September 2017: Section on Kant on Political Change for the ECPR General Conference (Oslo, Sept. 2017): for details, see the Section’s page on the ECPR website. See also the Section’s page on this website.
Summer 2016: The Kantian Standing Group has been awarded an ECPR Grant and two Travel and Accommodation Grants for the organisation of the Third Summer School on Methods in Normative Political Theory, which will be organised at the University of Limerick jointly with the ECPR Political Theory Standing Group.
Further details will be posted in due course; for more information, see the School’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/SummerSchoolKeele
September 2016: 10th ECPR GENERAL CONFERENCE
Section organised by the Kantian Standing Group: Kantian Peace
Panels and convenors:
“Political Education and Peace”: Dorota Pietrzyk-Reeves
“Towards Perpetual Peace in Rawls’s Law of Peoples?”: Huw Williams
“Kantian Peace in the Republican Tradition”: Sasha Mudd
“Kant’s Republicanism and the Highest Political Good”: Howard Williams and Jakub Szczepanski
“Guarantee for Perpetual Peace”: Sorin Baiasu
“Kant on Religious Conflicts in a Secularised World”: Anna Tomaszewska
Summer 2016: The Kantian Standing Group has been awarded an ECPR Grant and two Travel and Accommodation Grants for the organisation of the Third Summer School on Methods in Normative Political Theory, which will be organised at the University of Limerick jointly with the ECPR Political Theory Standing Group.
Further details will be posted in due course; for more information, see the School’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/SummerSchoolKeele
September 2016: 10th ECPR GENERAL CONFERENCE
Section organised by the Kantian Standing Group: Kantian Peace
Abstract
According to Kant, perpetual peace is the highest political good. He introduces this idea not in his famous essay “Toward Perpetual Peace”, but in the “Metaphysics of Morals”, more exactly in the Doctrine of Right, in the Conclusion to Chapter III, Cosmopolitan Right. As the highest political good, this ideal presupposes several requirements, some of them quite demanding, yet, Kant maintains, not impossible. For instance, perpetual peace presupposes rightful order at the national, international and cosmopolitan levels. At the national level, Kant claims, a rightful order presupposes a republican constitution. At the international level, a set of laws are needed to regulate interactions between states. Finally, as citizens of the earth, rather than as members of particular states, persons have rights protected by cosmopolitan law. Such a complex rightful condition, Kant claims, should emerge through gradual reform and would involve changes in all areas of life, particularly in politics and education, but also socially, for instance, in the sphere of religious belief. Although in places Kant suggests that this process can be brought about more speedily by the concerted actions of citizens and states, he also suggests that there is a guarantee that it will inevitably happen.
All these claims raise further questions, for instance, on how we are to interpret his view of a republican constitution, what the status he attributes to the guarantee for perpetual peace is, what kind of education he envisages as appropriate for a rightful condition and which kind of religious beliefs and communities he thinks as compatible with a peaceful coexistence. The interest in these various aspects related to Kant’s idea of perpetual peace is not purely scholarly. Through Rawls’s and Habermas’s works, Kant’s influence on contemporary political philosophy is immense and Kant’s view of political teleology and his conception of perpetual peace as the “entire final end of the doctrine of right within the limits of mere reason” are very relevant today.
Consider, for instance, the recent surge of interest in the Republican tradition, through the work of Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner among others: Kant’s role in the development of this tradition is much less well appreciated, until recently his work having been mainly read as belonging to the Liberal tradition. One aim of the section is to explore recent republican readings of Kant’s legal and political philosophy, paying special attention to the following sorts of questions: How do republican readings diverge from more traditionally liberal interpretations of Kant, and with what results? Is Kant’s account of basic rights comprehensively republican in character, or does it present a mixed picture? What does a republican interpretation of Kant entail for the traditionally understood division between morality and law? What are the consequences of this re-interpretation for international law and theories of perpetual peace?
