Kant: Political Writings

This volume, to the best of my knowledge, is the first in English to contain all the political writings of Kant which the author himself had published. There have been earlier translations of almost all the pieces which make up this volume; Dr Nisbet has asked me to acknowledge his debt to these, particularly to Professor John Ladd's translation of The Metaphysical Elements of Rights (The Metaphysical Elements of Justice, Indianapolis, New York, Kansas City, 1965). The aim of this volume is to introduce English-speaking readers in general and students of political theory in particular to Kant's Political writings. The bibliography in the present volume may serve as a guide for further reading. For a general introduction to Kant, the student can do no better than read Stephan Körner's Kant (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1955), easily available in a pocket edition.

Only those writings which deal explicitly with the theory of politics and which were published by him have been included. I have omitted other essays, such as the Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History (Mutmasslicher Anfang des Menschengeschlechts), The End of All Things (Das Ende aller Dinge) and Kant's review of J. G. Herder's Ideen, which touch only marginally on politics. I have, however, included a brief but essential passage from the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft). In accordance with the aims of the series, I have not included any extracts, unless they form self-contained wholes. A few passages in other writings published by Kant are excluded, since they do not add anything of substance to his theory of politics. I decided to include the first part of Theory and Practice (Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis), which is devoted to ethics. Since this volume does not set out to be a definitive critical edition of Kant's political writings I did not follow this precedent in the case of The Metaphysics of Morals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten) and The Contest of Faculties (Der Streit der Fakultäten). To print both works in full would inevitably have distracted attention from the main purpose of this volume.