1. Introduction: Zweckmässigkeit and Kant’s Political Philosophy
Contemporary interpretations of Kant’s political philosophy either implicitly or explicitly deny the significance of the teleological language found therein. In her book Kant’s Politics: A Provisional Theory for an Uncertain World, Elisabeth Ellis urges us to remove the ‘teleological straitjacket’ from Kant’s politics, arguing that ‘Though tempting as an interpretive tool and even as a spiritual comfort, teleological arguments have no place in [political] theory’ (Ellis Reference Ellis2005: 44, 62–3). In a similar vein, Arthur Ripstein’s Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy passes over any teleological account of Kant’s politics, for Ripstein does not see a place for the purposiveness of nature in a book titled The Metaphysics of Morals (Ripstein Reference Ripstein2009: 74, n. 22). This dismissal of teleology, I will show, stems from a misinterpretation of Kant’s use and justification of the principle of Zweckmässigkeit in political thought. It is undeniable that Kant uses a teleological language in his political writings. What is needed, therefore, is an argument that clarifies what exactly such a teleological language accomplishes for Kant’s politics, thereby establishing the importance and utility of the principle of Zweckmässigkeit for his political philosophy. This is what I set out to do here.
The aim of the article at hand is to offer a systematic reconstruction of the regulative principle of what I call Kant’s ‘political Zweckmässigkeit’. I argue that this principle is a complementary principle of politics, which, together with the principle of right, constitutes the whole range of his political thought. I start by analysing the critical account of the regulative principles of Zweckmässigkeit in the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgement. While Kant developed his teleological view of history and politics throughout the 1780s, the main focus of the essay at hand is to clarify the methodological and practical utility of the principle of Zweckmässigkeit; for this reason, I base my analysis in large part on the third Critique account of teleology. Drawing especially on §§62–75 I show that, while Kant claims that there is an analogy between our judgements about the inner purposiveness of organisms and that of an ideal state, the notion of ‘political Zweckmässigkeit’ is ultimately grounded in the principle of external or relative, as opposed to internal or organic, purposiveness. In the subsequent section, I demonstrate that §§82–4 of the third Critique offer a fruitful application of political Zweckmässigkeit that enables a non-mechanistic view of nature as a whole, one that views it as purposive with respect to our goals. I then analyse the use of the principle of Zweckmässigkeit in Kant’s later works on political philosophy, specifically in his formulation of perpetual peace as an achievable goal in ‘Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’ and The Doctrine of Right. Here I show that the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit is the material principle of Kant’s politics; as such, it provides an important supplement to the formal principle of right in that it renders our ideal political goals empirically feasible.
While Kantian-inspired liberal theories of justice often look to the categorical imperative in conjunction with the principle of right as the only relevant principles of Kant’s political thought, I show that these principles far from exhaust his political thought. I therefore defend a view that restores teleology to Kant’s political philosophy by establishing political Zweckmässigkeit as the material principle of politics. Rather than being merely an interpretative tool, a spiritual comfort, or a relic of Kant’s philosophy of nature, I show that political Zweckmässigkeit is a principle that complements the principle of right in Kant’s political philosophy.
2. Developing Political Zweckmässigkeit in the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgement
Patrick Riley demonstrates that Kant’s political philosophy must be integrated into his critical system via a theory of ends, or by means of what he calls ‘a radically teleological reading of all of Kant’ (Riley 1983: 84). While Riley correctly distinguishes internal (‘strong’) from external (‘weak’) purposiveness and shows that Kant’s political thought makes use of the latter, he does not adequately address how the purposiveness of an organism or nature differs from purposiveness in politics (Riley 1983: 96–7). This leads Elisabeth Ellis to question the utility of even weak teleological language in politics, for she takes this language to imply dogmatically ‘a working assumption of nature’s lawfulness’ at best or a strong language of nature’s purposes at worst (Ellis Reference Ellis2005: 64–5). In response to this ambiguity about the specific benefits of teleology for Kant’s political thought, here I offer a systematic reconstruction of political Zweckmässigkeit found in the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgement and demonstrate that it is a regulative principle distinct from the idea of a natural teleology, and furthermore, that it does not identify political bodies with organisms or political thought with biology. I start by clarifying the differences between internal objective-material purposiveness and external objective-material purposiveness. Following some brief and general points about objective-material Zweckmässigkeit and its justification in the third Critique as a regulative principle, I argue that, while it takes its clue from an analogy between judging organisms and states, Kant’s political Zweckmässigkeit is ultimately grounded in external purposiveness, a hypothetical and pragmatic extension of internal purposiveness. The specific benefit of this principle for politics is that it allows us to judge nature as a whole as externally purposive with respect to our free goals and purposes. Far from reducing political theory to biology, then, this type of purposiveness must be understood as a ‘weak’ one; furthermore, it provides a base line for politics by reminding us that an ideal state ought to be more than well-oiled machinery and that therefore political theory requires a worldview that is not merely mechanistic. In sum, as I show in more detail in the next section, the perspective provided by political Zweckmässigkeit is useful for answering fundamental questions of politics in a non-dogmatic way.
