Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Kant's works and abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Kantian metaphysics in contemporary liberalism
- 2 The metaphysics of freedom as an idea of reason
- 3 The morality of external freedom
- 4 The Lex Permissiva: property rights and political obligation in the Rechtslehre
- 5 The general united will and cosmopolitan Right
- 6 The metaphysics of Kant's cosmopolitanism
- Select bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Kant's works and abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Kantian metaphysics in contemporary liberalism
- 2 The metaphysics of freedom as an idea of reason
- 3 The morality of external freedom
- 4 The Lex Permissiva: property rights and political obligation in the Rechtslehre
- 5 The general united will and cosmopolitan Right
- 6 The metaphysics of Kant's cosmopolitanism
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
KANT AND CONTEMPORARY LIBERALISM
The ideas behind this book initially emerged in 1987, when I was walking through the Sahel zone of Burkina Faso – though I did not then know that I was going to write a book on Kant's political philosophy. In fact, the Sahelian undertaking was rather fortuitous. When I arrived at Ouagadougou airport my luggage had been lost in transit. Although airport staff assured me that I would have it back within a week, it never showed up again. The loss turned out to be a good thing, however, in so far as it gave me the confidence to set out on the road bound northwards, towards Niger. The Sahel was not what I had expected. I had imagined something more like a ‘proper’ desert. The Sahel is a semi-arid transitional region between savannah and desert. It consists of stony ground and low-growing, thorny shrubs with a few stunted trees in-between and the odd enormous baobab-tree here and there. There is the occasional mount that rises abruptly from the ground, but for the most part the Sahel is flat, vast, hot, and silent. At first I was reluctant to ask people's help, but I quickly realised that in an environment like this everyone depends on the co-operation of everyone else.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Kant and Modern Political Philosophy , pp. 1 - 11Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000