Review of Sex, Love, and Gender: A Kantian Theory
Lina Papadaki·
University of Crete, Greece
Review of: Varden, Helga, Sex, Love, and
Gender: A Kantian Theory, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020,
337 p. ISBN: 978-0198812838.
This book draws on Kant’s philosophy to
construct a compelling philosophical account of sex, love, and gender that
speaks to the lives of heterosexual, polysexual, polyamorous people, as well as
those belonging to the LGBTQIA community. What makes Varden’s
project unique is her sensitivity to sexual diversity, as well as her
acknowledgement of the fact that we are rational,
yet, also, embodied, social beings. In
order to become healthy, affectionate and mindful gendered and sexual
beings, she constantly reminds us, it is important to develop our full selves:
our animality, humanity, and rationality.
In her book, the author puts forward a
careful analysis of Kant’s philosophy of virtue and right, while, at the same
time, thoroughly examining Kant’s often perplexing views on sexuality, love,
and gender. Even though those who are unfamiliar with Kant’s philosophy may
find some parts of this book too advanced, it nonetheless makes an excellent
introduction to Kant. The author offers an appealing reading of Kant’s much
criticized views on sex, love, and gender, making the reader eager to further
engage with his philosophy. At the same time, this book has a lot to offer to
those more familiar with Kant, as well as Kant scholars. Varden
thoroughly engages with the existing Kantian literature on sex, love, and
gender, and overcomes many of what has created puzzlement, scorn, and even a
total abandonment of Kant’s views, especially by feminist philosophers.
Moreover, the author clearly and honestly
brings to the readers’ attention Kant’s binary, sexist, heterosexist, and
homophobic remarks, and yet deals with them in a fruitful manner. Varden does an excellent job exploring these problematic
views of Kant’s, and understanding how they found
their way into his philosophy. This helps the reader understand how these views
often also take root in us. In utilizing Kant’s own safeguards against the
influence of our prejudices, she opens the path towards freeing ourselves of
the damaging and destructive patterns and systems of interaction, turning them
into emotionally healthier and morally justifiable ones.
The book is divided into two parts. Part I
deals with Kant’s views on virtue
(ethics). The author explains that her focus, in this part, is our effort as
human beings to realize happiness and self-governance through virtuous internal
freedom. Part II focuses on Kant’s theory of right (justice), and our effort to realize flourishing human
societies and self-governance through rightful external action.
Chapter 1, ‘Sexual and Affectionate Love.
Happiness and Moral Responsibility’, offers an introduction to Kant’s basic
ideas about happiness and virtue, showing how they work together in full human
lives. This is a very crucial chapter, especially for those who are not
familiar with Kant’s philosophy, which sets the stage for the discussions in
the following chapters.
It starts with a helpful overview of the
existing literature on Kant and issues concerning sex, love, and gender. The
author then offers a careful examination and analysis of Kant’s ideas about virtue
and his account of human nature. Varden emphasizes the
fact that, for Kant, truthfulness is
our highest duty of virtue because it is essential for realizing ourselves well
and acting morally responsibly. Kant’s threefold account of human nature - the predisposition to animality, humanity, and
personality - is thoroughly discussed in this chapter. Then, there follows
a presentation of Kant’s account of perfect
and imperfect duties, as well as an account of the highest good for human beings, which is to strive to bring morality
and happiness into union.
A thorough analysis of Kant’s views on sensible and moral character is also included in this chapter. The author
stresses the importance of developing moral character, and so acting in ways
that are demanded by our duties to ourselves and others. Following
this analysis, there is a detailed exposition of Kant’s views on
friendship (perfect friendship, which
is impossible for human beings, and moral
friendship, which is possible but rare) and its great importance for human
beings.
In the conclusion of this chapter, Varden puts forward an important principle never to engage
in non-consensual sex or affectionate love with anyone, as these are deeply
disrespectful and destructive ways of relating to others. She explains that our
challenge is to develop our ability to be affectionately loving, sexual beings
in richer ways. Even though our propensity to evil tempts us to do bad things,
the author explains, our predisposition to good enables us to avoid problematic
behaviors and become better human beings.
In chapter 2, ‘Kant and Women’, the author
examines Kant’s much criticized views on women. Defending Kant against some of
the feminist criticisms he has received, she offers an alternative, more
sympathetic, reading of his views on women. It is explained, in this chapter,
how it is indeed possible to read Kant as holding, among other things, that
women ought to strive towards full autonomy, that they should be viewed as
men’s equal at home, and that they should not be hindered in achieving active
citizenship. Varden reveals some interesting features
of Kant’s account in comparing his views on the traditional genders with Beauvoir’s, and is finally led to the conclusion that Kant’s
practical philosophy as a whole is not inherently anti-feminist.
