Essay About Universal History And Human Species

Kantian Cosmopolitan Politcs
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Question: In his essay “Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Purpose” Kant argues that the
greatest problem for the human species is “that of attaining a civil society which can administer justice universally.” Discuss how Kant argues for this claim and what his proposal is for achieving it historically You may supplement your answer by briefly outlining one contemporary version of Kants proposal.. Do you think Kants proposal has at all been approximated in modernity? (Word count1820 words)

First this article will explore the claims which ground Kants argument for a universal
history by discussing the main arguments within each proposition in the essay. It will
then discuss the idea for a philosophical account of human history (eighth and ninth
propositions), it will provide a brief explanation of John Rawls contemporary, Kantian
influenced “Law of Peoples” and will finally briefly observe Kantian influence in
contemporary international politics offering some critique of the Kantian universal notion
of freedom.
Kant begins the essay with an account of nature. The first proposition describes a
determinism in nature “All natural capacities of a creature are destined sooner or later to
be developed completely and in conformity with their end”(Kant, p42). For Kant all
things within nature are causally linked and entail some kind of purpose or destiny. Next
Kant proposes that the key natural endowment of human beings is reason, and that the
full capacity of reason can be reached Ðonly in the species but not in the
individual”(Kant,p42). The claim is that “every individual man would have to live a vast
amount of time if he were to learn how to make complete use of all his natural
capacities”(Kant,43). This focus on nature is important throughout the whole argument
because the Ðuniversal history arises naturally through reason.
In the third proposition Kant describes a kind of historical progress in relation to human
reason. The claim is that reason is something not innate or instinctual but something
eveloped and seemingly boundless, its development a historical process occurring over
many generations, pursuing some natural goal. Kant suggests that it is Ðnatures will that
humans fully develop their natural capacity of reason. For Kant progress arrives through a
kind of struggle throughout time, human reason in its collective sense progressing
universally as a changing, learning entity. There is already a strong sense of universality
at this stage of the argument.
Kants fourth proposition explains the construction of social autonomy. The term
“unsocial sociability” (Kant, p44) is the Kantian paradoxical account of the human social
situation in the modern world. It is a kind of dualism between the social self and the
individual self. Kant claims that humans are inclined to live in society yet possess an
egoistic tendency. He argues that there is a kind of antagonism caused by this dualism
which creates a competitive drive within society. “Through the desire for honour, power
or property, it drives him to seek status among his fellows, whom he can not bear yet not
bear to leave.”(Kant, p44) The result of this antagonism is the natural progress Kant
suggested in the previous propositions. Further arising from this “unsocial sociability” is
an autonomous social order “Man wishes to live comfortably and pleasantly, but nature
intends that he should abandon idleness and inactive self sufficiency and plunge instead
into labour and hardships, so that he may by his own adroitness find means of liberating
himself from them in turn”(Kant, p45) Autonomy arises as a way of controlling the self
interest of others, a law governed social order is the result. Thus for Kant it is a
reciprocity between the individual and the social which allows for autonomous freedom
to actualise within society.
It is Kants fifth proposition which states that “The greatest problem for the human
species, the solution of which nature compels him to seek, is that of attaining a civil
society which can administer justice universally”(Kant, p45). Here Kant argues that
human natural capacity (reason) can only be fully realised in society, where there is
antagonism for it to progress. Kant proposes that proof of this seems to arise in
phenomena such as art, culture and law or the “fruits of his unsociability” (Kant, p46)
which are a kind of expression of the antagonism humans experience. He proposes