The Regulative Principle of Zweckmässigkeit and the Analogy between Organisms and States in the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgement
The Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgement is concerned with objective purposiveness.Footnote 1 Two types of material-objective purposiveness as distinguished in §63 are the principle of internal (innere) purposiveness, which judges organisms immediately as natural ends, and the principle of external (äussere) or relative (relative) purposiveness, which judges the advantageousness or usefulness of a natural end for other natural beings’ purposes (KU, 5: 367). Additionally, Kant defines Zweckmässigkeit in the First Introduction to KU as an assumption pertaining to the subject’s capacity for judging in general, and not to the object (EEKU, 20: 202).Footnote 2 Regardless of whether we are referring to the inner structure of an organism or judging the external relationship between two things, the principle of objective Zweckmässigkeit is a critical regulative principle: we have not asserted that nature itself is purposive.Footnote 3
The analogy between the way in which we judge organisms and states in the footnote to §65 provides an important point of entry into Kant’s political Zweckmässigkeit. Here, Kant claims that an ideal state can be illuminated by means of an analogy with organisms: in an ideal body politic, each member should not merely be a means but also an end for the whole, and reciprocally, the idea of the whole should determine the position and function of each of its members, just as in an organism (KU, 5: 375).
To be sure, states are not self-organizing beings and they do not exhibit a self-propagating, formative power (sich fortpflanzende bildende Kraft) as organisms do (KU, 5: 374). This is not, strictly speaking, an analogy between organisms and states, but an analogy between the ways we must judge an organism and an ideal state. The terms of this analogy provide us with a clue as to what teleological language might accomplish in political discourse. The first similarity appears to be located in the purposiveness of the part–whole relationship found in each (KU, 5: 373); that is to say that the inner organization of a natural end or organism can be likened to that of a state.Footnote 4 The second similarity is that a mechanistic worldview is insufficient for talking about either organisms or political bodies. We judge organisms as natural ends, not because we know that an organism is a natural end independent of our judging it so, but because it remains contingent with respect to the already-known mechanical laws why it ought to be organized exactly the way it is. Similarly, a view that judges an ideal state to be a mere machine is not sufficient, because a mechanistic view cannot justify how the parts, all of which act freely, ought to come together in a body politic. Because we cannot give a full account of an ideal state in terms of a machine or because a state cannot be just a mechanical whole, we resort to an analogy with an organic whole.Footnote 5
In brief, in a theory of the ideal state, we are allowed to use an analogy with organisms only insofar as we are referring to the part–whole relationship and envisioning the state as more than a machine. The analogy between an organism and a state helps us to theorize a body politic as more than a machine and therefore the members of this body as more than cogs in a machine. This paves the way for a political discourse in which an ideal state or any type of ideal political formation can be seen as motivated by freely willed human action, not machinations of nature. The use of a teleological language here, then, does not and should not indicate a strong purposiveness of nature.
From Organisms to Nature as a Whole: External and Political Zweckmässigkeit
The regulative principle of internal purposiveness, which we use for judging organisms’ inner structure, further provides Kant with an occasion to use teleological language as an experiment in our investigation of nature as a whole. Furthermore, I argue that this is the way in which he utilizes teleological language in political philosophy. When we judge nature as a whole as purposive with respect to our free goals in answering political questions, therefore, we are employing a form of external purposiveness, again political Zweckmässigkeit. Here I show that the principle of political purposiveness is ultimately grounded in that of the principle of external purposiveness, and as such it refers to the relationship between the purposes of human beings and nature as a whole.
Kant argues that organisms provide natural science with the basis for a critical teleology of nature, that is, a hypothetical indication of the purposiveness of nature as a whole (KU, 5: 380). Because we are justified in making reflective teleological judgements about organisms and because we have gained so much from teleological language in our study of such beings, we can take the inner purposiveness of organisms as a clue or a guideline (Leitfaden) for inquiring whether or not nature as a whole is also organized in a purposive manner, as an experiment (Versuch) at best (KU, 5: 379). Once we have used the language of teleology and found it reliable in the case of organisms, it then makes sense to attempt to extend it to nature as a whole, at least as an experiment, to see if we can discover more than is possible by means of merely mechanistic principles.Footnote 6
Again, it is important to bear in mind the limitations of the principle of external purposiveness. First, the fact that we can use teleological language referring to nature as a whole does not mean that nature is just like a giant organism. This extended use of purposiveness does not judge the inner organization of nature as a whole, but rather whether or not nature is suitable for our goals. Therefore, it is not the case that we have concluded or proven that nature as a whole is purposive or sets purposes for us. Second, Kant explains in §75 that the ground of the distinction between the internal principle of objective purposiveness and the external or relative principle of objective Zweckmässigkeit is that the latter may be used as a guideline for the study of nature as a whole, but only if it is useful for the inquiry at hand, not because it is an absolutely necessary or indispensable principle (KU, 5: 398).
The external principle of purposiveness gives us a guideline or a hypothetical indication of purposes (KU, 5: 379). Just as it was useful to resort to an analogy with an organism in talking about an ideal state, it might prove useful to envision nature as a whole as purposive in talking about our political goals. For these reasons, we must understand the extended use of teleology in the ‘weak’ sense in comparison to the ‘strong’ sense of the internal purposiveness of organisms. Additionally, contrary to Ellis’s claim, this use of teleology does not amount to a strong or deterministic view of human actions, but merely offers the baseline assumptions that nature is more than a mechanism and that there is a correspondence between our goals and nature, an assumption that all of Kant’s writings on history and politics share.Footnote 7
The Usefulness of Political Zweckmässigkeit: Nature as More than a Mechanism
Kant claims in the third Critique that a teleological conceptualization of the world-whole, provided by the extended use of the principle of purposiveness, is useful for research in natural science in that it promises us more than a mere mechanistic view of nature, i.e. promises us a system (KU, 5: 417–18). Likewise, a relation of external purposiveness between nature and our goals provides a regulative maxim for political philosophy. It is not immediately clear, however, what kinds of specific benefits political philosophy can acquire from a teleological guiding principle. The point that Kant still needs to make at this juncture, then, is that political discourse does indeed benefit from a teleological view of nature.