Relatedly, another aim of the Section is to evaluate Kant’s views of religion and education, as well as of the relation between religion and the public sphere, and to investigate the extent to which these views bear on issues concerning religious conflicts. In their book “Secularism and Freedom of Conscience”, Charles Taylor and Jocelyn Maclure distinguish two forms of a secular regime: liberal pluralist and republican. Taking into account this distinction and its relevance to recent problems with relations between state and religions, the section will consider how Kant’s conception of religion, formulated in “Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason”, “The Conflict of Faculties” and other writings containing remarks on faith (for instance, his correspondence), bear on contemporary ways of dealing with religious conflicts (or simply on tensions between groups sharing divergent beliefs regarding the meaning and purpose of human life) and enabling peaceful coexistence of citizens of different faiths in one political community.
Finally, John Rawls’s “The Law of Peoples” has recently been the subject of more considered and constructive discussion following the rather dismissive initial critique by cosmopolitan liberals. It has featured increasingly prominently in discussions on human rights, international law, just war and international redistribution. One legacy of the initial criticisms, however, seems to have been a reluctance to view the text in light of the explicit connections with Kant’s “Toward Perpetual Peace”, despite Rawls’s implying that he is presenting a contemporary version of the work. Some of the question on which the section will focus may include the difference in their views on just war, whether Rawls rather than the cosmopolitans is the true heir to Kantian international relations, how Rawls’ Society of Peoples and the concept of decent peoples fit with Kant’s republican ideal, whether Perpetual Peace may be read ‘back’ through the Law of Peoples in revealing ways, in regard to issues such as intervention or redistribution, and perhaps most importantly, the extent to which the Law of Peoples may be understood as a contemporary interpretation of Perpetual Peace.
Proposed Panels and convenors:
“Political Education and Peace”: Dorota Pietrzyk-Reeves
“Towards Perpetual Peace in Rawls’s Law of Peoples?”: Huw Williams
“Kantian Peace in the Republican Tradition”: Sasha Mudd
“Kant’s Republicanism and the Highest Political Good”: Howard Williams and Jakub Szczepanski
“Guarantee for Perpetual Peace”: Sorin Baiasu
“Kant on Religious Conflicts in a Secularised World”: Anna Tomaszewska
References:
Kant, I. ([1793]1996) “Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason”, in Religion and Rational Theology. Trs and eds Allen W. Wood and George Di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, I. ([1795]1996) “Toward Perpetual Peace”, in Practical Philosophy. Tr. and ed. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, I. ([1797]1996) “The Metaphysics of Morals”, in Practical Philosophy. Tr. And ed. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, I. ([1798]1996) “The Conflict of the Faculties”, in Religion and Rational Theology. Trs and eds Allen W. Wood and George Di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maclure, J. and Taylor, C. (2011) Secularism and Freedom of Conscience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
August 2015: 9th ECPR GENERAL CONFERENCE
The Kantian Standing Group organises a section with 8 panels on the theme: “Rights – Kantian Approaches”. The conference will take place in Montreal, between 26 and 29 August 2015.
Section Chairs:
Sorin Baiasu (s.baiasu@keele.ac.uk or sorin.baiasu@univie.ac.at), Keele University/University of Vienna
Mehmet Ruhi Demiray (m.r.demiray@keele.ac.uk or ruhidemiray@ymail.com), Keele University/Kocaeli University
Section Presentation:
Rights and human rights have been the key concepts of modern politics and modern systems of law since the American and French Revolutions at the end of the 18th century. However, many aspects of these concepts have been under discussion since then. Indeed, one can argue that the history of modern political and legal philosophy is a history of reconstructions and deconstructions of these concepts. Hence, it is still the case that we need further clarification with regard to at least the following aspects:
What is the status of the concept of rights? Is it the only concept that grounds the normative dimension of politics? Or do we need to recognise a role to be played by other normative concepts, e.g., virtues, or ethical/religious/cultural ideals, in politics and law? Relevantly, should considerations about rights trump any other considerations, e.g. issues concerning public security or people’s conventional morality, in the cases of deciding on the legitimacy of a particular policy?
What is the relation between the concept of rights and other normative concepts, particularly the concepts of obligation and duty? Is the concept of rights a free-standing one? Or, should there be a corresponding duty to any right? If so, is it the case that rights holders and duty-bearers always coincide?
What is the scope of rights? Most importantly, what is the scope of human rights?
What is the role of political-legal authorities with regard to rights and human rights? Is it a matter of recognition of objective standards? Or is it a matter of constructing common standards?
