A substantive ideal

A majority of interpreters seem to take the kingdom of agents as, primarily, an ideal community of agents. These include Barbara Herman, Christine Korsgaard, Kate Moran,

Andrews Reath, and Allen Wood.98 We know at least some of the reasons why it is evident in the text that the kingdom of ends should be taken as a substantive ideal99 for what it is to be an ideal moral community—that is, to “form an idea of a moral community of men as a goal of our actual social endeavor” (Wood 191-2). The corresponding ideal helps us to recognize ourselves as living with others: “to think of finite beings, in a place, with possessions, attachments, histories, and the rest.” (Herman “CKE” 202).

There are two major reasons why we might think of the kingdom of ends as an ideal of what a community should strive to be like. First, we know that we have interests and projects that are in conflict with one another. Both moral and political philosophers are interested in how,

97 _{Yet another reading, which I will not examine in this chapter, can be found in the work of Katrin Flikschuh, which}

gives what she calls a “metaphysical” reading of the ideal. She thinks that the kingdom of ends is not a “blueprint for an empirically realizable moral order” (Flikschuh 137). Instead, the kingdom of ends is analogous to the ideal of the highest good: “which similarly functions to sustain individuals’ practical faith in morality in the face of sensibly conditioned adversity” (Flikschuh 137). She thinks that the formulation of the kingdom of ends lacks the element of coordination, unlike what I have set here, and so is committed to thinking that the kingdom of ends cannot aid us in directing ourselves to a harmonious moral community (Flikschuh 137).

98 _{See Korsgaard, CKE p. 192; Moran, p. 76; Reath, “LKE” p. 173; and Wood, p. 191-2.}

99 _{The language “substantive” ideal may not be perfect to capture the distinction here. Nonetheless, it is intended to}

capture something about a reasoning being (or set of reasoning beings) as anobject, as contrasted to thinking about a reasoning being (or set of reasoning beings) as a reasoner (or reasoners). We might be able to elicit the same distinction if we compare how philosophers discuss the virtuous person using questions like “What would they be like? What virtues would they possess? What could we observe about them?” as opposed to using questions like, “How would they reason about a moral situation? What kinds of facts would be salient to them? How might their emotions move

exactly, we are to resolve these tensions. Second, as Herman points out, the kingdom of ends can show how we both can prioritize autonomy as well as deep social connections between Kantian agents. This is because the Kantian rational agent is not an isolated individual, but a rational agent living together with others (Herman “CKE” 188).

2.1.1 Trust and Mistrust of Others

The kingdom of ends is a community of agents who are rational but have empirical needs. Our rational capacities allow us to serve as legislators in the kingdom of ends. However, we are also empirical beings—we have needs and inclinations, and must ensure that we meet those needs and inclinations in ways that are consistent with what the moral law requires of us (Herman “CKE” 196; G 4:433-4). Perhaps one way to think of the kingdom of ends as a ‘systematic unity’ is that it both articulates our commitment to treat other rational agents as fellow law-makers, but also offers us a way to harmonize those needs (consistent with treating other agents according to their status).

We have many empirical needs that make us dependent on certain things to be true in the world: needs for food and drink, susceptibility to injury and death. We need conditions in which we can secure sustenance, medical care, shelter, and so on—and that is just the bare minimum for us to continue to live. In order to secure this minimum of goods required to meet our needs, we require (at least) non-interference from others. In many cases, we need assistance from others in order to secure these goods (Herman “CKE” 197). We regularly need others’ assistance in order to grow or secure food, craft shelters, and provide medical care.

Moreover, we are interested in being with others. It is an empirical fact that we need others in order to secure minimal conditions for our own happiness and that we often find mutual advantage in cooperating with others. Yet we also are social beings who want to be with other

persons (MM 6:471). We want to be able to share and discuss our thoughts with others. We want to love and engage with others (MM 6:469). We want sympathy from others (G 4:423). All of these social interests require, by definition, being with others.

Unfortunately, we are terrible at playing nice with others. We mistrust other people—and often for good reason! Each of us is what Kant calls ‘frail’ (that is, we are liable to fail to have the strength to comply with the principles we have adopted) and we are dishonest in scrutinizing our own motives (R 6:37). We are regularly tempted to take advantage of others (G 4:424). Given that our motives are opaque even to ourselves, we might not even realize that we are aiming to take advantage of others. We are fearful of what others might do or say about us if they were to know too much about our secrets or our private judgments (MM 6:471). Even in the closest friendships, we find it to be “prudent” to have some limit on trust, even between the closest friends (R 6:34). We also have a tendency to devolve into vicious attitudes: we can hate the people who have helped us and feel schadenfreude even with regard to the misfortunes of our closest friends (R 6:34).