While in this article I ground my account of the significance of teleology for politics mainly on the Critique of Judgement, it is also important to note that Kant begins to pay special attention to the centrality of teleology for understanding the political history of humankind prior to the publication of the third Critique, particularly in ‘Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent’ (IaG [1784]) and ‘Conjectural Beginning of Human History’ (MAM [1786]). Kant’s reliance on teleology in history and politics in these essays as well as in §83 of the third Critique share the claim that our political progress has two stages. In the first instance, Kant describes human history as naturally moving towards cultural maturation, as a transition from nature to culture, as it were. We see this stage demonstrated in the ‘Idea’ essay in his claims that ‘the human being is an animal, which, when it lives among others of its species, has need of a master’ (IaG, 8: 23); that it is nature’s aim, not ours, that culminates in a cosmopolitan condition of public state, for this is a state of equilibrium that brings our unsociable sociability temporarily to a halt (IaG, 8: 26, 27–8); and finally in his claim that the first stage of human history consists of a transition from a natural condition of inequality to a cultural condition of a civil state (MAM, 8: 118). In the second stage of human history, culture becomes the vehicle of progress through which we can then develop as moral agents; here the transition is from culture to morality (IaG, 8: 21, 26; MAM, 8: 116–17).
Politics, just like nature as a whole, is not given to us as organized. But a principle of mechanism cannot capture the workings of politics, because these workings include the question of a lawful organization of the relationships between freely acting human beings insofar as they are also part of nature. The claim that our political progress has two stages, first from nature to culture, and second from culture to morality, together with the idea that politics deals with human beings not only as free agents but also as naturally situated beings, therefore already anticipates and undermines Ellis’s critique of teleology. Ellis argues that for Kant freely willed human action is the motor of progress throughout history. However, as these earlier essays show, nature within and outside us is the responsible force at work in historical and cultural progress, at least until we reach a point in our cultural condition in which we can also develop as moral agents. In any case, Kant’s two-staged account of development, as well as his argument for the epistemic and practical utility of the principle of Zweckmässigkeit for politics, culminates in §83 of the third Critique, to which I turn next.Footnote 8
In the next section, I clarify Kant’s reliance on the use of teleology in the Methodology of the Teleological Power of Judgement in the third Critique. Insofar as political discourse pursues a lawful conceptualization that requires provisional answers for questions about the otherwise contingent associations between human beings, we are allowed to view the world as a teleological whole, but only as an experiment. This experiment proves successful if political Zweckmässigkeit (1) has a ‘theoretical utility’, namely, if a teleological view of nature is more useful than a mechanistic view for answering political questions, and (2) has a ‘practical utility’, namely, if a teleological view of nature results in a supplementary view of political thought, a view that allows us to articulate as feasible the ideal goals of politics.
3. A Case Study in Political Zweckmässigkeit: §§82–4 of the Critique of the Power of Judgement
What I call Kant’s political Zweckmässigkeit, again, the guiding principle of his conceptualization of politics, is the idea that nature as a whole can be judged, outside a mechanistic framework, as externally purposive with respect to our free goals and purposes. Accordingly, when we view nature in teleological terms in an attempt to answer political questions, we are employing the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit. In sections §§79–91 (the Methodology of the Teleological Power of Judgement), Kant provides examples of various applications of teleological judgement, and these I argue include a case study in the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit. Specifically §§82–4 show that the success of the application of this principle must be assessed in two respects: first, by whether or not an externally purposive conceptualization of nature answers more questions for politics than a mechanistic conceptualization does, and second by the extent to which the view afforded by this principle is capable of demonstrating the feasibility of the ideals of practical reason for real world circumstances. Here I mainly focus on the former criterion, what I have called ‘the theoretical utility’ of political Zweckmässigkeit, and turn to its ‘practical utility’ in the next section.
On Ellis’s account, §§82–4 of the third Critique are incompatible with the rest of Kant’s political theory due to their strong teleological language (Ellis Reference Ellis2005: 66). Although in Kant’s assessment we need an assumption that nature is on our side, Ellis claims that this is not necessary, for it is sufficient to assert that if one aims to be a rationally acting being, then she must pursue goals determined by reason (69). As I will show, however, the political question at stake in these sections is not whether or not we must pursue the goals determined by reason; Kant is clear that we must do so, for nature cannot set any goals for us. Rather, the question is whether or not, in pursuing our rational goals, we can count on being able to bring them about even when our experience is not conclusive on this matter. This is the question that a teleological worldview, adduced by the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit, answers more sufficiently than a merely mechanistic view.Footnote 9
For What Purpose does the Human Being Exist? The Ultimate End of Nature and the Theoretical Utility of Political Zweckmässigkeit
In §82, Kant asks whether or not there is an ultimate end (letzter Zweck) of nature, a natural end for which everything else would be a means (KU, 5: 425). Seen from the perspective of a mechanistic nature or based on our experience, we cannot answer this question (KU, 5: 426). Experience clearly shows that when it comes to human beings ‘nature has not made the least exception to its generative as well as destructive powers, but has rather subjected them to its mechanism without any end’ (KU, 5: 427).Footnote 10 Figuring out the ultimate end of nature, then, is not possible based solely on experience, and to claim that the human being exists as the ultimate end of nature would therefore be dogmatic. Human beings are organisms, and as such, they are internally purposive, but it is far from being the case that nature as a whole is therefore purposive with respect to them (KU, 5: 427).
