Human rights are ‘inalienable’ rights. They do not follow the contractarian logic of give and take; nor do they function as useful bargaining chips, which people might exchange for political promises of individual welfare or collective security. The insight into the ultimate ‘inalienability’ of certain elementary rights marks a historic breakthrough. These rights henceforth define a fundamental status position, which people cannot give up without thereby betraying their own humanity, as it were. The term symbolizing this crucial insight is ‘human dignity’. It is thus no coincidence that the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the ‘mother document’ of international human rights protection, explicitly links the dignity of all human beings to the inalienability of their fundamental rights. The preamble sets in by professing ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family’.

The powerful moral connotation that the term ‘human dignity’ carries points beyond the sphere of positive human rights law. Human dignity is not just a legal or moral right besides other rights. It precedes any positive legal claims or titles by defining their raison d’être. Prior to any national or international legislation, human rights find their ultimate moral justification in the necessity to respect everyone's status as a bearer of dignity, which marks the non-negotiable precondition of any meaningful interaction between human beings whatsoever. Given the unconditional nature of that due respect, human dignity cannot exist in different degrees; nor can it depend on personal skills or faculties, which some individuals may fail to possess. The term ‘human dignity’ only makes sense when employed in an all-inclusive and egalitarian manner, as exemplified in the just-cited introductory words of the UDHR.

Human dignity undergirds the whole system of human rights, both its general principles and its specific legal titles. All human rights – from the right to life and the freedom of expression to habeas corpus guarantees and rights of political participation and so on – specify the foundational respect that human beings owe to each other as well as to themselves. Freedom of religion or belief is no exception in this regard.

Ways of Symbolic Representation

In the various chapters of this book, we have seen that symbolic representation occurs throughout Kant's practical philosophy, in his moral and legal philosophy as well as in his philosophy of history or religion. The symbols that we have come across, however, show very different features: Whereas some symbols are strict, others have a more playful character. We find highly abstract analogies, such as the natural law (providing the “type of the moral law”), alongside the colorful metaphors, for instance, of popular religion. Some symbols may be interchangeable; others may be not. While in some cases, the symbolic dimension comes explicitly to the fore, in other cases the symbolic aspect remains implicit. Symbolic meaning occurs not only in language, but also in societal institutions (such as the state or the church), which are supposed to epitomize normative or religious ideas. In addition, it seems that symbolic representation serves different purposes in Kant's practical philosophy: It offers guidelines for moral judgment and enhances the awareness of our moral vocation; it can improve our understanding of the normative role of societal institutions as well as strengthen our hope that moral commitment actually makes a difference in the world.

Given the manifold ways in which symbolic representation proceeds, as well as the various purposes it serves, it certainly seems desirable to bring some order to the realm of symbols.

Leaving the State of Tutelage

“Enlightenment is the human being's emergence from his self-incurred minority.” This famous opening of Kant's Answer to the Question What is Enlightenment? provides a first clue to understanding Kant's practical philosophy in general. The German term Unmündigkeit has been translated in English Kant editions as “immaturity,” “tutelage,” or “minority.” Unmündigkeit has a moral or legal meaning: It refers to a person who, like a minor, lacks full moral or legal responsibility. “Unmündigkeit,” Kant defines, “is inability to make use of one's own understanding without direction from another.” At the same time, however, Kant assumes that the person is already responsible for this state of tutelage, a state which, he says, is “selbstverschuldet.” The English translation as “self-incurred” obscures the strong moral and legal connotation of “selbstverschuldet,” a term that includes the component of guilt [Schuld]. Hence, what Kant wants to point out is that people are responsible for their not being fully responsible, which is certainly a paradox.

Assuming that this paradox is not tantamount to an outright logical contradiction, we had better understand Unmündigkeit as a relative (rather than absolute) situation of tutelage or minority. Kant indeed emphasizes that Unmündigkeit is selbstverschuldet only “when its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another.”

