WWKD (What Would Kant Do?)

Scott Horton

Stanley Fish, writing in the New York Times on Sunday examines what Immanuel Kant would tell us about affirmative action programs at American universities. He gives us a great discussion of Kantian principles relating to morality and politics as they affect the subject, and it produces a lot of interesting insight. Fish does not propose any definitive call on the question, but he tends to put Kant on the side of the affirmative action critics. He writes:

I do not mean to suggest that because Kant (at least in my account of him) would agree with Justice Thomas, the case against affirmative action has been decisively made. I am just noting that the two actions Kant contrasts – legislating in response to perceived social needs and legislating with an eye always to first principles – have defined the affirmative action debate from its beginning and continue to do so.

I don't see any obvious flaws in Fish's analysis. But I am not so certain that Kant would come out where Fish obviously does (indeed, Kant seems to be wielded throughout the piece to support what appear to be Fish's views).

I don't know how Kant would judge the affirmative action question. No doubt he would think it important. The academy was extremely important to him. And as Kant died, its potential as a force for social transformation was increasingly obvious in the German-speaking world. The university was emerging as a vital forum for political thought, and thinkers like Kant were having an electrifying impact. The aspiring middle class (what came to be called the Bildungsbürgertum) was also seeing university study as a vehicle for social and political promotion. In Kant's political thought, this educated elite – what he called the "reading public" – was vital. The appeal he makes in writings like Towards a Perpetual Peace is directed to them. But it is significant to note that this is an elite. Fish suggests that Kant's attitude is molded by a fairly stark egalitarianism (he notes "the equality of each with all the others as a subject (Untertan)")(Theorie und Praxis II). But of course, Kant was decidedly no radical democrat, notwithstanding some flirtations with Jacobin thought at the outset of the French Revolution. Indeed, it is noteworthy that during the revolution, he wrote about "liberté" and "fraternité" with the decided avoidance of the term "égalité." He embraces the idea of representative democracy, and he aspires for the rise of a governing elite composed of the intellectual best rather than those born to wealth, title and privilege ("Wisdom will come to the courts out of the study halls," 15:1436). Indeed, we don't know what Kant would say about affirmative action in general, but we know very clearly what he thinks about one form of affirmative action: the admission of the "legacy" candidate based solely on his privileged family connections. This is inexcusable. (Rechtslehre).

It does seem to me that there are some important points that Fish neglects which would contribute to a more complete understanding.

First, Kant had vehement feelings about slavery and the slave trade, which were extraordinary for his times. He had a generally positive view of England, but this – and the English monarch's decision to use force of arms against the American colonies – soured him on Prime Minister Pitt ("perhaps he seeks to promote freedom and culture – perhaps – but the barbarous slave trade certainly stands higher on his agenda") and on England ("The English nation (gens), viewed as a people (populus), constitute the most valuable link in the entire chain of humanity. Yet as a state dealing with other states, is it not the most miserable, domineering and warlike of all states?" 15:1366).

Second, Kant had equally strong feelings about nations which were wrongly conquered and subjugated. He felt their people were entitled to compensation for the injury done to them. These views appear several times in his writings, most notably in the allusions to the partition of Poland found in Perpetual Peace, in writings about the English repression of the American uprising (15:1444, 1453) and in his discussion of British colonial policy towards the Indian princely states (15:1366). Among the wrongs he identifies are the seizure of property and the practice of impressing the peoples of the subjugated states into involuntary servitude or slavery. Kant makes clear that in a just world the people so abused would be entitled to compensation. He would certainly not view claims for reparations by slaves or their immediate offspring as whacky. On the other hand, it seems unlikely he would carry these claims forward over many generations, since that would tend to violate the concept of equality of subjects ab initio.

It seems to me that Fish is right in identifying the main concepts in Kantian thought that weigh against affirmative action. Even so, I think the passages I have cited show that Kant would personally be far more sympathetic to this idea than Fish allows.

Still, this is a useful exercise, and I hope Stanley Fish will give us more in the future.

P.S. Stanley: your wife is right.
Posted 1:05 AM by Scott Horton [link]