The author explains how, in the Anthropology, it is possible to read
Kant as holding that both men and women have a natural inclination to dominate,
but have different ways of dominating, and how they complement each other. She
also discusses the passage from ‘Theory and Practice’, according to which the
nature of women makes it impossible for them to vote, as well as Kant’s
statements in the Beautiful and the
Sublime, in which he expresses the doubt that women can be capable of
principles. Moreover, the author mentions that, in the ‘Doctrine of Right’,
Kant draws the man/woman distinction in his account of marriage, as well as in
his discussion of active vs. passive citizens. His views, Varden
explains, have often been read by feminists as affirming that men should be in charge of the family and that women should always be
passive citizens, whose actions must be restricted in the domestic sphere.
The author makes it clear that, for Kant,
there is no doubt that women can be morally (ethically and legally) responsible
for their actions. Yet, what troubles him is whether they can actually be scholars and active citizens. Kant, however,
never implies that there is something in women’s genes that precludes them from
active citizenship. His statements stem from his own observations and experience and they are never presented as an a priori truth. Moreover, no one can
rightfully deny women the possibility of working themselves into active
citizenship. In fact, the author argues, if Kant believed this, it would
introduce a contradiction into his philosophical system by subjecting morality
to his moral anthropology.
Varden emphasizes the fact that Kant does not
advocate that it should be illegal, or would be unethical, to act contrary to the
traditional ideals of gender, or that these ideals, as described by him, are
moral ideals. On the contrary, he acknowledges that his views about women might
have been an expression of his prejudices. She puts emphasis on Kant’s core
belief that the most important characteristic of human beings is their capacity
to set and pursue ends of their own, which is what gives them dignity. Women,
like men, do have this capacity, and thus they cannot be considered as unequal
to men.
According to Varden,
Kant wants his freedom writings to set the framework within which his
contingent claims about men and women are accommodated. She points to the fact
that, in his ethical and legal-political writings, with few exceptions, Kant
uses gender-neutral terms. The author claims that, when Kant uses the terms
‘persons’ and ‘citizens’, he refers to both men and women, and not just men.
Even though this would certainly make Kant’s philosophy appealing, however,
some might still remain skeptical, or even
unconvinced, that this is the case, given his pervasively sexist remarks
throughout some of his works.
In chapter 3, ‘Kant on Sex. Reconsidered’,
Varden expresses her worries concerning Kant’s cisist, binary, heterosexist, and homophobic ideas. She
acknowledges the fact that he made a mistake in letting them run through his
philosophical analysis, and offers an interesting
explanation of the genesis of Kant’s own homophobia in discussing Kant’s
intimate and special (albeit not sexual) relationship with Mr. Green. Instead of
rejecting Kant’s problematic views altogether, however, the author emphasizes
the importance of understanding them, in order to
construct a better Kantian theory of sex, love, and gender.
Although Varden
agrees with Kant that human sexuality is morally dangerous, she disagrees with
his view that monogamous marriage between two heterosexual people is what
solves the problem of unethical sexual activity, and that, in other
relationships, sexual activity defiles humanity, and debases persons beneath
the level of beasts. The author rightly holds that trying to live up to the
traditional, heterosexist, binary social norms is neither desirable nor wise
for all because these ideals are impossible and damaging to many people. For
some, entering homosexual, polysexual or polyamorous arrangements or marriages
is preferable. What is important is to do this in truthful, authentic ways that
feel good and are morally justifiable for oneself and one’s partner(s). Varden argues successfully that this reconsidered account of
human sexuality is what Kant should
have argued given his core philosophical commitments.
Chapter 4, ‘Kant on Sexual Violence and
Oppression’, is an intriguing chapter, in which Varden
uses Kant’s philosophy to provide an excellent critique of sexual violence and
wrongdoing. She draws on Kant’s discussion of human nature (the predisposition
to good and the propensity to evil), as well as his views on ‘affect’ and
‘passions’, which make it more difficult to control our lives by means of our
practical reason (morally). This enables the author to explains
why it is so tempting for human beings to use sexual violence and, at the same
time, why it is so extremely damaging to the victims. Besides disrespecting
human beings’ personality, Varden emphasizes, sexual
violence also attacks human beings both at the level of animality and at the
level of humanity. It interferes with their emotional openness to others and
their sense of being safe in the world. At the same time, sexual violence can
be tempting because it makes human beings feel powerful, seen, sexually
affirmed, and also because it can be a means of
escaping the challenge of human beings’ moral self improvement. As the author
explains, women, sex workers, polyamorous, polysexual, or members of the
LGBTQIA community often deal with harassment and oppression in their lives, and are subjected to sexual violence.