When we ask why the human being exists at all or what purpose our existence serves in this world, the answers help to illuminate how we ought to live together. The question regarding the ultimate end of nature, therefore, has a political significance. If a mechanistic conceptualization of nature is all we have for answering this question, then there is no way to propose a plan or a purpose for the coexistence of human beings. In fact, we have in front of us ‘every appearance of the products of wild, all-powerful forces of a nature working in a chaotic state’ (KU, 5: 427). A mechanistic conceptualization of nature does not allow us to envision a society in which human beings can coexist peacefully under their own laws, and it makes it seem as if we are destined to live under the reign of nature and its capricious and destructive tendencies. In other words, it seems as if we are forever doomed to a state of nature, with no possible way to imagine why or how we should leave it behind. Thus politics in the Kantian system does not get off the ground on a mechanistic view of the relationship between nature and human beings.
Enter political Zweckmässigkeit, or the guiding principle of politics that allows us to view nature as a whole to be purposive with respect to our goals. While from a mechanistic point of view it would be dogmatic to claim that the human being is the ultimate end of nature, we are allowed this claim by a regulatively purposive view of nature. According to this latter perspective, we are qualified to be the ultimate ends, or as Kant puts it ‘the titular lords of nature’ (KU, 5: 431), because we are the only natural organisms that are capable of setting ends and organizing these ends into a system. Thanks to political Zweckmässigkeit, then, we can start with the hypothesis that nature as a whole is purposive, and even judge the relationship between human beings and nature as mutually purposive in that the chain of natural ends stops at the human being. This view, which allows us to claim that human beings are the only beings qualified to have anything to do with the ultimate end of nature (KU, 5: 429), is preferable for its usefulness for articulating answers to the political question, ‘For what purpose does the human being exist?’
In the first instance, political Zweckmässigkeit considers the human being as a part of nature, and as such lays the groundwork for articulating answers regarding our collective ends in this world. If we are granted the view that the human being is the only organism that can have anything to do with the ultimate end of nature, this view at once prioritizes our goals over other organisms’ pursuits. While it is still not immediately clear what these goals ought to be, what is clear is that they cannot be something that nature sets for us. Human beings are organisms considered from the point of view of nature; however, from another perspective they are also the ‘final ends’ or, as rational agents, ends-in-themselves. In this respect, Ellis is right to point out that ‘a naturally given set of necessary ends toward which human action unconsciously and inexorably moves’ cannot have any place in politics (2005: 69). But this is not Kant’s claim. Whatever our ultimate goals ought to be, they cannot come from nature; they must be given by our own end-setting capacities. Kant’s claim, however, is that unless we view nature as a whole and our place in it teleologically, we do not have a conceptualization of ourselves as end-setting beings whose goals are supported by nature.
For what Purpose Ought the Human Being to Exist? The Final End of Nature and the Practical Utility of Political Zweckmässigkeit
When we consider the human being as a noumenon, we cannot even ask for what purpose she ought to exist: it is immediately clear that her existence contains the highest end in herself, due to the fact that she can, as a free moral agent, subordinate the whole of nature teleologically to her free will and lawgiving (KU, 5: 435).Footnote 11 This is to say that human beings ought to be understood as ends-in-themselves. In this view, we are the final ends (Endzweck) of nature, or as defined in §84 ‘that end which needs no other as the condition of its possibility’ (KU, 5: 434). The question then becomes, if we are both ultimate ends as ends in ourselves and the ultimate and the final end of nature, what must we do with our lives? What is the highest good on earth that we ought to accomplish? In other words, ‘For what purpose ought the human being to exist?’
These are, once again, political as well as ethical and even religious questions, and what is more, they cannot be answered by simply stating that we are the final ends of nature. Our collective purposes should reflect our duality in this world, where we exist both as end-setting organisms and free agents. Our ultimate end, then, must be something that would bring us closer to being final ends. As such, this goal must fulfil two conditions: it must be a goal to which we ourselves can contribute, and a goal that a teleological nature can support (KU, 5: 430).Footnote 12 Kant articulates this goal as a culture of skill (Geschicklichkeit), namely, a cultural condition in which we can develop our rational end-setting capacities to their fullest extent in order to become final ends of nature (KU, 5: 431).Footnote 13 Thanks to political Zweckmässigkeit, we are also permitted to presuppose that nature will support this goal.
