Maturity and Emancipation
Below text is the third and last essay on Kant’s famous short treatise What is enlightenment?, which appeared, in 1784, in the Berlinische Monatsschrift, the leading journal of the German Enlightenment. The previous two essays, ‘Maturity and Freedom of Thought’ and ‘Enlightenment and Prophecy’, can be found here and here. This text is a translation, in a revised and expanded form, of the Dutch text which was published earlier. The editions used for What is enlightenment?, What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking and Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view are the respective volumes in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. References throughout to Kant’s works are to the Akademische Ausgabe (AA) of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften in the usual manner by volume and page numbers.
REVISED ON JANUARY, 30, 2024.
“Jederzeit selbst zu denken, ist die Aufklärung”
— What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?
Exhortations to aspire to a humanistic universalism and appeals to think beyond a tribalistic ‘we’, beyond any particular identity, remain gratuitous without an appeal to individual responsibility and judgement and when no room is made for the possibility of actually realizing such lofty ideals. However, not everyone ipso facto meets the epistemic duty to think ‘for oneself’ (AA 8:146) and judge in accordance with reason at all times, and thus help realize the ideal of the self-preservation of reason (die Selbsterhaltung der Vernunft; AA 8:146, Refl. 1509, AA 15:823: ‘Grundsatz der Vernunft: ihre Selbsterhaltung’).
To think for oneself means to submit to no heteronomous authority, recognising the jurisdiction of reason alone. ‘Self-thinking’ people recognize nothing as reasonable but what they themselves grasp as reasonable. ‘Self-thinking’ means that with every action or view one must ask oneself if the maxim or rule on the basis of which one carries out any action or adopts a particular view could be adopted as a universal law, applicable to everyone (see e.g. What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?, AA 8:146). Put simply, are the reasons why I say or do something also universalizable? That is to say, is what I say or do in principle also something everyone should say or do? To ask oneself such questions constitutes, for Kant, the essence of ‘enlightenment’.
But self-thinking is a mentality or stance, not an innate factual quality or a dispositional trait that automatically manifests itself, nor a trait that could be causally explained by one’s genetic makeup or cultural background, or indeed group identity. Every person, regardless of background or identity, has this quality inherently just because he or she is a human being, but it must be cultivated. Every person has the capacity for enlightenment, regardless of circumstances.
For Kant, having the capacity for thinking and being able to use that capacity independently of others is a universal principle that is valid for everyone without exception, that is to say for every adult human being whose cognitive abilities are properly functioning. But note: ‘is valid’. We must talk here about validity, not about factuality per se, or at least these two realms must not be conflated. After all, it is not the case that everyone also thinks in accordance with reason or makes a proper use of his capacity for thought in actual fact, always, and in all respects. Some people or groups of people do not seem to be making use of their capacity for thought at all.
Having the capacity of the mind, the ability to think according to rules that one imposes on oneself strictly in accordance with reason, does not itself imply strict universal validity, as is the case with the categorical imperative which can be deduced a priori from reason, or indeed with the rules of logic to which using that capacity is bound. The capacity of self-thinking is in a sense an assumption rooted in rational faith (Vernunftglaube), which, although inextricably bound up with the possibility of philosophy, cannot be derived from it. Vernunftglaube, a central Kantian concept, and the assumption of an innate predisposition to think for oneself are intimately related, presuppose each other, and therefore cannot be logically deduced from each other. The capacity for thought is itself not a logical law. In principle we have thus a capacity for reasonable thinking, but that does not automatically mean that everything that is in actual fact being thought is thereby also reasonable, in accordance with reason (even if what we think may still be purely logically valid). As Heiner Klemme recently put it succinctly: ‘Die Maximen der Selbsterhaltung der Vernunft schützt den Einzelnen nicht vor Torheiten’ (Die Selbsterhaltung der Vernunft. Kant und die Modernität seines Denkens, Frankfurt a/M, Klostermann, 2023, p. 66).
