Post-class: Kant

There are three things from last night's discussion that I'd like to briefly touch on.

First, we seemed to come to a roadblock when asked why Kant doesn't stop his analysis at the level of the state--how does he know that there's something beyond the level of states? In looking through the text, I came upon this:

Human nature never seems less lovable than in the relations among entire peoples. No nation's independence or possessions are even momentarily safe from others. The will to subjugate or to curtail the growth of others is always present, and the preparation for defense that often makes peace more oppressive and destructive of internal welfare than even war can never be relaxed. Now the sole possible remedy for this is a [state] of international right (analogous to the civil or national rights of individual men) based on public laws backed by force and submitted to by every nation. (89)

Kant seems, to me, to be arguing that the analysis must necessarily move beyond the state because there will invariably be interactions between the state. These interactions, in their natural manifestation, lead to war, for which the only remedy is international right. To my mind, Kant argues that interactions between states are an inevitability, whether it be war or peace (though we must undoubtedly pursue peace), and we therefore must include an international level in our analysis.

Second, Kant's emphasis on the need to pay lip-service to public right and duty (p. 131) seems to have some (perhaps limited) Machiavellian underpinnings. For Machiavelli, it may be more prudent for a Prince to give lip service to virtu, but he need not necessarily exhibit virtu. For Kant, even though it may be lamentable that men say one thing and do another, if 'all due honor' is given to the concept of public right, progress can still happen. This is where the two diverge, as Machiavelli doesn't argue that man moves toward virtu simply by giving the concept "all due honor."

Third, Kant's notion of 'one religion but many faiths and books' (p. 125-fn) doesn't hold, for me. My primary question regards what Kant actually means by 'religion'. I can't quite place it (and if you've got insight, have at it). Is he talking of monotheistic religions? Doctrine? If he is, all three monotheistic religions come from the same source, but doctrine is fundamentally at odds between them. There's this whole thing about Jesus with which Judaism and Islam just can't reconcile. Also, the doctrine of the trinity. I think there's a lot of ambiguity in this little footnote, and I wish he would have elaborated (perhaps he did in another place?).