Values behind the market: Kant's response to the wealth of nations

History of Political Thought

Volumn 17, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 379-407

  Fleischacker, Samuel ^a  

^a WILLIAMS COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0030500861     PISSN: 0143781X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (109)

1. 'Until 1795, a period of nearly twenty years after these first discussions, the work of Adam Smith received scant attention in Germany.' Carl William Hasek, The Introduction of Adam Smith's Doctrines into Germany (New York, 1920), p. 65. Hasek, pp. 63-5, is my source for the early reviews of the Wealth of Nations, and p. 72, footnote 5 and text thereto, discusses the inception of Sartorius' and Kraus's lectures on Smith: the entire book provides an excellent short account of Smith's reception in Germany. That Smith was ignored for twenty years also receives support from Kenneth Carpenter: 'It is clear that in both France and Germany interest in Adam Smith was slow to develop. His influence became widespread only after the French Revolution' (K. Carpenter, Dialogue in Political Economy (Boston, 1977), p. 46), and from the second translator of the Wealth of Nations, Christian Garve: '[I]n der That hat es in Deutschland das Glück nicht gemacht, welches sein Werth ihm versprechen konnte, und welches es in allen Theilen Europens, wo es im Original, oder in guten Übersetzungen hingedrungen ist, gefunden hat' (translator's preface, p. iv). Keith Tribe presents the German preference for Steuart over Smith in the 1780s in considerable detail, explaining it in terms of Steuart's greater compatibility with reigning Cameralist doctrine. See Tribe, Governing Economy (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 133-40, 143-8. I am indebted to Fania Oz-Salzberger for this very helpful reference.
2. 'Until 1795, a period of nearly twenty years after these first discussions, the work of Adam Smith received scant attention in Germany.' Carl William Hasek, The Introduction of Adam Smith's Doctrines into Germany (New York, 1920), p. 65. Hasek, pp. 63-5, is my source for the early reviews of the Wealth of Nations, and p. 72, footnote 5 and text thereto, discusses the inception of Sartorius' and Kraus's lectures on Smith: the entire book provides an excellent short account of Smith's reception in Germany. That Smith was ignored for twenty years also receives support from Kenneth Carpenter: 'It is clear that in both France and Germany interest in Adam Smith was slow to develop. His influence became widespread only after the French Revolution' (K. Carpenter, Dialogue in Political Economy (Boston, 1977), p. 46), and from the second translator of the Wealth of Nations, Christian Garve: '[I]n der That hat es in Deutschland das Glück nicht gemacht, welches sein Werth ihm versprechen konnte, und welches es in allen Theilen Europens, wo es im Original, oder in guten Übersetzungen hingedrungen ist, gefunden hat' (translator's preface, p. iv). Keith Tribe presents the German preference for Steuart over Smith in the 1780s in considerable detail, explaining it in terms of Steuart's greater compatibility with reigning Cameralist doctrine. See Tribe, Governing Economy (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 133-40, 143-8. I am indebted to Fania Oz-Salzberger for this very helpful reference.
3. 'Until 1795, a period of nearly twenty years after these first discussions, the work of Adam Smith received scant attention in Germany.' Carl William Hasek, The Introduction of Adam Smith's Doctrines into Germany (New York, 1920), p. 65. Hasek, pp. 63-5, is my source for the early reviews of the Wealth of Nations, and p. 72, footnote 5 and text thereto, discusses the inception of Sartorius' and Kraus's lectures on Smith: the entire book provides an excellent short account of Smith's reception in Germany. That Smith was ignored for twenty years also receives support from Kenneth Carpenter: 'It is clear that in both France and Germany interest in Adam Smith was slow to develop. His influence became widespread only after the French Revolution' (K. Carpenter, Dialogue in Political Economy (Boston, 1977), p. 46), and from the second translator of the Wealth of Nations, Christian Garve: '[I]n der That hat es in Deutschland das Glück nicht gemacht, welches sein Werth ihm versprechen konnte, und welches es in allen Theilen Europens, wo es im Original, oder in guten Übersetzungen hingedrungen ist, gefunden hat' (translator's preface, p. iv). Keith Tribe presents the German preference for Steuart over Smith in the 1780s in considerable detail, explaining it in terms of Steuart's greater compatibility with reigning Cameralist doctrine. See Tribe, Governing Economy (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 133-40, 143-8. I am indebted to Fania Oz-Salzberger for this very helpful reference.