This chapter also includes an interesting
discussion of how sexual violence can be used as part of sexual, racial or ethnic oppression, in light of the passions for honor and possession. The sexual majorities (cis, straight, monogamous)
develop a mania for honor, which silences the way of loving of polyamorous,
polysexual, and members of the LGBTQIA community. The former deny
equal recognition to the latter, as well as to sex workers, viewing them as
socially lower and developing the passion of wrath (violent anger towards others). Regarding the mania for
possession, some people, especially men, use money to buy sexual services and
control the sex workers’ sexuality. The fact that they can buy sex makes them
feel in possession of vulnerable people, most commonly women.
The author proceeds to analyzing our
duties regarding sexual oppression, arguing that we have a perfect duty not to oppress others, as well as a perfect duty to resist and fight our own
oppression and harassment. This is a duty we have to ourselves and others.
Moreover, we have imperfect duties to improve our abilities to deal with these
kinds of wrongdoing and to assist others in their efforts to do so.
Varden then puts forward an astonishing discussion
of Kant’s account of depraved hearts,
arguing that it can explain how sexual violence can be used as a tool in
atrocities and when extreme violence takes place. The author explains that, when
someone - driven by perverted forms of self-love - manages to stimulate hateful
destructive political movements in order to oppress or
destroy some groups of human beings, that person may be described by means of
Kant’s account of depraved hearts. That is, the person in question uses his
reflective thinking capacities to cause human destruction. They are not
themselves driven by passions, but are able to
manipulate others into acting in affective and passionate ways and do morally
horrible things to human beings.
In oppressive societies, women, sex
workers, polyamorous, polysexual or members of the LGBTQUIA community are
usually the victims of sexualized violence as part of atrocities. In these
cases, where people face what Kant calls a ‘barbaric’ condition, others are
trying to wrong them materially (that
is, they wrong these particular people) and formally
(they wrong everyone by making rightful interaction impossible in principle). In order to defend themselves, Varden
argues, they can use lies, or even lethal force (whenever rightful solutions
are not possible), by doing wrong in the highest degree (formally). A more
detailed discussion of the distinction between formal and material wrongdoing
would have been helpful here, especially for those unfamiliar with Kant’s
philosophy, in order to fully grasp the force of the
author’s important and central argument.
In the conclusion of Part I, ‘Reconciling
Noumena and Embodied, Social Kantian Agents’, Varden
deals with versions of the Hegelian empty formalism objection, according to
which the more embodied and social the Kantian conception of the human agent,
the less it can capture Kant’s emphasis on the noumenon.
The author explains why it is not
effective, in developing a philosophical understanding of human sex, love, and
gender, to start with the formal features of the account and then carry these
down to the complex human experience. She maintains that we should not shy away
from the complexities of actual human lives when doing practical philosophy.
Yet, Varden convincingly argues how her theory has
not lost Kant’s formalism. She emphasizes how the distinction between formal
and material wrongdoing explains both how our practical reason commands us
absolutely and yet how, in human lives, we can find ourselves in situations
where formal wrongdoing is unavoidable, in order to
avoid letting someone else do material and formal wrongdoing to us.
In Part II of her book, the author focuses
again on our embodied, social, rational being, discussing Kant’s ideas in the
‘Doctrine of Right’, where he outlines the basic structure of his theory of
right. She first explains the basic ideas of Kant’s legal-political philosophy,
and then proceeds to discussing issues of sex, love, and gender from a
legal-political point of view.
In the first chapter of Part II, chapter
5, ‘The Innate Right to Freedom. Abortion, Sodomy, and Obscenity Laws’, Varden argues that it is wrong, from the point of view of
justice, to coercively outlaw or criminalize abortion, and non-procreative sexual
activities, such as the making, possessing, exchanging
or using erotic images. Denying people their basic rights to bodily integrity,
speech, and privacy, in the ways that abortion, sodomy, and obscenity laws
traditionally have done, Varden argues, are barbaric
cases of state failures to provide basic conditions of rightful freedom to all
its citizens.
