Kant, Liberalism, and the meaning of life / Jeffrey Church

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Church, Jeffrey, author.

Series:

Oxford Academic

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

1760.

liberalism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (353 pages)

Edition:

First Edition

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2022

Summary:

This book is the first extended treatment of Kant's understanding of the meaning of life. It focuses on his largely neglected early lectures on anthropology from the 1760s and 1770s in the crucial years leading up to his Critique of Pure Reason. These lectures feature Kant at his least metaphysical, abstract, and legalistic. Instead, in these lectures, Kant adopts a naturalistic perspective, examining the purpose of the human being as an embodied, needy creature. This book argues that for the early Kant, human nature has two conflicting ends-that of wholeness and perfection-a conflict that justifies humanity in giving itself its own moral purpose to bring harmony to our nature and meaning to our lives. It then argues that Kant's early view of the meaning of life has important implications for understanding his political theory. Kantian liberalism has in recent years been virtually synonymous with John Rawls' liberalism, which has been criticized for abstracting from concerns about meaning in life and from debate and contestation in democratic politics. This book argues that Kant's liberalism involves a more dynamic and contestatory politics than Rawls' liberalism, because of the tensions in our nature as revealed by Kant's anthropology. In addition, Kant's anthropology points to a perfectionist dimension in Kantian liberalism, that politics on Kant's view is not only a framework for pursuing our own view of the good, but also a partnership that fosters a meaningful life.

Contents:

Contents: Introduction: Liberalism and the Crisis of Meaning in the 21st Century - Part I.Kant on the Meaning of Life - 1. Kant's Early Defense of the Contemplative Life - 2. The Two Vocations of Human Nature in Kant's Anthropology - 3. The Worthlessness of Natural Human Life - 4. Kant's Genealogy of Morality - 5. Kant's View of the Meaning of Life - Part II.Kant on Right as Realizing the Meaning of Life - 6. The Purposes of Politics (1): Culture - 7. The Purposes of Politics (2): Civilization - 8. The Purposes of Politics (3): Right - Part III.Applying Kant's Meaningful Liberalism - 9. Kant's Perfectionist Liberalism - 10. Kant's Political Liberalism - 11. The Meaningfulness of the Liberal Project - Acknowledgments - Notes - Abbreviations of Kant's Texts - Bibliography - Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-19-763320-X

0-19-763321-8

0-19-763319-6

OCLC:

1328134335