The principle of political Zweckmässigkeit, which affords us a teleological way of thinking (Denkungsart) about the world and our place in it, helps us to harmonize the mechanism of nature with the freedom of human beings, and this harmony is of crucial importance for Kant’s political thought.Footnote 14 Rather than being a mechanism of nature’s purposes that precludes any meaningful voluntary action, as Ellis claims (Reference Ellis2005: 67–8), Geschicklichkeit is the name of the aptitude through which human beings may use nature as a means for their ends in order to make something out of it, that is, in order to shape their surroundings under the direction of practical goals that they themselves posit. The idea of a ‘culture of skill’, then, encapsulates a possible reciprocity between our free actions and nature as a teleological whole, and is generated by the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit, which posits that nature is purposive with respect to human freedom.Footnote 15 This principle allows us to posit a minimal sense of correspondence between our free actions and a deterministic nature. As such, this principle does not contradict Kant’s epistemological precautions; rather, it provides a useful hypothesis that our freedom can have empirical causality, without presuming an author of an internal or strong purposiveness of nature.Footnote 16
A Cosmopolitan World-Whole in §83 and the Practical Utility of Political Zweckmässigkeit
A mechanistic conceptualization of nature and human beings, by itself, does not of course allow us to formulate a political philosophy. A purely moral consideration of human beings goes further in that it posits that we are the final ends of nature because of our freedom; however, this consideration does not specifically tell us if, as natural beings, we will put our capacities to use in order to shape nature according to our own purposes, but only that we ought to do so. In §83 of KU Kant asks exactly this important political question, namely, whether or not human beings will attempt to create, through Geschicklichkeit, the kind of civil society that will bring them closer to being suitable to being the final ends of nature. The principle of Recht can articulate an answer along the lines of what we ought to establish and accordingly can lay out the ideal laws and institutions of justice – and this is what Kant does in his more explicitly political writings, namely, ‘Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’ and The Doctrine of Right, to which I turn in the next section.
Kant writes in §83 that war can be seen as ‘a deeply hidden but perhaps intentional effort of supreme wisdom if not to establish then at least to prepare the way for the lawfulness together with the freedom of the states’ (KU, 5: 433). This view may strike us as odd. Indeed, Ellis describes this section of the third Critique as ‘especially distasteful’ since it seems to make war and inequality the motor of progress, precluding any meaningful voluntary action (2005: 67–8). However, when we interpret this passage in terms of the guiding principle of politics that nature is purposive with respect to our goals, we can see that all that Kant is claiming here is that the current circumstances in which we find ourselves will eventually motivate us to do what we ought to do, not that we ought to do what nature sets for us as a goal. While our unsociably sociable inclinations will lead us to endless wars, out of these selfish and yet natural inclinations we will eventually come to realize that wars are too costly and counterproductive for our purposes, and as a result start working toward establishing peace, first through a civil society, and then through a ‘cosmopolitan world whole (Weltbürgerliches Ganze)’ (KU, 5: 432–3). Although not moral in itself, a cosmopolitan world order is the first step towards morality.Footnote 17 In other words, Kant can claim that we will indeed work towards establishing the ideal conditions of right and justice, not through moral incentives but through natural-pathological incentives, at least in the first instance (KU, 5: 433).Footnote 18 The ‘practical utility’ of the hypothesis of political Zweckmässigkeit lies in the fact that it provides us with a perspective on the feasibility of our political ideals given our present circumstances, and allows us to claim, albeit hypothetically, that we can count on bringing about our goals in this world. I will say more about this in the next section.
I have assessed the status of Kant’s application of the principle of external or relative purposiveness, or political Zweckmässigkeit, found in §§82–4 of KU in light of the interpretative framework that I have provided thus far. This principle primarily helps us to articulate answers to political questions that a mere mechanistic view of nature cannot, and the inadequacy of a mechanistic view for politics is the reason why in the first instance Kant draws an analogy between an ideal state and organism. Additionally, it is not sufficient to say that we must pursue goals determined by reason or the principle of Recht, because when we look at experience, we do not find conclusive evidence that our rational goals or ourselves have any priority; what is more, we see that nature often thwarts our efforts. The role of teleology for Kant’s politics, then, is not to provide a theory of some naturally given set of necessary ends towards which human action unconsciously and inexorably moves, as Ellis argues (Reference Ellis2005: 69); rather, its specific benefit lies in providing us with a non-dogmatic judgement that we can achieve our rational aims because we can count on a correspondence between our goals and nature. In the Methodology of the Teleological Power of Judgement, then, we begin to see the practical utility of teleological language for politics, although this is not fully articulated until the First Supplement of ‘Toward Perpetual Peace’ and the Conclusion of The Doctrine of Right, to which I turn next.
4. Political Zweckmässigkeit and the Principle of Recht
The significance of political Zweckmässigkeit is further highlighted in Kant’s later political writings, where Kant resorts to a teleological language in order to bring an additional perspective to bear on our pursuit of the goal of politics, perpetual peace. Ellis and Ripstein, diverse representatives of what we may call a Recht-based approach to Kant’s political theory, have in common an implicit (Ripstein) or explicit (Ellis) dismissal of the teleological language found in ‘Perpetual Peace’ and The Doctrine of Right.Footnote 19 Ellis argues that the First Supplement to ‘Perpetual Peace’ must be ignored because a teleological explanation of human action and history contradicts Kant’s account of the pursuit of peace through public institutions of law (2005: 97), while Ripstein similarly passes over Kant’s teleological way of talking about peace in the Conclusion of The Doctrine of Right, and as a result concludes, in a somewhat un-Kantian fashion, that perpetual peace is an unattainable goal (2009: 230). In what follows, I first show that, far from being a dogmatic or unnecessary add-on to the project of perpetual peace, the teleological language in the First Supplement must be interpreted along the lines of political Zweckmässigkeit that I have developed, and as such it provides an important supplementary view that grounds our efforts to establish peace through institutions of law. Based on the distinction Kant makes between different principles of practical philosophy in Appendix I in ‘Toward Perpetual Peace’, I call the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit the material and the principle of Recht the formal principle of politics. This then allows me to articulate the exact nature of the relationship between the principles of right and Zweckmässigkeit as one of complementarity. I then turn to cosmopolitan right in the Conclusion of The Doctrine of Right and demonstrate that the role of teleological language therein is to articulate peace as an empirically achievable goal of politics, and that this articulation once again complements the ideal political doctrines established by the principle of Recht. In short, a fuller consideration of the relationship between our ideal political goals and the real circumstances of the world is provided by the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit, and this constitutes a distinct and crucial domain of politics that the principle of Recht alone is incapable of addressing.