If it is the case that political-legal authorities are necessary for a system of rights and human rights, does this provide a ground to argue that such authorities have certain rights (sometimes, referred to as the rights of sovereignty) and not only duties with regard to their citizens? If yes, is it possible that a right of state might come into conflict with the rights of a person or a group of persons?
What can we think about the role of the concept of rights and human rights as far as international and supranational relations are concerned? Is it a supranational system of human rights possible indeed? Or is it possible to secure human rights completely in any country of the world without having such a supranational system?
These are only some of the general questions political and legal philosophy has to deal with, if they intend to provide insights for an improved understanding of political and legal practices in contemporary world. Among different currents of political-legal philosophy, the Kantian school has always been recognised as distinctive in its emphasis on the centrality of the concept of rights in the political and legal sphere. In recent decades, we witness that interest in Kant’s practical philosophy has particularly increased, mostly as a result of John Rawls’s and Jürgen Habermas’s reconstructions of certain ideas traced back to Kant. Today, many scholars and students of political philosophy engage with the ideas of Kant and his followers as a source of insights to overcome divisive problems we are facing in the sphere of political and legal practices.
In the proposed Section, we will explore what solutions the Kantian perspective or perspectives might be bringing about concerning our better understanding of different aspects of the concept of rights and human rights. Thematically, the range of discussions in our Panels will include topics such as the normative foundations of modern politics, the normative significance of the concept of rights, the nature of law as a specific form of regulation of human affairs, the nature and scope of human rights, the normative limits of state power, the rights of the states, the nature of justice, the prospects for an international or cosmopolitan structure of human rights.
Potential Panel Themes:
Moral Duties and Human Rights in Kant
Kant on the Nature and Limits of Political-Legal Authority
Kant on Rationalism, Foundationalism and Constitutionalism in Politics
Kantian Perspectives on Territorial Rights
Kant on the Scope of Human Rights
Kant on Republicanism and Liberalism
Are (Human) Rights All That Matters in Kantian Politics?
Kant on Cosmopolitan rights and the Idea of Global Justice
References
Kant, I. (1991). Kant: Political Writings, H.S. Reiss (ed.), H.B. Nisbet (trans.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, I. (1996) The Metaphysics of Morals, M. Gregor (trans. and ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rawls, J. (1999) A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. (2001) The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. (2005) Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition. New York: Columbia University Press.
Habermas, J. (1996) Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and
Democracy, W. Rehg (trans.). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Summer 2015: The Kantian Standing Group has been awarded an ECPR Grant and two Travel and Accommodation Grants for the organisation of the Second Summer School on Methods in Normative Political Theory, which will be organised at Keele University, jointly with the ECPR Kantian Standing Group.
For further details, see the School’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/SummerSchoolKeele
September 2014: 8th ECPR GENERAL CONFERENCE
The Standing Group on Kantian Political Thought organises a section at the 8th ECPR General Conference, University of Glasgow, UK, September 3-6, 2014.
Section Title: Kant and Kantian Constructivism in Moral and Political Philosophy
Section Chairs:
• Sorin Baiasu (sorin.baiasu@univie.ac.uk s.baiasu@keele.ac.uk), University of Vienna/Keele University
• Alice Pinheiro-Walla (pinheira@tcd.ie), Trinity College Dublin
Section Abstract:
Kantian constructivism is one of the most recent and important developments in political and moral theory. Introduced by John Rawls in his seminal article “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory”, the term was meant to refer to a position that avoided the problems Rawls had previously identified in utilitarianism and intuitionism. (Rawls 1980) Constructivism was also meant to address some for the difficulties Rawls had earlier identified in Kant’s moral theory (which for Kant included both ethics and juridical/political philosophy). (Rawls [1971] 1999). In particular, Rawls questioned Kant’s claim to a need for metaphysics, which political and juridical philosophy cannot do without, if they are to account for the moral necessity of principles of right and laws (for instance, in Kant RL 6: 355).
Similar concerns were also discussed by many other contemporary influential philosophers. For instance, starting from his discourse ethics, Jürgen Habermas’s examination of legal norms in Between Facts and Norms (1996 [1992]) offers a constructivist account of legal normativity. This account tries to steer a path between legal positivism and natural law theory, in order to put forward a theory that can explain both the objectivity of legal norms and their capacity to be relevant in situations of pluralism characteristic for today’s modern democracies.