It is thus important that we exercise judgment (Urteilskraft) in making use of our thinking capacity (Denkvermögen). It also means that we must be open to the special circumstances under which we apply our maxims for action. Simply put, everything we do and think must always be put in context, and is defeasible. We must always ask ourselves whether certain rules we employ for our actions, and certain views we hold, are actually applicable in, or effectively relate to, reality. There is a fundamental discrepancy between a principle or rule taken in abstracto and its actual application or realization. We cannot simply ignore the particular context of that about which one makes a judgement or in respect of which one formulates a maxim for action. Therefore, platitudes such as ‘All people are equal’ or ‘The intrinsic dignity of all people is inviolable’, while true, are meaningless pronouncements when expressed in the abstract. Such in principle true statements cannot be used as a panacea for social or political problems if the concrete context is not further addressed and politically feasible solutions are not carefully deliberated. There are often conflicting interests, and liberal sounding statements that merely make a point of equality and unity tend to be clichéd and as such do not contribute to a resolution of such conflicts. Sometimes, it must simply be acknowledged that a conflict cannot be resolved or cannot be resolved immediately, without detracting from the in principle equal status of the parties in the conflict. Not everyone makes proper use in actual fact of his capacity for thought, or bears responsibility in actual fact for his actions. Such observations are not value judgements about people’s capacities. They are judgements about the proper use of one’s capacity for thought and judgement.
Abstract universalism and the rejection of universalism are two sides of the same coin. Just like abstract universalism, which foregrounds the universal truths of equality and intrinsic dignity for all, the generalizing, formalistic criticism of, or rejection of, universalism as such expresses the same abstract interpretation of it. On account of such critical views, Kant’s universalism is considered not truly universal because supposedly certain groups of people would be excluded from that same universalism in actual cases where the tenets of universalism such as ‘Equality for all’ or ‘The intrinsic dignity of all people is inviolable’ do not seem to apply, or at least not completely. Ergo, Kant’s universalism would in reality be particularistic and exclusive, intended exclusively for the privileged Western white man, who alone enjoys universal rights to the full. People with non-Western backgrounds or women in general would supposedly not be the subjects of Kant’s universalism, or explicitly be excluded from it. This criticism can be heard more and more in contemporary debates about Kant, especially in the context of his alleged racism.
But here too validity (Gültigkeit) and factuality or effectivity (Geltung), or validity and realization, are easily conflated. Such a reading that appeals to specific irreducible cultural differences rests — just like an overly abstract universalism that holds forth with hollow declarations such as ‘All are equal’ — on an abstract distinction between form and content, which holds that either the general form is stressed at the expense of the particular content, or the particular content, the ‘difference’, is seen as stressed too much at the expense of universal form.
We can illustrate such an overly formalistic, cursory reading of Kant’s texts with the standard account of his views on women. There are texts in Kant’s oeuvre that, at first glance, appear to show unsettling examples of misogyny or are, at the very least, not particulary favourable to women (see e.g. Lectures on Ethics, AA 27:36, 27:48, Metaphysics of Morals, AA 6:279, Anth AA 7:209, 307). Kant is not particularly known for his feminism! It thus seems that Kant excludes women (and other groups of people) from his universalist perspective, regardless whether this has to do with moral action or more generally with the capacity for judgment associated with the use of one’s reason. But are women, by definition, as adult human beings, on Kant’s account then not mature citizens who must be able to use their capacity for thinking without the guidance of others?