These features of what we are like might give us a prima facie reason to read the kingdom of ends as a substantive ideal for a community. We need some kind of guidance for how to do well while living with others. We know what it would be like for us to become more virtuous—to secure both a good and strong will, and to be better in our self-scrutiny. However, we may well wonder what our interpersonal engagements might look like, were we to be virtuous. What might trusting or loving relationships look like between virtuous persons? How might those virtuous persons arrange their community affairs?

The kingdom of ends as a substantive ideal for a community might be able to articulate what it would be like if only each of us were to act as the moral law required. We could imagine

ourselves without such temptations to take advantage of others, because not only would we have a good will, we would have a strong good will (that is, a virtuous one). We could imagine ourselves without fear that others may harm us—that we could securely trust other persons who are virtuous. Imagining the kingdom of ends bolsters us to avoid despair that the flaws of our ordinary interpersonal interactions wouldn’t remain amongst a community of virtuous agents. As I will discuss in Section 5, there are ways in which imagining so can prompt realistic thought exercises about what actions it would take to make our world more like the kingdom of ends, and would also dispose us to act as one would need to do so in order to bring about such an ideal moral community.100

2.1.2 Features of the substantive ideal

The interpreters who present the kingdom of ends as a substantive ideal for a moral community point to these two features: how it could help us (1) avoid conflicts and secure coordination, and (2) secure our social connections with others.

(1) Again, an empirical fact about humanity is that we each want to secure our own happiness. We know that we are motivated to act for many and varied ends—some compatible with doing our duty, others not. One way we can make these projects and interests mutually consistent across persons is by accepting ‘side-constraints’ of permissibility. So, for example, I won’t carry out my project if it would injure you (or otherwise breach a perfect duty that I have to other persons) (Herman “CKE” 207-8). I must rein in my self-interest because of its tendency to tempt me to undermine others’ rational agency.

100 _{In particular, the by-now familiar features of the imagination (mirroring and contagion) from Chapter 1 can be}

understood to do this kind of work. See in particular Sections 5.1 and 5.2 for a discussion of the features of and constraints on the imagination.

I must also satisfy whatever positive moral obligations apply. For example, I can carry out my projects, so long as I am also working to help others secure their own happiness and to promote my own perfection (Herman “CKE” 207-8). For example, “in circumstances of scarcity, when my action would have an impact on vital resources, I may not consider it as “merely an economic venture.”” (Herman “CKE” 204). We must, then, believe that some kind of cooperation is possible with others. Imagining a substantive ideal of a community of human agents might give us some kinds of instruction for how to secure cooperation and avoid conflict.

(2) However, we are not only beings with these basic needs. If that were the case, we would merely need some kinds of rules and institutions that would resolve conflicts and permit cooperation (G 4:405). Another fact about ourselves is that we have deep social connections with others.101 Herman speaks to how it is important for individual rational agents to have other rational agents to be around (Herman “CKE” 188). This kingdom of ends “plainly gives

expression to some social element in Kant’s account of moral judgment and obligation” (Herman “CKE” 190).

An ideal of a social order is helpful, here: it could demonstrate how we would act with others in a way that corresponds to the moral law. The ideal of the kingdom of ends tells us that even though we as persons vary immensely about what we care about and set as private ends, we still can enter a moral order (Herman “CKE” 207) We can consider how respecting each person

101 _{Herman thinks that Kantian ethics is attractive because of “the dignity it accords the individual person because of}

her capacity to act both freely and as reason requires, as well as from the moral equality of persons that follows from locating the basis of moral status in each agent’s own practical reason” (Herman “CKE” 187). Yet it looks to some objectors to be, by this theoretical emphasis, be supportive of a kind of individualism, with persons who are radically separate from one another (Herman “CKE” 188). They worry that we cannot have both autonomy and deep social connection within Kantian ethics (Herman “CKE” 188). Herman argues against these objectors in “A Cosmopolitan

as an end in themselves would or might work out in conditions like ours to form particular communities, relationships, or sets of specific rights and duties.

Interpreters have found the reading of the kingdom of ends as a substantive ideal to be compelling.102 This reading would allow us to imagine what it would be like if “Each citizen takes his own perfection and the happiness of others as an end and treats every other as an end in itself. It is a community engaged in the harmonious and cooperative pursuit of the good.”

(Korsgaard CKE 23). A realm of rational agents whose ends form a system “when these ends are not only mutually consistent, but also harmonious and reciprocally supportive” (Wood 166). It also might serve as a long-term political and moral goal for humanity, as some interpreters have suggested (Korsgaard CKE 153).