During the last three decades, the debates around constructivism have raged and continue to preoccupy moral and political theorists. Such debates have also produced alternative theories that attempt to improve on constructivism – for instance, constructionism (Krasnoff 1999), constructivist contractualism (Timmons 2003) or constitutivism (Korsgaard 2008). Debates have concerned metaphysical issues concerning the nature of values and norms, epistemological issues with regard to the possibility of knowing such values and norms, and metaethical issues about the justification of such norms and values.
The proposed section will explore the most significant debates and their political implications in relation to a range of concrete questions, including: human rights, welfare, citizenship, property, human imperfection and legal legitimacy. The section is designed to evaluate the prospects of Kantian constructivism and of Kant’s seminal political texts.
References:
The reference to Kant is to: RL – Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre with the volume and page number from the German edition of Kant’s works, Kants gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, subsequently Deutsche, now Berlin-Brandenburg Akademie der Wissenschaften (originally under the editorship of Wilhelm Dilthey). Berlin: Georg Reimer, subsequently Walter de Gruyter, 1900 – .
Rawls, J. (1999 [1971]) A Theory of Justice. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. (1980) “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory”, in Journal of Philosophy. 77: 515-72.
Habermas, J. (1996 [1992]) Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Tr. W. Rehg. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Krasnoff, L. (1999) “How Kantian Is Constructivism?”, in Kant Studien. 90 (3): 385-409.
Timmons, M. (2003) “The Limits of Moral Constructivism”, in Ratio 16(4): 391-423.
Korsgaard, C. (2008) The Constitution of Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Call for panels and papers: This has now closed.
Summer 2014: The Kantian Standing Group has been awarded an ECPR Grant and two Travel and Accommodation Grants for the organisation of the First Summer School on Methods in Normative Political Theory.
For further details, see the School’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/SummerSchoolKeele
September 2013: 7TH ECPR GENERAL CONFERENCE
The Standing Group on Kantian Political Thought organised a section at the 7th ECPR General Conference, University of Bordeaux, September 4-7, 2013.
Section Title: Justification and Application: The Nature and Function of Political Norms
Section Chair: Sorin Baiasu (sorin.baiasu@univie.ac.uk s.baiasu@keele.ac.uk), University of Vienna/Keele University
Section Abstract: The focus of contemporary normative political theory is on norms and their justification. The aim of this section is to engage with the question of justification, as well as with issues, which emerge from the attempt to apply justified norms to specific areas in politics and international relations. The starting point for the papers will be given by a set of assumptions stemming from Kant’s moral and political philosophy.
Papers will address topics, which can be divided into three main categories:
There will be papers that will examine fundamental topics concerning the nature of justification and application in practical (moral and political) theories
There will be papers, which deal with specific political norms, with their justification and application, for instance, in the area of citizenship, leadership, property or international relations. There will be papers that will put more emphasis on the history of political thought and that explore the roots of the contemporary Kantian views of justification and application. Thematically, papers may focus mainly on issues of justification or primarily on questions related to the application of norms or chiefly on topics, which relate justification and application.
Panels: Further details about the panels and papers can be found in the Section Programme, which can be accessed here.
August 2011: 6th ECPR GENERAL CONFERENCE
The Standing Group on Kantian Political Thought hosts a section at the 6th ECPR General Conference, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, August 25-27, 2011.
Section Title: Kantian Approaches to Political Normativity
Section Chairs:
• Peter Niesen (Niesen@pg.tudarmstadt.de), Darmstadt, Technische Universität
• Viljhálmur Árnason (vilhjarn@hi.is), University of Iceland
Section Abstract
In recent years, Kant scholarship and Kantian political thought have sharpened parallel research questions on several levels of normative political theory: first, on the level of the status of political norms; second, on the level of the structure and content of constitutional and international law; third, on the level of concrete questions of normative ethics and public policy. On the first level, the nature of political norms and their differentiation from ethical and legal norms has been explored, with far-reaching implications for political authority and political legitimacy. On the second level, the international debate on global government and governance has for two decades now been fuelled by ostensibly Kantian intuitions. More recently, however, positions in liberal international law have been criticised from the perspective of new interpretations of Kant’s texts. At the same time, critics have claimed to find imperial tendencies within Kant’s work. Finally, concrete policy issues have played an increasing role in Kant scholarship and in Kantian attempts to challenge a general utilitarian predominance in public policy. Authors have addressed themes such as biopolitics, freedom of expression, intellectual property or migration. In this section, we intend to bring together Kant scholars with contemporary systematic political theorists working on all three levels.