Because we are embodied beings, restrictions on abortion and sexual activity are
coercive restrictions on what we can do with our bodies. And since human bodies
and persons are united from the point of view of right, laws that forbid
abortion and non-procreative sexual activity are inconsistent with respect for
legal personhood. Varden does not claim, however,
that there are no rightful restrictions on abortions (time limits), or no
limits to the kinds of sexual interactions that can be authorized by consent.
The author argues that, from conception until the point at which the
embryo/fetus is able to spontaneously act in a
minimally rational, unified sense (and only the state can determine what this
developmental stage is), it cannot be given legal personhood, and the law
cannot coercively restrict abortion. Restricting abortion in this case would
mean that pregnant persons are denied equal protection under the law.
Furthermore, Varden explains, the state can enforce
laws that restrict abortion only if it ensures that pregnant persons actually have access to safe abortions before the legal
deadline.
The author then moves on to the question
of whether Kant, by his condemnation of ‘unnatural’ sexual interaction, can
justifiably mean that non-procreative sexual activities should be outlawed or
criminalized, through sodomy or obscenity laws. The problem with binary, cisist, heterosexist restrictions on people’s sexual activity
authorized by consent, she explains, is that they involve a state organized
wrongdoing. They deny those persons a right to bodily integrity, which is to
deny them their legal personhood. She explains that, if Kant did hold this
view, he was mistaken about his own theory since sexual interactions that do not
aim at procreation are not in conflict with our innate right to freedom. Sexual
interactions are rightful so long as they are authorized by continuous consent.
That is, only a lack of authorizing consent can make a sexual deed wrong in the
legal sense. According to Varden, Kant’s considered opinion should be that a
legally responsible person has the right to choose which sexual ends they want
to set.
The author then proceeds to discussing the
so-called case of ‘erotica’. She explains that Kant was a defender of free
speech, since he thought that words do not have coercive power and do not have
the physical power to hinder others’ external freedom (with
the exception of threats of coercion). In the author’s view, erotica
consists in images and speech and so it does not have coercive (physical)
power. This implies that legally responsible persons have a right to make,
have, exchange, and use erotica on their own and together with other legally responsible
persons. However, what is a serious legal wrong, according to Varden, is unauthorized publication of others’ erotic words
and images, which can be emotionally devastating and ungrounding in violating
people’s privacy.
She finishes this chapter by acknowledging
that human history is characterized by various kinds of oppression that find
expression in erotic images and speech and so, when uncritically used, erotica
can reinforce and perpetuate oppressive patterns of behavior. However, Varden believes that, beyond enforcing age limits, the law
cannot outlaw the making or using of erotica.
It is unfortunate, however, that the
author does not distinguish here between sexually explicit materials based on
equality (erotica) and sexually explicit materials that include subordination
(pornography). Even though her conclusion against outlawing erotica is to the
point, the same is not obvious when it comes to pornography. It would have been
useful to see Varden explore Catharine MacKinnon’s
and Rae Langton’s views about pornography as a speech act. This is the case because, if these feminists are right
that the free speech of pornographers compromises the free speech of women (in
silencing them), then it could be argued that the making (and using) of pornography
should be outlawed in order to protect free speech.
Moreover, Varden should have defended more the view
that pornography consists in images and speech, and so it does not have
coercive power, addressing the concern, put forward by some anti-pornography
feminists, that pornography is in fact an act
of subordination.
In chapter 6, ‘Marriage Right. Marriage
and Trade in Sexual Services’, Varden uses Kant’s
account of private right, more specifically status right and contract right, to
provide accounts of marriage and trade in sexual services grounded on Kant’s
innate right to freedom.
Through marriage, Varden
explains, the husband obtains a certain legal status within his wife’s private
life: that she shares a home, including a sexual life with him only, and that
he has a say about decisions in the domestic sphere. In order
to make status relations rightful, the legal claims between the persons
must be reciprocal. That is, husbands and wives must have legal claims to each
other’s person.
The author explains why it is so important
for same sex couples, as well as those in symmetrical polyamorous
relationships, to obtain a right to marry. She argues that denying these people
the right to marry is to deprive them of their right to establish a rightful,
shared, personal domestic sphere. The state forces them to remain in the state
of nature, denying them access to the legal ways of sharing personal lives in
the domestic setting that are in line with their innate right to freedom.
Regarding polyamorous marriage, the only problem, for Varden,
is gender asymmetries. That is, they have tended to be contracts in which the
husband gets a full claim to each of his several wives. This asymmetry
correlates with the oppression of women. However, the problem of asymmetry can
be solved by the law requiring important decisions to be explicitly authorized
by all persons.