Political Zweckmässigkeit in the First Supplement: ‘On the Guarantee of Perpetual Peace’
Consistent with her reservations about the role of teleology and teleological language in Kant’s politics, in her interpretation of ‘Toward Perpetual Peace’ Ellis encourages us to ignore the First Supplement, where Kant supposedly provides a dogmatic teleological account of human agency in history and politics (2005: 100). However, as my earlier analysis of §§82–4 of the third Critique shows, political Zweckmässigkeit is the way in which Kant’s critical philosophy brings together our free agency and the mechanistic course of nature. Thus political Zweckmässigkeit, which I have developed as a specific kind of what Riley calls ‘weak’ teleology, is not in contradiction with free human agency in history and politics.Footnote 20 Additionally, here I will show that the teleological account of nature in the First Supplement is not meant to serve as a sort of substitute for the ideal institutions that Kant specified in the definitive articles of ‘Perpetual Peace’, as Ellis indicates (Reference Ellis2005: 96), but merely as a supplement to these ideal doctrines as provided by the principle of Recht in the main body of the essay. Political Zweckmässigkeit in the First Supplement enables us to have an additional and more complete perspective for hypothesizing that our political goals are achievable in this world.
In the First Supplement, Kant examines the epistemological and practical ground of the assurance that we will be able to establish peace in this world by looking at the natural as well as the cultural conditions in which we find ourselves (ZeF, 8: 363). This examination utilizes the guiding principle of political Zweckmässigkeit and therefore allows us to presume that nature will be supportive of our goals: indeed, this is what the ‘guarantee of nature’ means.Footnote 21 The task of the Supplement, then, is very different from that of the preliminary and definitive articles. The preliminary articles give us the sine qua non conditions of the goal of perpetual peace, whereas the definitive articles articulate three types of associations (a republican constitution, a federation of free states, a universal right to hospitality) towards this goal. In the Supplement, Kant gives us an epistemic justification of the very claim that we may be able to achieve peace by resorting to a teleological view of nature, both outside and within us. In brief, while the preliminary and definitive articles are primarily concerned with what we ourselves can and ought to do in order to achieve perpetual peace, the Supplement investigates whether or not these goals are supported by nature as well.
In his exposition of the first definitive article, Kant already gave an argument for why a republican constitution, arising from the pure source of the principle of Recht, is the most conducive to peace (ZeF, 8: 349–50). Now in the Supplement, he provides the additional view and justification that, even if we were not motivated by practical laws to establish a republican constitution, as is often the case with not-yet-fully rational agents such as ourselves, a constant state of war would motivate us, through our self-seeking inclinations, to put an end to war and pursue peace (ZeF, 8: 366). Once we realize that constant wars are costly for human beings as well as states, all we need to know is how the mechanism of nature can be put to use by our end-setting capacities for peace, and we realize that a republican constitution is the most conducive to this goal (ZeF, 8: 366).Footnote 22 For less-than-perfectly-moral agents such as ourselves, the task becomes a matter of knowing how to put the mechanism of nature to use. This is why Kant writes that ‘The problem of establishing a state is soluble even for a nation of devils (as long as they have understanding)’ (ZeF, 8: 366). In his exposition of the second definitive article, Kant already argued against a world league and for a federation of free states that will maintain peace on earth. This doctrine of a federation of free states was postulated from the perspective of the principle of right in analogy with individuals leaving a state of war behind and entering into a civil condition (ZeF, 8: 357). Here in the Supplement he further argues that the natural separation between human beings due to differences in religion and language can be interpreted as purposive with respect to our goal of perpetual peace, for these differences prevent us from founding a universal monarchy or all-dominating world power, which would be counterproductive for maintaining peace on earth (ZeF, 8: 367). We are instead motivated to work out our differences, and attempt, if not perpetual peace, then at the very least a universal state of equilibrium (ZeF, 8: 367). In his exposition of the third definitive article, Kant already gave an argument for the cosmopolitan right to universal hospitality based on the right of common possession of the earth’s surface (ZeF, 8: 358). Here in the Supplement, he adds that because of the spirit of commerce we will be compelled to promote peace and be hospitable to foreigners, albeit not for moral reasons but in order not to interrupt commerce, for ‘the spirit of commerce … cannot coexist with war and … sooner or later takes hold of every nation’ (ZeF, 8: 368). In sum, the Supplement contributes to the agenda of the preliminary and definitive articles by granting us the assumption that, in addition to the requirements of the pure principle of Recht, our natural tendencies will propel us to gradually solve the problem of perpetual peace.