Klemme quotes a telling passage from one of the Vorlesungen zur Anthropologie (Anthropologische Menschenkunde):
Man nimmt an, dass gewisse Leute sich ihres Verstandes nicht allein zu bedienen befugt sind, sondern nur mit Hülfe eines fremden Verstandes urteilen können, und solche nennt man Unmündige. Einige sind unmündig den Jahren nach; sie können sich nicht nach ihren eigenen Verstand, und ihrer Vernunft richten, sondern müssen unter der Leitung eines anderen stehen. So gibt es auch eine Minorennität dem Geschlecht nach; gewissen Einsichten und Geschäfte sind ganz außer der Sphäre der Frauenzimmer. Sie dürfen sich da nicht ihrer eigenen Vernunft bedienen, sondern müssen sich dem Ausspruche einer fremden Vernunft unterwerfen; sobald etwas ins Publikum läuft, müssen sie sich auf fremde Vernunft verlassen. Bei Kindern ist die Unmündigkeit natürlich; den Vormund eines Frauenzimmers nennt man Kurator. (Anthr. Menschenkunde, AA 25:1046-7)
On a superficial reading, this passage from one of Kant’s many Vorlesungen on anthropology seems to indicate that Kant regards women as immature. In the published Anthropology, he appears to deny (married) women maturity, as wives are to be submissive to their husbands as their guardians, and curiously contends that women that have ‘enough of a mouth to represent both herself and her husband, even in court … could literally be declared to be over-mature’ (Anth, AA 7:209). But Kant makes no value judgments in the passage in the Vorlesung, quoted above. Rather, he points to the concrete, actual condition of immaturity in which women largely find themselves — this was certainly the case in Kant’s days. At least two things bear this out.
First, Kant uses the modal verbs ‘dürfen’ and ‘müssen’ here (and not, for example, ‘sollen’). There is a restriction imposed from outside: either something is allowed or prohibited, or one is obliged to do something. This is significant in view of the fact that Kant believes that immaturity is something that is rather ‘self-incurred’ (‘selbstverschuldet’), something for which one is to be blamed oneself. Of course, this restriction also applies to children. But the important distinction between minors and women is that, according to Kant, immaturity in children is ‘natural’, since children by definition have not yet reached a certain age and therefore maturity, while women need a curator, suggesting that immaturity in women is not natural. To speak of ‘self-incurred immaturity’ in the case of children would be inapposite because children cannot be blamed for their being underage. They are immature just by being minors. Therefore, a categorical distinction should be heeded between immaturity ‘den Jahren nach’ and that ‘dem Geschlecht nach’. The latter is not natural but socially constructed.
This latter way of conceiving of maturity is what Kant elsewhere associates with ‘legal’ or ‘civil’ immaturity, which can be so called ‘if it rests on legal arrangements with regard to civil affairs’ (Anth, AA 7:208-9). It may seem that Kant endorses such ‘legal’ immaturity for women, who ‘cannot personally defend their rights and pursue civil affairs for themselves’. It is not clear, from the declarative manner of reasoning in the published Anthropology text — which we recall is not part of Kant’s corpus of transcendental philosophy — whether a) Kant thinks women ought not be able to personally exercise their rights and thus enjoy civil independence, or b) just that, in given social and economic circumstances, women’s actual civil status can be guaranteed only by the husband in a marriage — Kant argues that in principle, there is a ‘natural’ equality in a couple, but that the husband’s dominance over his wife is not contradictory to it to the extent that it functions ‘to promote the common interest of the household’ (Metaphysics of Morals, AA 6:279). But the former (a) could hardly be justified a priori just on the basis of the precept of maturity, and it also conflicts with the idea that immaturity is self-incurred, for if their ‘legal’ immaturity were a priori justified and they ought to be immature, women could hardly be blamed for it (see further below). So it seems that there is room in a Kantian view, if not in Kant’s own view, for the idea that women can and even must achieve some sort of civil independence, inside marriage and outside it.
Kant should at any rate have drawn that conclusion based on the fact that he encountered many women in prominent positions, either in person or through correspondence, women who were quite obviously articulate and made use of their own capacity for thinking and judging without the guidance of others. Between 1758 and 1762 two Russian Tsarinas ruled in Königsberg. He even writes a letter to Tsarina Elisabeth in which he addresses her with all manner of honorifics as ‘allerdurchlauchtigste Großmächtigste Kaiserin…’. There was undoubtedly something opportunistic about the way Kant formulated his address to the Tsarina, because he wanted to obtain the position of professor at the University of Königsberg (which he only succeeded in doing several years later). But a ‘Selbstherrscherin’ is not exactly someone who needs a ‘Kurator’ (quotes from H. Klemme, op.cit, pp. 67-8).
