapsulated in the maxim naturae convenienter vive—“live in
conformity with nature” (MS, AA 6:419). These are negative
duties, prohibiting actions that contradict the ends of human nature,
such as self-destruction. The second principle is expressed in the maxim
perfice te utfinem, perfice te ut medium—“make yourself more
perfect than mere nature has made you” (MS, AA 6:419). Kant describes
these as positive duties insofar as they command human beings
to perfect themselves. Positive duties towards oneself are imperfect
duties to develop and increase one’s natural and moral perfections (MS,
AA 6:444). While negative duties towards oneself (e.g. prohibitions
against lying or suicide)
are strictly individual, positive duties towards oneself can only be
fulfilled in community.
Notably, the establishment of a community also figures in Kant’s
analysis of the original predisposition to the good in the first part of
the Religion. There, Kant describes the original predisposition
to the good as comprising three components: a predisposition to
animality, a predisposition to humanity, and a predisposition to
personality, each corresponding to an aspect of human experience. Of the
three, only the predisposition to personality is directly connected to
the moral law, as it corresponds to the predisposition to accept respect
for the moral law as a motive for action. However, since animality and
humanity are also predispositions to the good, they contribute
indirectly to the realization of morality.
The predisposition to animality is often understood merely in terms
of biological instincts—such as self- preservation and the propagation
of the species—or as a reference to Rousseau’s
concept of amour de soi. Yet Kant also
identifies the impulse to society (Trieb zur Gesellschaft) as
an essential feature of this predisposition (RGV, AA 6:26). This
suggests that human beings are instinctively driven to form social
bonds— not, as Rousseau claims, as a result of
rational deliberation but as a fundamental aspect of their nature. Kant
describes animality as a “physical and merely mechanical
self-love” (RGV, AA 6:26), encompassing three primary instinctive
behaviours for which the use of reason is not necessary:
self-preservation, reproduction, and the impulse to society.
Crucially, this impulse to society is not limited to mere
coexistence. Rather, Kant envisions the formation of a community
governed by laws. This becomes clearer when he discusses the
corruption of the predisposition to animality as resulting in “savage
lawlessness (in relation to other human beings)” (RGV, AA 6:27), which
is one of the bestial vices. From this perspective, the formation of
community is not merely instrumental to virtue; it is an intrinsic part
of the realization of our natural human predispositions. The impulse
towards community belongs to the human being’s predisposition to
animality, while the realization of a just community contributes to the
full development of the human being’s predisposition to humanity. Viewed
from this perspective, the idea of the development of our natural
predispositions articulated in both the Doctrine of Virtue and
the first propositions of Idea for a Universal History
essentially includes the development and improvement of the life of the
community itself.
In this article, I have sought to establish an analogy between the
relationship between the ethical and the political community, on the one
hand, and the interplay between moral and political progress in history,
on the other. To do so, I examined how the ethical and the political
community influence each other. Far from being mutually exclusive or
independent, the political community deeply influences the ethical
community, and vice versa. The ethical community enhances the
functioning of the political community by fostering virtuous individuals
who act from a good will, while the political community provides the
necessary—though insufficient—conditions for the emergence of an ethical
community.
I have argued that the logical precedence of political progress over
moral progress stems from the nature of the human constitution itself.
Political institutions facilitate the formation of moral individuals in
various ways, providing stability, enabling the exercise of reason, and
creating conditions conducive to ethical life. This interdependence
suggests that moral and political progress are not separate trajectories
but rather function as a virtuous circle, in which the presence of just
political institutions encourages moral development and morally
cultivated individuals contribute to the maintenance and improvement of
those institutions.
What I thus hope to have highlighted is the importance of community
in the realization of morality. Community serves as a necessary
condition for, and an intrinsic element of, our predisposition to the
good. From this perspective, the very notion of community emerges as
both a duty and a human predisposition.
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