In this paper, I study the conceptual origin and objective of the ethical community in Religion within the boundaries of mere reason, with the aim of understanding its role concerning Kant’s theory of radical evil and the highest good and its relationship with the political community. I will first show that radical evil makes the ethical community necessary. Secondly, I will argue that the aim all the members of the ethical community share is the highest good. Third, I will show (...) that the highest social good of Religion is not the highest good of the First Critique. Lastly, I will enumerate some differences between the ethical and the political communities respectively and some conclusions regarding the political analogy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a political reading of Religion within the boundaries of mere reason. For this I will examine the way in which Kant’s international law is applied in the ethical-legal parallel in this work. In the first place, I will show that although Kant uses in Religion the term “republic” to refer to the association of States, however, he does not hold the model of a world republic for international law, but rather of a (...) Federation of States. In the second place, I will show that Kant does not hold a state analogy with international law, but an ethical-legal analogy between the ethical community and the international legal condition under the free Federation of States and cosmopolitan right. Finally, I will present the sense in which this analogy exposes Kant's idea of progress for existing political communities. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the ethical-political dilemma in Kant’s work, sometimes expressed through the metaphor of the “crooked wood of humanity.” Kant separates external and internal freedom and the types of legislation each form of freedom requires (coercive and noncoercive). Yet, he also argues that corrupt political institutions adversely affect individual ethical development, and, reciprocally, corrupt inner dispositions of a populace adversely affect the establishment of just political institutions. I argue that a major way in which Kant addresses this vicious circle (...) is through ethical institutions, that is, noncoercive public resources for articulating and disseminating the principles of the moral law. I discuss the idea of an ethico-civil society or ethical community formulated in the Religion as an ideal model for ethical institutions mediating the ethical and the legal-political in a noncoercive, progressive manner. (shrink)

Este artículo propone una relectura contemporánea de los textos de La Religión dentro de los límites de la mera razón en los cuales Kant esboza la idea de una comunidad ética universal. Esta idea kantiana se puede parangonar con las ideas de otros pensadores de la ilustración, que anticiparon la emergencia de nuevos sujetos sociales cosmopolitas diferentes del sujeto político encuadrado en las estructuras formales del Estado moderno, los cuales no se plantean fines directamente políticos, pero en cuanto tienen presencia (...) en el espacio público, adquieren también una relevancia política significativa. La comunidad ética, sin la cual no podríamos ser personas morales, es para Kant algo ya existente, como comunidades informales, particulares, fragmentadas, e independientes del sistema de las instituciones jurídico-políticas. Se trata de hacer reflexivos los fines morales de estas comunidades para que puedan abrirse a la unidad de todo el género humano. La significación de esta idea kantiana se redescubre y se puede valorar más adecuadamente recién hoy, en el contexto de los debates actuales de la filosofía política, a partir del descentramiento del Estado y del retorno de la sociedad civil, o de la recuperación de su autonomía, y de las redes de integración que significan formas de globalización alternativas. (shrink)

I attempt to vindicate our authority to create new practical reasons for others by making choices of own own. In The Doctrine of Right Kant argues that we have an obligation to leave the Juridical State of Nature and found the state. In a less familiar passage in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason he argues for an obligation to leave what he calls the Ethical State of Nature and join together in the Moral Community. I read both texts (...) as addressing and trying to resolve a tension between our individual freedom and our authority to make claims on one another. I explicate the political argument, and then develop the view that Kant sketches in the Religion, arguing that regarding others as capable of making choices that give you reasons to act is a condition of the full exercise of your autonomy. (shrink)