Was Kant a Cosmopolitan Racist?

Abstract

Abstract Contemporary debate on Kant’s practical philosophy has focused on racial claims appearing primarily in transcripts of students’ notes taken during his lectures. But was Kant – the champion of world citizenship – really a racist? It is certainly hard to defend him from the charge of racial prejudices. However, a universally exclusivist standard of rationality such as the one he promoted leads at worst to cultural imperialism. It is more doubtful whether this amounted also to a full racist theory, as this would have implied seeing some races as inherently incapable of full rationality. Kant’s biological theory of races – the investigation of race being a theoretical rather than practical task – did not serve such a racist purpose. This article argues that Kant was ultimately interested in scientific distinctions, assuming the point of view of a naturalist researcher ( Naturforscher ). Accordingly, he cannot be said to be a biological racist.