The author then discusses Nussbaum’s civil union certifications, which are
legally binding contracts between two or more persons regarding a reciprocal,
personal commitment with respect to some aspect of their private lives, explaining
why it does not fare well. She also discusses Nussbaum’s position, according to
which the expressive aspect of
marriage ceremony should be private only (not public). The author argues that
it is neither surprising nor unfortunate that human beings want to integrate an
expressive element into the legal ceremony. Even though people may well choose
not to include this element, they should nonetheless always have the right to
do so. This is because marriage ceremony provides the opportunity to express
and affirm one’s commitment to love and care for one another in the full sense.
After the discussion of marriage, there
follows a very important discussion of rightful trade in sexual services. Varden explains that, for Kant, contracts do not give directly
a right to a thing, but enable the rightful transfer
or rightful possessions between people. If the promisor fails to deliver the
promise, they are entitled to compensation, but not necessarily to the thing(s)
or service(s) contracted. In the case of sex workers, this implies that, if
they fail or no longer want to deliver the sexual services they have been paid
to deliver, the customers do not have a claim to have the services delivered, but
a right to reimbursement and possibly compensation. If the buyers fails to respect the sellers’ change of mind and resort to
force to complete the sexual interaction, this is battery, which is a more
serious kind of wrongdoing than breach of contract. Lack of authorizing consent
always makes sexual interactions legally wrong.
Chapter 7, ‘Public Right. Systemic
Justice’, deals the failure of legal-political institutions to treat women and
sexual or gendered minorities in rightful ways. Varden
argues that constitutive of good reform efforts is a state’s public recognition
of its own failures to secure the rights of various vulnerable groups. In order to establish a minimally just state, a set of legal
principles that secure each citizen’s innate right to freedom, which include
rights to rightful honor, free speech, bodily integrity, private property,
contract right and status right, is essential.
The republic
is the only legal-political condition in which citizens enjoy basic rights of
freedom, so it is the only condition compatible with reform of existing
legal-political principles. All morally responsible citizens in the republic
enjoy conditions in which they can work themselves into active participants in
the public institutional framework.
Concerning free speech and public displays
of erotica, the author argues that Kant’s defense of free speech is compatible
with outlawing certain displays of erotica in public places. The state can and
should regulate where these public displays are made available because it rightfully
regulates the ways in which private citizens can use public spaces. Children
and adults with certain cognitive disabilities have a right not to be subjected
to explicit sexualized or erotic writings and images, until they are capable of
being morally responsible for their own sexuality. For this reason, just states
will not legally permit public displays of erotica.
Varden explains that, even though Kant makes it
clear that seditious speech should be outlawed (since a right to destroy the state
and return to the state of nature would be a right to annihilate right), this
does not imply that anyone is politically obligated to obey barbarous laws that
deprive them of their most basic innate or private rights. For example, if a
state criminalizes abortion or expressions of one’s LGBTQIA identity, it denies
some citizens the right to have their rights to bodily integrity protected. The
enforcement of such laws is barbarism, which means that women and sexual or
gendered minorities do not wrong materially anyone when they resist such
violence. They undertake only formal wrongdoing, whereas those who take part in
such violence against them engage in both formal and material wrongdoing.
Similarly, according to Varden, if erotica as such is criminalized, or if people
who choose to sell sexual services or goods are criminalized, the state fails
to be minimally just. If people use force to protect themselves in these cases,
they do not commit material wrongdoing against anyone, even though they engage
in formal wrongdoing. In contrast, those who participate in such uses of
violence against sex workers, women, or people who enjoy erotica engage in both
formal and material wrongdoing. Again, a
distinction between erotica and pornography would have been useful here as it
is not obvious why the state fails to be minimally just if it criminalizes
pornography (as opposed to erotica), or that pornographers’ and pornography
consumers’ use of force does not constitute material wrongdoing against anyone.
An interesting discussion of stalking, blackmail, and sexual
harassment is also offered in this chapter. These are three ways of unjust
behaviors that usually target people because of their sexuality and gender. Varden explains how these behaviors can be deeply harmful
(physically and psychologically) for human beings, and
argues that the law should treat them as particularly heinous and serious,
harshly punishing the perpetrators.