While the pure principle of Recht allows us to articulate the political means that we ought to pursue in order to achieve our end, perpetual peace, the Supplement adds a teleological worldview toward realization of that end.Footnote 23 A doctrine of pure ends indicates in the preliminary and definitive articles what we ought to do to bring about our ends; without the Supplement and the additional teleological view it provides, however, our political discourse remains indifferent to question of the realization of these ends in the world. Thus the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit is the material principle of politics that allows us to hypothesize that our purposes will be ‘effectuated in the world’, supplementing the formal principle of Recht.
Ellis writes that the First Supplement makes it sound as if ‘The hidden hand of nature moves human beings without their knowledge toward providential goals, motivating them naturally by their interests, even as they progress, taken as a whole, toward ideal institutions’ (2005: 97). This, for her, is not an acceptable story of political progress, for such progress cannot be achieved by the mechanism of nature but has to be the result of our voluntary actions. The teleological account of nature that Kant gives here, however, aims to show how we can be minimally assured that nature will support our duties as given by the principles of practical reason. Thus nature will ensure that ‘without prejudice to our freedom’ we will do what we ought to do (ZeF, 8: 365). According to this view, we are allowed to presume that our political goals are realistic, not that we should stop thinking about what we ourselves ought to do in order to accomplish them. As I have shown, if all we have are the definitive articles of peace, three specific ideals of the principle of right, then we do not know if and how we will achieve real results; all we know is that we ought to try to implement them. When in the Supplement Kant writes that ‘nature guarantees perpetual peace’ this refers to the hypothetical alignment between our purposes and the purposes of nature. Thus the sense of guarantee here has to be understood in the ‘weak’ sense of political Zweckmässigkeit that I have developed so far, as a useful hypothesis for politics. This interpretation is later confirmed when Kant writes that this purposive view of nature is not meant to serve as a theoretical means for predicting our future (ZeF, 8: 368).
In brief, the First Supplement must be interpreted as a case study in the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit in all the senses I have developed thus far. It provides a view of nature as more than a mechanism and it posits that our freely pursued goals will be supported by nature. The Supplement indeed consists of an actual supplement (Anhang) to the definitive articles of perpetual peace in the form of a series of reflections on the feasibility of our ideals directed by the regulative principle of political Zweckmässigkeit.
Formal and Material Principles of Politics in Appendix I to ‘Perpetual Peace’
One may ask here, however, what the exact nature of the relationship between the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit and the principle of Recht is in Kant’s politics. From what I have argued, it should be clear that the former does not replace or override the latter, but provides an additional perspective on political progress and clarifies the basis of our assumptions regarding the feasibility of our goals. Following Kant’s distinction between formal and material principles of practical philosophy in Appendix I to ‘Perpetual Peace’, the principle of Recht should be seen as the formal principle of Kant’s political thought, whereas the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit would be its material principle.Footnote 24
In Appendix I, Kant argues that in problems of practical philosophy the formal principle of practical reason must undoubtedly take precedence (ZeF, 8: 377). Furthermore, the principle of Recht, as the formal principle of politics, has ‘unconditional necessity’, whereas the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit, as the material principle of politics, ‘necessitates only if the empirical conditions of the proposed end, namely of its being realized, are presupposed; and even if this end (e.g., perpetual peace) were also a duty, it would still have to be derived from the principle of Right’ (ZeF, 8: 377). Thus ideals of political thought have both practical necessity, insofar as they are deduced from the principle of right, as well as a natural necessity, insofar as their feasibility is deduced from the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit. The three definitive articles of ‘Perpetual Peace’, which propose a republican constitution, a federation of free states, and a cosmopolitan right to universal hospitality, are justified by means of the formal principle of Recht, and each of these articles as a result carries a practical necessity (Ellis Reference Ellis2005: 99–100; Ripstein Reference Ripstein2009: 182–3). Let us call this way of proceeding in political theory the ‘Recht-based approach’ to politics. In the First Supplement, we find that these postulates also have a sort of hypothetical natural necessity: we can say that nature, both within and outside us, will compel us to work on a republican constitution, a federation of free states and a cosmopolitan right to universal hospitality. The view presented in the First Supplement, however, is derived from the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit, which offers a complementary ‘ends-based approach’ to politics. I argue in what follows that this material principle of politics provides an additional or complementary perspective that brings these definitive articles or the ideals of politics into a closer proximity with the real world. In other words, as we started to see in Kant’s so-called ‘guarantee of nature’, it supplies the formal arrangements we must make for peace with material feasibility, thereby making peace a real possibility.