4. 'Until 1795, a period of nearly twenty years after these first discussions, the work of Adam Smith received scant attention in Germany.' Carl William Hasek, The Introduction of Adam Smith's Doctrines into Germany (New York, 1920), p. 65. Hasek, pp. 63-5, is my source for the early reviews of the Wealth of Nations, and p. 72, footnote 5 and text thereto, discusses the inception of Sartorius' and Kraus's lectures on Smith: the entire book provides an excellent short account of Smith's reception in Germany. That Smith was ignored for twenty years also receives support from Kenneth Carpenter: 'It is clear that in both France and Germany interest in Adam Smith was slow to develop. His influence became widespread only after the French Revolution' (K. Carpenter, Dialogue in Political Economy (Boston, 1977), p. 46), and from the second translator of the Wealth of Nations, Christian Garve: '[I]n der That hat es in Deutschland das Glück nicht gemacht, welches sein Werth ihm versprechen konnte, und welches es in allen Theilen Europens, wo es im Original, oder in guten Übersetzungen hingedrungen ist, gefunden hat' (translator's preface, p. iv). Keith Tribe presents the German preference for Steuart over Smith in the 1780s in considerable detail, explaining it in terms of Steuart's greater compatibility with reigning Cameralist doctrine. See Tribe, Governing Economy (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 133-40, 143-8. I am indebted to Fania Oz-Salzberger for this very helpful reference.
5. Erich Kühn, Der Staatswirtschaftslehrer Christian Jacob Kraus und seine Beziehungen zu Adam Smith (Königsberg, 1902), pp. 8-12.
6. For greetings to Kraus through Kant, see letters 290, 331, 332, 343, 366, 629 in Kant's Akademieausgabe (Berlin, 1900ff) (hereafter referred to as Ak), Vol. X, 508; XI, 19, 25, 61, 105; XII, 24. See also the brief description of Kraus at Ak XIII, 648. The other information comes from Kühn, p. 18 and Johannes Voigt, Das Leben des Professor Christian Jacob Kraus (Königsberg, 1819), p. 131. Voigt is the main source for all subsequent accounts of Kraus's life.
7. For greetings to Kraus through Kant, see letters 290, 331, 332, 343, 366, 629 in Kant's Akademieausgabe (Berlin, 1900ff) (hereafter referred to as Ak), Vol. X, 508; XI, 19, 25, 61, 105; XII, 24. See also the brief description of Kraus at Ak XIII, 648. The other information comes from Kühn, p. 18 and Johannes Voigt, Das Leben des Professor Christian Jacob Kraus (Königsberg, 1819), p. 131. Voigt is the main source for all subsequent accounts of Kraus's life.
8. For greetings to Kraus through Kant, see letters 290, 331, 332, 343, 366, 629 in Kant's Akademieausgabe (Berlin, 1900ff) (hereafter referred to as Ak), Vol. X, 508; XI, 19, 25, 61, 105; XII, 24. See also the brief description of Kraus at Ak XIII, 648. The other information comes from Kühn, p. 18 and Johannes Voigt, Das Leben des Professor Christian Jacob Kraus (Königsberg, 1819), p. 131. Voigt is the main source for all subsequent accounts of Kraus's life.
9. For greetings to Kraus through Kant, see letters 290, 331, 332, 343, 366, 629 in Kant's Akademieausgabe (Berlin, 1900ff) (hereafter referred to as Ak), Vol. X, 508; XI, 19, 25, 61, 105; XII, 24. See also the brief description of Kraus at Ak XIII, 648. The other information comes from Kühn, p. 18 and Johannes Voigt, Das Leben des Professor Christian Jacob Kraus (Königsberg, 1819), p. 131. Voigt is the main source for all subsequent accounts of Kraus's life.