Beyond Metaphysical Dogmatism

When confronted with questions of religion and theology, we often step beyond the boundaries of the human condition by making dogmatic propositions to which finite human beings have no title. Even if such a dogmatic attitude goes together with a gesture of humility, as sometimes happens, it is in fact an expression of vanity and presumption. As Kant points out: “A judgment in which we forget to estimate the extent of our powers (of understanding) may at times sound very humble, and yet it makes vast claims and is very presumptuous.” The consequences of such presumptuous claims can be grave. Not only does the human being spoil the sciences by mixing them with elements of theology, he also perhaps obscures the unconditionality of his own moral vocation by rendering moral action dependent on a purported metaphysical cognition of God, divine commandments, or the ways of providence. Moreover, the authoritarian way of breaking off critical reflection, as it is typical of dogmatic metaphysical theology, also nourishes skepticism or even atheism. It is an irony that in the long run, every dogmatic metaphysical doctrine about religious matters, almost by an inner necessity, actually fosters its counterpart – that is, skepticism.

Hence there are many good reasons to seek for a careful way of addressing religious and theological questions. In his critical writings, Kant therefore avoids any premature use of theological concepts.

In the last chapter, we saw that according to Kant, the morally unconditioned is “incomprehensible” in that it cannot become a direct object of human cognition. It is obvious, however, that in order to exert an effect on human behavior, the unconditioned must in some way connect with our cognitive faculties as well as with our empirical inclinations. The question of how this double connection comes about is the topic of this chapter. Although in moral practice the cognitive and the motivational (that is, emotional) aspects of morality are inextricably linked, these two aspects require separate analyses. Whereas Sections 2 and 3 deal with Kant's various formulations of the categorical imperative (thus addressing the cognitive side of human morality), Section 4 analyzes the peculiar emotions that the moral law triggers by commanding an unconditional respect. Section 5 sums up the consequences of this investigation for an understanding of Kant's symbolism. At the beginning of the present chapter, however, I would like to introduce Kant's concept of the “fact of reason,” which, at least implicitly, comprises simultaneously both the cognitive and the motivational components within our “experience” of the morally unconditioned.

The “Fact of Reason”

The doctrine of the “fact of reason,” which Kant presents in his Critique of Practical Reason, is a peculiar doctrine. It follows from the insight that any attempt to deduce the supreme principle of morality by means of theoretical speculation (let alone empirical demonstration) is bound to fail.

Kant's main works are cited from the following English editions:

Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) [short title: Prolegomena], ed. by Beryl Logan (London and New York: Routledge, 1996).

An Answer to the Question “What is Enlightenment?” (1784) [short title: Enlightenment], in: Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. by Mary J. Gregor. General Introduction by AllenW.Wood. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (General editors: Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 11–22.

Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784) [short title: Idea for a Universal History], in: Kant, Political Writings, ed. by Hans Reiss, trans. by H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd enlarged ed., 1991), pp. 41–53.

Groundwork of The Metaphysics of Morals (1785) [short title: Groundwork], in: Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. by Mary J. Gregor. General Introduction by Allen W. Wood. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 37–108.

What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking? (1786), in: Immanuel Kant, Religion and Rational Theology, trans. and ed. by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 1–18.

Critique of Pure Reason (2nd edition 1787), trans. and ed. (together with the 1st edition from 1781) by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Preliminary Remark on the Meaning of “Recht”

The German term “Recht” has at least three meanings. First, it can refer to a specific legal entitlement held by an individual or a group of people. For instance, citizenship includes the entitlement (Recht) of a person to participate in general elections. Second, Recht can mean the order of legal norms as a whole (or specific parts of that order). Lawyers who have studied the order of law in general (or have specialized in certain parts of it, such as administrative law, international law, or contract law) are therefore called in German “Rechtsgelehrte.” Those who deal with the order of law from a philosophical perspective, accordingly, are termed “Rechtsphilosophen.” Third, Recht also has a moral meaning, and thus can be used to indicate that something qualifies as right, just, or fair. The opposite of Recht in this sense is Unrecht (injustice). A state governed in conformity with fair principles and the rule of law is commonly referred to as “Rechtsstaat.”