Secondly, someone who is immature by nature, such as an underage child, cannot be held responsible for being underage. After all, it is its natural state. However, the aspect of responsibility is precisely what Kant emphasizes in What is enlightenment?. Immaturity, including that of women, is ‘self-incurred’ if it is not due to lack of understanding, but one fails to try and get oneself out of it, something for which one is to be blamed and for which one is responsible oneself. This sounds paradoxical at first: if it is true that women are not allowed to be ‘legally’ mature in virtue of society’s limiting the exercise of their freedom, also and particularly in economic and legal affairs — their immaturity is imposed on them by society’s structures — how can it be that they themselves are to be blamed for this? Are they really responsible for their own immaturity in this sense?
Klemme writes regarding this:
Dabei meint Kant nicht, dass Frauen nicht partiell mündig sein können und wollen. Schließlich führen sie den Haushalt, sind Rechtssubjekte, die einen Ehevertrag schließen können. Aber sie nehmen kein aktives Interesse an ihrer bürgerlichen Selbständigkeit. (op.cit., p. 68)
What Klemme points out here is the importance of a citizen’s independence, which is to be claimed by the subject herself alone (but cf. Metaphysics of Morals, AA 6:314 and the earlier cited Anthropology at Anth, AA 7:208-9). This is about autonomy and self-agency. Although immaturity may be the effect of external, hindering circumstances, the responsibility for remaining in that immature state ultimately lies with the subject herself. Outside hindrances, social or otherwise, cannot be exculpatory reasons to remain in a state of immaturity. Thus she herself must take an ‘active interest’ in acquiring ‘civil independence’ in social life (Klemme, op. cit.). That is why Kant speaks of immaturity as something ‘self-incurred’. The circumstances in which one finds oneself at the hands of others do not provide a license to shift the blame for one’s situation to others. One owes it to oneself to break free from the reins of tutelage. And this I contend is the general dialectic of Kant’s reasoning in the Enlightenment essay, also in regard to women (as I shall argue below).
Here, Kant could in fact be taken to be advocating for the liberation of women, which, however, women must foster of their own accord. This is only logical because liberation cannot be a heteronomous cause. For if it were, this would imply a degree of tutelage or paternalism that one wants precisely to get away from. To no longer bow under the yoke of tutelage, to emerge from immaturity, is an action that the subject must undertake herself, an act for which she herself must take responsibility. It is always a matter of resolutely ‘to make use of one’s own reason’ (What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?, AA 8:146).
This is of course far easier said than done, and Kant is well aware of this, even though one may find that Kant is perhaps somewhat too optimistic (or too negative for that matter, on a certain reading of his views of a woman’s place in marriage). He speaks of a ‘progress of enlightenment’ (What is enlightenment?, AA 8:37), but the ‘great unthinking masses’ develop in that direction only very slowly. ‘Precepts and formulas, those mechanical instruments of a... misuse of [one’s] natural endowments’, keep the general public in a permanent state of immaturity. Only few manage to escape from it. Immaturity seems to have ‘almost become nature’ (all quotations AA 8:36).
Nevertheless, ‘we do have distinct intimations that the field is now being opened for them to work freely in this direction and that the hindrances to universal enlightenment or to humankind’s emergence from its self-incurred minority are gradually becoming fewer’ (AA 8:40, emphasis added). Note that Kant talks about ‘universal enlightenment’ and ‘humankind’s emergence’ as a goal towards which we gradually progress. This suggests again that the universal validity of the precept of maturity must be read in terms of a regulative ideal for everyone, women included, which in practice is not yet actualized in its full potential: not everyone everywhere may already enjoy the freedom to make use of one’s own reason without sanction. In fact, while the emergence from it is the aim which is realizable just because the principle is universally valid, the state of minority is still the factual situation for the greater part of humanity, and sadly in particular for most women in the non-Western regions of the world. The universal validity of the principle does not take away the fact it is really possible and indeed actual that large groups remain constrained by the shackles of immaturity, and that external sociopolitical forces are largely the cause of this. The principle cannot undo the fact of the matter of external restriction and oppression, just as much as facts cannot undermine the universal validity of the principle. ‘People gradually work their way out of barbarism of their own accord if only one does not intentionally contrive to keep them in it’ (AA 8:41, emphasis added). Enlightenment is a continuous development, not a closed collection of achievements: ‘As matters now stand, a good deal more is required for people on the whole to be in the position, or even able to be put into the position, of using their own understanding confidently and well in religious matters, without another’s guidance’ (AA 8:40). (Kant focuses on religion because religious immaturity is ‘the most harmful [as well as] the most degrading [entehrendste] of all’ [AA 8:41, trans. emended].)