If we read ‘Toward Perpetual Peace’ as well as The Doctrine of Right in light of the distinction between formal and material principles of politics, we are in a better position to understand why perpetual peace is a realistic goal to be accomplished by approximation. The issue of the empirical feasibility of our ideal goals cannot be addressed by the formal principle of politics or a mere Recht-based approach alone but is better articulated by means of the material principle of political Zweckmässigkeit. As I show below, the clearest example of this is seen in Ripstein’s un-Kantian conclusion that perpetual peace is an unattainable goal. Perpetual peace is not a goal merely dependent on the correct arrangement of empirically contingent conditionsFootnote 25 and it is not an impossible goal merely posited as an ideal by the principle of Recht. If all we have for articulating the feasibility of perpetual peace is the principle of Recht, then it is indeed merely the philosopher’s dream, a pious wish. However, from the complementary perspective of the principle of political Zweckmässigkeit, perpetual peace can be articulated, in light of a consideration of the world and our inclinations on a larger scale, as a feasible goal or a realistic task that we can gradually achieve.Footnote 26
Perpetual Peace as the Final End of the Doctrine of Right
In Kant’s Doctrine of Right, the end of Chapter II titled ‘The Right of Nations’, as well as the entirety of the curiously short Chapter III, titled ‘Cosmopolitan Right’, are dedicated to a discussion of how to institute perpetual peace among nations. In the concluding remarks of Chapter II, Kant states that ‘Only in a universal association of states (analogous to that by which a people becomes a state) can rights come to hold conclusively and a true peaceful condition come about’ and such an association would have to be ‘a permanent congress of states’ (MS, 6: 350). As Ripstein rightly points out, however, such a congress would act merely as an arbiter (as a court) and would be a voluntary coalition; therefore it can be dissolved at any time (MS, 6: 351; 2009: 229–30). From this, Ripstein concludes that perpetual peace is unattainable because it is within each nation’s right to withdraw from this congress at any point. Indeed, this seems to be what Kant claims at first: ‘So perpetual peace, the ultimate goal of the whole right of nations, is indeed an unachievable idea.’ However, he continues:
Still, the political principles directed toward perpetual peace, of entering into such alliances of states, which serve for continual approximation to it, are not unachievable. Instead, since continual approximation to it is a task based on duty and therefore on the right of human beings and of states, this can certainly be achieved. (MS, 6: 350; trans. modified)
How can perpetual peace be unattainable and a continual approximation to it be a duty? I suggest that this claim may be interpreted in terms of the distinction between the formal and material principles of politics. While the formal principle of Recht, as the normative ground of politics, is sufficient to postulate the ideal conditions of Recht, it cannot address the empirical achievability of its ultimate condition and final end, perpetual peace. In order to answer the question of the empirical achievability, we need the material principle, namely political Zweckmässigkeit, which, by allowing us to reflect on the non-ideal conditions of politics, namely, our individual and collective inclinations, renders perpetual peace an achievable goal.
Establishing perpetual peace is ‘the entire final end of the doctrine of right within the limits of mere reason’ because only in a peaceful condition can we establish and secure laws; as Kant puts it, ‘war is not the way in which everyone should seek their rights’ (MS, 6: 355). The morally practical reason and its formal principle, the principle of Recht, therefore condemn war and make pursuit of perpetual peace our duty (MS, 6: 354). Additionally, as the Supplement to ‘Perpetual Peace’ shows, we come to gradually pursue peace because in the long run wars go against our individual as well as collective interests and inclinations. This view is provided by a comparison between the ideal conditions of Recht and the empirical circumstances in which we live, directed by the guiding principle of political Zweckmässigkeit that nature is externally purposive with respect to our goals. We cannot predict the future with any certainty based on this view but can conclude that peace is a real possibility and therefore an attainable goal. If we deny this regulatively teleological view of nature and view nature in light of what Kant elsewhere calls the ‘dismal reign of chance’ (IaG, 8: 18), then we must conclude that peace is impossible. This, however, would be equivalent to denying that it is a duty for us; it would mean getting ‘rid of all reason and to regard ourselves as thrown by one’s principles into the same mechanism of nature as all the other species of animals’ (MS, 6: 355) as if we were not the ultimate as well as the final ends of nature.
In sum, the view provided by political Zweckmässigkeit allows us to view nature as more than a mechanism, as supportive of our goals, and leads us to conclude that while as an end of practical reason the goal of perpetual peace may not be fully attainable, we are justified in claiming it as an ideal to be achieved by approximation. A merely Recht-based approach directed by the formal principle of politics cannot account for such approximation, and this is why Ripstein concludes that for Kant in the final analysis perpetual peace is unattainable.Footnote 27
A Recht-based approach to politics grants us the claim that war is not the condition in which to establish rights of any kind. This formal principle of politics gives us the ideal condition for establishing rights: there shall be no war and therefore pursuing peace is our duty. In this respect, peace is a legitimate ideal goal grounded on the principle of Recht. An ends-based approach to politics, or political theory oriented by the material principle of political Zweckmässigkeit, further grants us the conjecture that, while our current conditions are far from the ideal of perpetual peace, in the long term war is against our individual and collective inclinations. Therefore peace can also be understood as an empirically feasible pragmatic goal.
5. Conclusion
I have argued that Kant’s use of teleology in politics does not indicate a dogmatic view of the relationship between our goals and nature as a whole. Rather, Kant resorts to political Zweckmässigkeit in a ‘weak’ sense, as a way of conceptualizing the world as responsive to our goals. He deems teleological language useful for political philosophy, because politics requires a non-mechanistic worldview and a presupposition that our ideal goals are achievable. The regulative teleological principle guiding Kant’s political philosophy is that of external Zweckmässigkeit as developed in the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgement. I have also argued that this principle has a practical utility for politics as evidenced in the later writings on political philosophy, ‘Toward Perpetual Peace’ and The Doctrine of Right. There it provides a view of the gradual achievability of our goals which the principle of right alone cannot ascertain.
Kantian-inspired liberal theorists are quick to downplay or dismiss the role of teleology in Kant’s political writings and claim that the principle of Recht is the exclusive principle of Kantian politics. I have not suggested that the material principle of Zweckmässigkeit has a priority or precedence over the formal principle of Recht or that it possesses any independent normative force for Kant’s political thought. However, without this complementary principle, our picture of Kant’s politics is missing an important piece.