These three aspects of Recht frequently overlap. For instance, one can refer to the order of legal norms (the second meaning of Recht) and, at the same time, define this order normatively as one of political justice (thus invoking the third meaning of Recht). In the context of human rights (Menschenrechte), the universal entitlement of human beings to rights of freedom and equality (the first meaning) has become a decisive criterion for assessing the justice of legal norms.

The Paradox of Liberalism: A Preliminary Observation

Since its origins in early modernity, liberalism has always been a hotly debated issue. One charge frequently raised is that liberalism mirrors a lack of ethical substance in modern society, a society that seemingly loses its normative cohesiveness, and hence can be held together only by a set of abstract procedural rules. By providing such a formal framework for a modus vivendi within an “atomized society,” liberalism purportedly amounts at best to a minimalist and formalist morality, if not to an ideology of self-centered individuals who are chiefly concerned with their own physical or economic well-being.

This charge of ethical minimalism and abstract proceduralism often goes along with the allegation that liberalism also suffers from a lack of genuinely political purposes. Although, as a matter of fact, liberals have certainly been involved in politics, such political activities are said to derive primarily from nonpolitical interests – that is, private and economic interests that ultimately prevail over republican commitment. From such a point of view, liberalism appears to constitute a bourgeois ideology of “possessive individualism” rather than the joint project of citizens who share some substantial political convictions as the basis of a “strong” participatory democracy.

Finally, modern liberal individuals are often portrayed as having emancipated themselves not only from “thick” ethical and political values, but from all religious and spiritual commitment too.

Moral Self-Legislation through Maxims

The morally unconditioned expresses itself symbolically in that strict lawfulness that also characterizes the law of nature. The latter therefore provides the “type” of the moral law. Just as natural laws cannot be called laws unless they hold universally, so moral lawgiving too aims at something universal. The categorical imperative thus requires moral self-legislation to proceed in accordance with the criterion of universalizability. At the same time, however, it is obvious that moral action occurs under the ever-changing conditions of a particular lifeworld. How do these two aspects of human morality fit together? Is there an unbridgeable gulf between the universal and the particular? Does ethical universalism, at the end of the day, amount to an “abstract ought” that lacks any impact on real human life with its volatility and unpredictability? It was Hegel who leveled this charge of abstractness against Kant's practical philosophy. Hegel's well-known objection is that “in its loneliness, the formal principle of legislation finds neither a content nor a determination.” And he further asserts: “The universal, the non-contradiction, is something empty which neither in the practical nor the theoretical realm becomes reality.”

The starting point for a critical defense of Kantian ethics against this charge of emptiness is the concept of a maxim that Kant uses to mediate between the universalizability requirement on the one hand and the concrete lifeworld on the other. The universalizability requirement of the categorical imperative would in fact remain abstract were it applied immediately to individual actions.

Mediating between Freedom and Nature

Although the moral worth of an action depends on the underlying moral disposition rather than on the success that action might (or might not) have, Kant emphasizes that a good will differs from a “mere wish” in that it requires “the summoning of all means insofar as they are in our control.” A person who takes morality seriously cannot remain indifferent toward the prospects of success or failure of his or her moral efforts. The question of the effectiveness of our moral commitment, although not constituting the basis of morality, can certainly not be dismissed from the realm of moral considerations.

It is indeed a requirement of moral earnestness that we should look for structures in nature and history that can at least give us hope that our moral efforts are not in vain from the outset. The search for such structures in the world on which we may ground moral hope is part of Kant's teleology, which he develops in the Critique of Judgment. Teleology, the doctrine of purposiveness, has a crucial function in the architecture of Kant's philosophy as a whole because it mediates between the order of nature and the order of freedom. The mediating function of teleology derives from the fact that the concept of purposiveness plays a role in both domains.