10. Hasek, Introduction of Adam Smith's Doctrines into Germany, p. 87. See also ibid., p. 86, where Kraus is quoted as describing Smith's doctrines as 'The only true, great, beautiful, just and beneficial system'.
11. Hasek, Introduction of Adam Smith's Doctrines into Germany, p. 87. See also ibid., p. 86, where Kraus is quoted as describing Smith's doctrines as 'The only true, great, beautiful, just and beneficial system'.
12. Indeed, when Hasek says in a footnote (ibid., p. 84), that Kant and Kraus 'Differed greatly in their views', he implies that such a conversation took place. But Hasek is wrong to imply that Kant and Kraus would differ over political economy: on the readings I shall offer, at least, Kant shared Kraus's enthusiasm for Smith. According to the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, Hasek's source here, Kant and Kraus differed over metaphysics. They did, however, discuss politics as well, according to Voigt: 'Ihre Gespräche betrafen theils philosophische Gegenstände, theils Politik, oder gemeinnützige Angelegenheiten.' (Voigt, Das Leben, p. 129.)
13. Indeed, when Hasek says in a footnote (ibid., p. 84), that Kant and Kraus 'Differed greatly in their views', he implies that such a conversation took place. But Hasek is wrong to imply that Kant and Kraus would differ over political economy: on the readings I shall offer, at least, Kant shared Kraus's enthusiasm for Smith. According to the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, Hasek's source here, Kant and Kraus differed over metaphysics. They did, however, discuss politics as well, according to Voigt: 'Ihre Gespräche betrafen theils philosophische Gegenstände, theils Politik, oder gemeinnützige Angelegenheiten.' (Voigt, Das Leben, p. 129.)
14. Voigt quotes Kraus's confession that in 1777 he had had very little comprehension of the Political Arithmetic he had translated from English ('Er erzählte selbst einem seiner nachherigen Freunde: der Umstand, daß er von dem aus Youngs Arithmetik wenig recht begriffen', Voigt, Das Leben, p. 306: cf. also the quotation from a 1777 letter by Kraus about the translation: 'Der Himmel gebe nur, daß mir die liebe Schmiererei nicht Schande macht; aber, unter uns gesagt, ich fürchte es sehr, und mache mich auch schon ganz darauf gefaßt', ibid., p. 58.) He adds that precisely for that reason he had made efforts to study other economic works while working on the translation, and that he regarded that time period as the begining of his interest in the field. Furthermore, says Voigt, he acquired from Schlözer, one of his teachers at Göttingen, 'Eine Vorliebe für Statistik und Staatswirthschaft mit auf den academischen Lehrstuhl; die erstere hatte mit zu seinen ersten Vorlesungen gehört', ibid., p. 306. But it is only 'Die erstere' that he actually taught at first, and Kühn records a 'Vorliebe' only for 'Geschichte und antike Litteratur' as Kraus's legacy from Schlözer (Kühn, Der Staatswirtschaftslehrer Christian Jacob Kraus, p. 11). Reflections on history and the progress of culture, on the ground of duty and virtue, and on pantheism, seem to occupy the foreground of Kraus's concerns from 1781 to 1791 (ibid., pp. 13-16). 'seit 10 Jahren,' he wrote in 1791, 'Bin ich nun schon Professor der Moral und des Naturrechtes, und gleichwohl habe ich in dieser Zeit eher alles andere als meine Pflichtstudien bearbeitet.' (ibid., p. 32.) In 1786 he started a treatise Über den Pantheismus and shortly thereafter took up 'Kant's eindringliche Bitte' to respond to Meiner's attack on the first Critique (ibid., pp. 15, 18). The same year saw his first work on economics, however - 'Über den Frachthandel' and 'Über den Seesalzmonopol' - which Kühn demonstrates to have Smithian elements (ibid., pp. 46-54).
