A narrative of Aufklaerung: Kant's doctrine of moral progress toward perpetual peace (Immanuel Kant)

The topic of my dissertation is Kant's much overlooked doctrine of historical moral progress. Although much of what Kant has to say an this topic is contained in a number of informal essays (published over a period of several years in the Berlinische Monatsscrift), I show that Kant's treatment of the problem of the meaningfulness of history contained in these essays presents instances of the application of basic moral principles on the one hand, and reflections on human nature and human institutions required for an adequate determination and understanding of these very principles on the other. Strictly speaking, my dissertation is thus not on Kant's philosophy of history, but on an important albeit neglected dimension of his wider moral philosophy. However, Kant's doctrine of moral progress is a doctrine the foundations of which are dispersed in all three Critiques, and my dissertation will make more extensive use of each of them than is common in writings on Kant's ethics.; I begin by situating Kant's general theory of progress relative to classic and contemporary progress theories. I then make thorough use of recent “postdeontological” conceptions of Kant's ethics (Herman, Reath, Johnson et. al.) to construct a virtue-centered conception of Kantian moral character and moral development, in order to have an outline of what moral progress as defined in the previous chapter must look like from a Kantian perspective. I also directly respond to a number of well-known Kant scholars (e.g. Hoffe and Kersting) who contend that no notion of moral progress is to be found in Kant. In the final chapters, I clarify the roles of nature, education and the church in bringing about progress.; The most extensive chapters are the central chapters, and the most important thematically. First, I reconstruct an account of Kant's justification of teleological history, with a close analysis of the relevant portions of the first and (especially) the third Critiques. I then offer an extended account of the “end” of human progress as a secular formulation of the Highest Good as outlined in the first and second Critiques. I give an account of this politicized summum bonum, and, in so doing, I undertake a discussion of the basic principles of Kant's political philosophy as outlined in the Doctrine of Right.; I conclude with what I take to be the chief value of the writings on history for an understanding of Kant's ethics, giving specific consideration to the conception therein of the moral agent as “situated” historically, culturally and socially—this in contrast to the “individualistic” flavor of the moral writings proper. In closing I recapitulate my arguments for the historical writings having a central place in Kant's overall critical project. Thus, I will make a case for, inter alia, the novel ideas that Kant's ethics is much more teleological in nature than is usually realized, and that an historical moral teleology is an integral part to his overall conception of moral obligation.