El pensamiento republicano en el postkantismo. Dos modelos

Abstract

German republicanism in the period 1790 to 1850 applies the Kantian idea of moral autonomy to political institutions and relations. Recognizing the problem of the diversity and conflict of interests in modern civil society, and the necessity of their political conciliation, two models of republican thought can be distinguished. One holds, with Schiller, that such interests, while giving rise to strife and alienation, are ultimately capable of voluntary mutual adjustment, harmonization, and self-limitation in the properly-constituted state. The other, more rigoristic variant, developed in the 1840’s by Bruno Bauer, defends a stringent ideal of self-transformation. Private interests may not be immediately transposed into the political sphere, but must be subject to critique, to determine their admissibility and their compatibility with the requirements of historical progress. Both of these positions represent forms of a new post-Kantian perfectionist ethic aiming to promote personal and political freedom and the conditions for its exercise.