Problems in Kant's Cosmopolitan Vision of Emancipation through the Moral Law.

This paper examines the correspondence between Kantian ethics and Kantian politics concerning the question of emancipation in world politics. The chapter is divided into three parts, the first of which focuses on the political implications of Kant's ethics, particularly the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative (CI) (the duty to treat all others as ends-in-themselves) and the normative ideal of the Kingdom of Ends this evinces. The moral law is interpreted as to set explicit ends for political development towards greater approximations of right and it is this notion that is taken to be the core of Kant's vision of emancipation - an ideal that continues to animate CT and CIRT. The second part critically interrogates this emancipatory potential in the moral law against the programmatic aspects of Kant's political philosophy and finds that key aspects of Kant's politics openly contradict the ethical precepts of the CI in regards to; (i) public discriminations against women and dependents; (ii) the permissibility of social inequality, and; (iii) undue limitations imposed on resistance and political change. In the final part, Kant's ethics is tested against his idea of the World Federation and whether it is sufficiently rendered to approximate the Kingdom of Ends in the cosmopolitan sphere. By exploring some of the limitations Kant placed on cosmopolitan community, the paper concludes by suggesting that it is the attempt to overcome these shortcomings in the original Kantian program that motivates a significant part of the ongoing commitment to the emancipatory project in Critical International Relations Theory (CIRT). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]