15. Voigt quotes Kraus's confession that in 1777 he had had very little comprehension of the Political Arithmetic he had translated from English ('Er erzählte selbst einem seiner nachherigen Freunde: der Umstand, daß er von dem aus Youngs Arithmetik wenig recht begriffen', Voigt, Das Leben, p. 306: cf. also the quotation from a 1777 letter by Kraus about the translation: 'Der Himmel gebe nur, daß mir die liebe Schmiererei nicht Schande macht; aber, unter uns gesagt, ich fürchte es sehr, und mache mich auch schon ganz darauf gefaßt', ibid., p. 58.) He adds that precisely for that reason he had made efforts to study other economic works while working on the translation, and that he regarded that time period as the begining of his interest in the field. Furthermore, says Voigt, he acquired from Schlözer, one of his teachers at Göttingen, 'Eine Vorliebe für Statistik und Staatswirthschaft mit auf den academischen Lehrstuhl; die erstere hatte mit zu seinen ersten Vorlesungen gehört', ibid., p. 306. But it is only 'Die erstere' that he actually taught at first, and Kühn records a 'Vorliebe' only for 'Geschichte und antike Litteratur' as Kraus's legacy from Schlözer (Kühn, Der Staatswirtschaftslehrer Christian Jacob Kraus, p. 11). Reflections on history and the progress of culture, on the ground of duty and virtue, and on pantheism, seem to occupy the foreground of Kraus's concerns from 1781 to 1791 (ibid., pp. 13-16). 'seit 10 Jahren,' he wrote in 1791, 'Bin ich nun schon Professor der Moral und des Naturrechtes, und gleichwohl habe ich in dieser Zeit eher alles andere als meine Pflichtstudien bearbeitet.' (ibid., p. 32.) In 1786 he started a treatise Über den Pantheismus and shortly thereafter took up 'Kant's eindringliche Bitte' to respond to Meiner's attack on the first Critique (ibid., pp. 15, 18). The same year saw his first work on economics, however - 'Über den Frachthandel' and 'Über den Seesalzmonopol' - which Kühn demonstrates to have Smithian elements (ibid., pp. 46-54).
16. Voigt quotes Kraus's confession that in 1777 he had had very little comprehension of the Political Arithmetic he had translated from English ('Er erzählte selbst einem seiner nachherigen Freunde: der Umstand, daß er von dem aus Youngs Arithmetik wenig recht begriffen', Voigt, Das Leben, p. 306: cf. also the quotation from a 1777 letter by Kraus about the translation: 'Der Himmel gebe nur, daß mir die liebe Schmiererei nicht Schande macht; aber, unter uns gesagt, ich fürchte es sehr, und mache mich auch schon ganz darauf gefaßt', ibid., p. 58.) He adds that precisely for that reason he had made efforts to study other economic works while working on the translation, and that he regarded that time period as the begining of his interest in the field. Furthermore, says Voigt, he acquired from Schlözer, one of his teachers at Göttingen, 'Eine Vorliebe für Statistik und Staatswirthschaft mit auf den academischen Lehrstuhl; die erstere hatte mit zu seinen ersten Vorlesungen gehört', ibid., p. 306. But it is only 'Die erstere' that he actually taught at first, and Kühn records a 'Vorliebe' only for 'Geschichte und antike Litteratur' as Kraus's legacy from Schlözer (Kühn, Der Staatswirtschaftslehrer Christian Jacob Kraus, p. 11). Reflections on history and the progress of culture, on the ground of duty and virtue, and on pantheism, seem to occupy the foreground of Kraus's concerns from 1781 to 1791 (ibid., pp. 13-16). 'seit 10 Jahren,' he wrote in 1791, 'Bin ich nun schon Professor der Moral und des Naturrechtes, und gleichwohl habe ich in dieser Zeit eher alles andere als meine Pflichtstudien bearbeitet.' (ibid., p. 32.) In 1786 he started a treatise Über den Pantheismus and shortly thereafter took up 'Kant's eindringliche Bitte' to respond to Meiner's attack on the first Critique (ibid., pp. 15, 18). The same year saw his first work on economics, however - 'Über den Frachthandel' and 'Über den Seesalzmonopol' - which Kühn demonstrates to have Smithian elements (ibid., pp. 46-54).
