9 - Paradoxes in Kant's Account of Citizenship

Summary

What are we to make of Kant as a philosopher of citizenship? In order to begin answering this question, we need to determine how exalted Kant intends the status of citizen to be, especially in relation to the forms of moral experience that for Kant are decisive in conferring moral worth upon us as rational beings; and clarifying this turns out to be anything but a simple matter. In a very direct sense, our status as citizens constitutes a nonmoral status, for the domain of politics per se refers to forms of civic behavior that can be regulated by laws—i.e., state coercion—and therefore civic life doesn't (and cannot) touch that which for Kant defines moral experience: the quality of our intentions or of our ultimate motivation. This is why Kant famously says that a race of intelligent devils could in principle devise a perfectly satisfactory political constitution: as long as we, for instance, pay our taxes, what is demanded of us in the political aspect of our life is fulfilled (even if the moral worth of these civic performances is precisely zero).