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).6

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.7

To examine this relationship,8 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.9 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.10

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 virtuous11 and that political institutions benefit from having virtuous citizens.12 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 will13 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.14 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 scholars15, 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.16 However, it is a necessary but not sufficient condition.17 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.18 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,19 the ethical state of nature is nothing more than the name Kant gives to the social order of his time.20 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,21 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.22 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.23 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.24

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 progress25 as they enable peace and interaction between human beings (VARL, AA 23:353–354).26 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.27 Each of these factors contributes to the revolution in one’s Denkungsart (mode of thought) that is a precondition for moral progress.

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.28 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.29 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 lying30 or suicide31) 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.32

The predisposition to animality is often understood merely in terms of biological instincts—such as self- preservation and the propagation of the species33—or as a reference to Rousseau’s concept of amour de soi.34 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,35 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.