When Kant therefore writes that ‘by far the greatest part of humankind (including the entire fair sex) should hold the step toward majority to be not only troublesome but also highly dangerous’ (AA 8:35, emphasis added), Kant is not, despite appearances and despite apparent contradictory views stated elsewhere, making a misogynistic statement about women (and other groups) and their perceived natural inability to be mature. On the contrary, in the remainder of the sentence he makes it clear that ‘guardians’ see to it that women are kept under control, and
…have kindly taken it upon themselves to supervise them; after they have made their domesticated animals dumb and carefully prevented these placid creatures from daring to take a single step without the walking cart in which they have confined them, they then show them the danger that threatens them if they try to walk alone. (AA 8:35)
This pernicious guardianship ensures that large groups of people do not dare to think for themselves. The real danger associated with assertiveness is not at all that great, but the real life consequences of self-thinking by way of criticism of the norm— social isolation, disapproval, criticism, ‘cancelling’ etc. — do ‘make them timid and usually frightens them away from any further attempt’ (AA 8:35-6). Self-thinking therefore requires ‘resolution and courage’ (AA 8:35), hence the statement: sapere aude! Dare to think!
Women are subjected to oppressive structures and institutions in large parts of the world, which prevents them from benefiting from their natural right to take responsibility for themselves. These factual circumstances do not have a negative influence on the universal validity of the rational principle of maturity as such, but they have an effect on the extent to which what is universally valid is also realized, actualized.
Kant makes no pronouncements about how the emancipation of women or any other group of civil minors could or should take shape. That is simply not his philosophical project. To criticize him for it is to misapprehend the nature of his thought, and also to overstate its scope — notwithstanding prevaricating statements in the various texts in which he addresses the status of women. In Enlightenment, he merely 1) argues that the practical precept of maturity is valid for every adult human being and 2) observes that in many cases circumstances have a negative or inhibiting effect on the actual possibilities for realization (the application range of maturity as a regulative ideal). This concerns a certain anthropology that describes the subjective, both hindering and facilitating conditions for its application, comparable to how Kant sees this in the context of the a priori laws of morality and its relation to a moral anthropology (cf. Metaphysik der Sitten, AA 6:217). Such an anthropology — and it certainly need not be the Anthropology that Kant actually wrote, but could be a more critical one — is important, but does not in any way detract from the universality of the principle of maturity as such. The latter is not grounded on such an anthropology. After all, if it were so grounded, that would mean that the principle would be dependent on empirical, contingent factors, which would contradict Kant’s view that to persist in immaturity is something for which one is to be blamed. Such blame can only be apportioned to reasonable human beings who in principle have the freedom of thought and who by nature, that is to say in virtue of the interest of reason itself, must be treated as mature. They can be blamed for their rational decisions, not for their empirical character or cultural background, let alone their social conditions, or the simple fact that one is a man or a woman.
Maturity, in which enlightenment exists, is actually only in its infancy as far as the wider populace is concerned. We do not yet live in an ‘enlightened age’, but we do live in an ‘age of enlightement’, says Kant, suggesting that it concerns not a completed project but a continuous process of enlightening (What is enlightenment?, AA 8:40). This was certainly the case in Kant’s own time, but it is still true despite the achievements of the past two centuries of European civilization since Kant’s essay. This indicates that, for Kant, enlightenment is not a completed entity with a definable historical limit, nor a body of doctrines or a hereditary ideology. Rather, enlightenment is a universal ideal to be realized, a process, not a closed project that supposedly failed because not everyone enjoys in actual fact the same benefits that it promised to all. It is a continuous, live task for every person alike to extricate oneself, to self-emancipate from the chains of tutelage.
© Dennis Schulting, 2024.