In this chapter, the author also engages
with the issue of poverty as systemic injustice, successfully replying to the
criticism put forward by some Kantians according to which Kant’s position fails
to address issues of economic justice in general, as well as the problem of poverty in particular. The author puts forward a liberal
republican interpretation, according to which considerations of economic justice
lie at the heart of Kant’s conception of right because unconditional poverty
relief is a minimal condition of the rightful state. Unless unconditional
poverty relief is guaranteed by the state, the possibility of poor persons
exercising external freedom is subject to the arbitrary choices of the richer
people, which means that the state is not minimally just.
In the remaining of this chapter, Varden explains how we can move from minimally just to robustly
just states. She
does an excellent job discussing how we can reform our inherited,
imperfect public institutions so that they can better enable and protect
rightful, sexual, loving and/or gendered relations for each and all.
Concerning abortion and sex work, in these
transitory stages, when the state is not yet able to protect its vulnerable
citizens, and because most states are incapable of providing their citizens
with safe shelters or conditions under which those who sell sexual services can
do so in safe, private establishments, the states may reasonably abstain from
positing enforcing laws that make it illegal to sell sexual services on the
streets. Moreover, Varden explains, the state should
take legal steps to improve the situation of these workers by placing them at
the center of the process of developing laws and policies that facilitate a
transition to better future conditions. This is because sex workers know a lot
about the challenges they face and, importantly, because these laws are about
their persons, bodies, and lives.
Similarly, when a state cannot guarantee
access to safe abortions for all women, it should give pregnant women the right
to decide when in the pregnancy to abort, enforcing no time limits. Finally, Varden argues, when a state is unable to provide safe exist
routes for women who are subjected to domestic abuse, it should permit those
women to plead self-defense, even in cases where they have planned the killing
of their abusive husbands.
Given Kant’s account of human nature, the
author argues, it is important to provide shelters for the poor, since privacy
is essential in human beings’ efforts at realizing their animality and humanity
in emotionally healthy and morally responsible ways. Having access to private,
intimate spaces helps to ground the lives of human beings in the relationships
with themselves and others. Moreover, Varden
emphasizes, securing access to homes for each and all is a good way to fight
problems of violence against people of gendered minorities and of domestic
abuse. Making paths for transitioning from emergency houses to safe homes
available to escaped violated spouses should be a primary legal-political
concern for any minimally just state. In this way, survivors of violations such
as assault, battery, rape, or harassment can have access to a safe place to
heal.
Constitutive of our reform efforts, Varden holds, should be the state’s public recognition of
its own current and historical failures to protect vulnerable groups. Because
legal-political institutions are made for and by human beings, it is important
that this process also includes public apologies. It is a good sign, then, that
some public leaders in recent years have apologized for their states’ failures
in relation to sexual or gendered minorities.
The author concludes Part II of her book,
‘Justice as Rightful, Human Freedom’, by arguing that we must build
legal-political institutions designed for human beings, that wisely deal with
the challenges stemming from our human nature and particular histories and
cultural circumstances. We must seek to reform our legal-political institutions
so that we can get rid of the bad effects of historical oppression and make the
institutions better means through which human beings can realize their rights.
The way Varden
has divided her book into these two parts, carefully distinguishing between
virtue and right, is crucial in order to correctly and
fully comprehend the issues she discusses. However, it would have been good to
see the author explore the relationship between the two more. It would have
been interesting to see some of the main issues discussed in this book both
from the point of view of virtue and that of right. For example, regarding
abortion and sex work, which are thoroughly examined in this book from the
point of view of right, the reader is left with the curiosity about the
conclusions that could be drawn from the point of view of virtue.
In any case, the author has successfully
offered a comprehensive Kantian theory of sex, love, and gender, which takes
seriously the fact that human beings are rational and yet also embodied and
social. This simple, but important fact is often unacknowledged by Kant
scholars. Varden takes into consideration the fact
that our human embodied sociality should not be viewed as something we should
feel embarrassed about, try to rid ourselves of, or abstract away from, but is,
rather, an important part of who we are. In this way, the author’s theory can
adequately address many important philosophical issues, and
overcome a number of problems and puzzles that other theories have stumbled
upon.
Varden’s Kantian theory is a theory for human
beings – embodied, social, and rational creatures. Moreover, it is a theory
that shows a profound sensitivity to the complexities of human beings’ lives
concerning issues of sex, love, and gender. Going beyond Kant’s homophobic,
binary, cisist, and heterosexist stereotypes and
prejudices, Varden offers a theory of sex, love, and
gender that also captures the lives and moral struggles of polyamorous,
polysexual people as well as those belonging to the LGBQIA community.