April 2011: SINCERITY IN ETHICS, POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: Workshop organised by Sorin Baiasu (Keele) and Sylvie Loriaux (Nijmegen, Radboud) with the support of the Kantian Standing Group of the European Consortium for Political Research and of the UK Kant Society: 12-17 April 2011, University of St Gallen, Switzerland.
Workshop Outline
Recent controversial events illustrate fully the relevance, significance and complexity of a requirement of sincerity or truthfulness in politics. Consider, for instance, the context preceding and following the war in Iraq: it seems clear that the condition of sincerity has been functioning on various levels, as an unquestioned assumption, ever since the conflict started. Sincerity has played the role of a personal value, which can be invoked in justification of particular decisions, it has played a legitimising function as a norm in political relations among the members of a nation or state, or between nations or states at the international level. Given the relevance of the question of sincerity, it is not surprising that it occupies such an important place in contemporary philosophical debates, where the existence of the important philosophical legacy, in particular the Kantian one, is easily noticeable. Against the background of the Kantian legacy, the proposed workshop aims to approach the question of sincerity in a distinctive way, more exactly, from the perspective of the following two sets of questions: first, we are interested in whether and in what ways a principle of sincerity is politically relevant and can be justified in concrete political contexts; secondly, we are interested in the particular factors which, in those concrete political contexts, limit (in part or completely) the validity of a principle of sincerity (or related principles or values, such as standards of truthfulness, of prohibition of lying or deception).
There is no conference fee for members of ECPR institutions. Grants for participation are available for graduates, young academics and retired members of the profession. For more information, click here.
Current list of participants, in alphabetical order: Esther Abin (Keele), Sorin Baiasu (Keele), Sandrine Baume (Lausanne), Anders Berg-Sørensen (Copenhagen), Zsolt Boda (Budapest), Simone Cheli (Padua), Nic Dobrei (Bucharest), Mark Evans (Swansea), Joerg Friedrichs (Oxford), Jonathan Gilmore (Kingston), Catherine Guisan (Grenoble), Marguerite La Caze (Queensland), Ana Ljubojevic (Lucca), Sylvie Loriaux (Radboud), Thomas Mertens (Radboud), Mark Timmons (Arizona), Doron Navot (Haifa), Glen Newey (Keele), David Owen (Southampton), Mathias Thaler (Coimbra), Howard Williams (Aberystwyth), Enrico Zoffoli (Darmstadt).
September 2009: Workshop on politics and metaphysics in Kant: University of Potsdam, 5th ECPR General Conference, 10-12 September 2009.
CALL FOR PANELS: After the success of last year’s section on ‘Politics and Metaphysics in Kant’, organised with the support of the UK Kant Society at the 4th ECPR Conference in Pisa, we put forward, again with the support of the UK Kant Society, a section proposal on the same theme for the 5th ECPR Conference in Potsdam 10-12 September 2009.
The section has been accepted and a call for panels has been circulated by the ECPR. For more information about the conference, click here. To propose a panel, click here. Available to download: Guidelines & Deadlines for Panel Chairs.
Please email Kerstin at BuddeK@Cardiff.ac.uk if you think you might be interested to chair a panel, suggest a panel title or present a paper.
ORGANISATION: The workshop conveners are Howard Williams (University of Aberystwyth) and Kerstin Budde (University of Cardiff). The workshop is supported by the UK Kant Society.
Other Related Events
September 2008: Workshop on Kant and economic justice: Manchester Metropolitan University, PSA Workshops in Political Theory, Fifth Annual Conference, 10-12 September.
ORGANISATION: The workshop conveners are Howard Williams (University of Aberystwyth) and Lea Ypi (European University Institute). The workshop is supported by the UK Kant Society.