17. Voigt quotes Kraus's confession that in 1777 he had had very little comprehension of the Political Arithmetic he had translated from English ('Er erzählte selbst einem seiner nachherigen Freunde: der Umstand, daß er von dem aus Youngs Arithmetik wenig recht begriffen', Voigt, Das Leben, p. 306: cf. also the quotation from a 1777 letter by Kraus about the translation: 'Der Himmel gebe nur, daß mir die liebe Schmiererei nicht Schande macht; aber, unter uns gesagt, ich fürchte es sehr, und mache mich auch schon ganz darauf gefaßt', ibid., p. 58.) He adds that precisely for that reason he had made efforts to study other economic works while working on the translation, and that he regarded that time period as the begining of his interest in the field. Furthermore, says Voigt, he acquired from Schlözer, one of his teachers at Göttingen, 'Eine Vorliebe für Statistik und Staatswirthschaft mit auf den academischen Lehrstuhl; die erstere hatte mit zu seinen ersten Vorlesungen gehört', ibid., p. 306. But it is only 'Die erstere' that he actually taught at first, and Kühn records a 'Vorliebe' only for 'Geschichte und antike Litteratur' as Kraus's legacy from Schlözer (Kühn, Der Staatswirtschaftslehrer Christian Jacob Kraus, p. 11). Reflections on history and the progress of culture, on the ground of duty and virtue, and on pantheism, seem to occupy the foreground of Kraus's concerns from 1781 to 1791 (ibid., pp. 13-16). 'seit 10 Jahren,' he wrote in 1791, 'Bin ich nun schon Professor der Moral und des Naturrechtes, und gleichwohl habe ich in dieser Zeit eher alles andere als meine Pflichtstudien bearbeitet.' (ibid., p. 32.) In 1786 he started a treatise Über den Pantheismus and shortly thereafter took up 'Kant's eindringliche Bitte' to respond to Meiner's attack on the first Critique (ibid., pp. 15, 18). The same year saw his first work on economics, however - 'Über den Frachthandel' and 'Über den Seesalzmonopol' - which Kühn demonstrates to have Smithian elements (ibid., pp. 46-54).
18. Voigt quotes Kraus's confession that in 1777 he had had very little comprehension of the Political Arithmetic he had translated from English ('Er erzählte selbst einem seiner nachherigen Freunde: der Umstand, daß er von dem aus Youngs Arithmetik wenig recht begriffen', Voigt, Das Leben, p. 306: cf. also the quotation from a 1777 letter by Kraus about the translation: 'Der Himmel gebe nur, daß mir die liebe Schmiererei nicht Schande macht; aber, unter uns gesagt, ich fürchte es sehr, und mache mich auch schon ganz darauf gefaßt', ibid., p. 58.) He adds that precisely for that reason he had made efforts to study other economic works while working on the translation, and that he regarded that time period as the begining of his interest in the field. Furthermore, says Voigt, he acquired from Schlözer, one of his teachers at Göttingen, 'Eine Vorliebe für Statistik und Staatswirthschaft mit auf den academischen Lehrstuhl; die erstere hatte mit zu seinen ersten Vorlesungen gehört', ibid., p. 306. But it is only 'Die erstere' that he actually taught at first, and Kühn records a 'Vorliebe' only for 'Geschichte und antike Litteratur' as Kraus's legacy from Schlözer (Kühn, Der Staatswirtschaftslehrer Christian Jacob Kraus, p. 11). Reflections on history and the progress of culture, on the ground of duty and virtue, and on pantheism, seem to occupy the foreground of Kraus's concerns from 1781 to 1791 (ibid., pp. 13-16). 'seit 10 Jahren,' he wrote in 1791, 'Bin ich nun schon Professor der Moral und des Naturrechtes, und gleichwohl habe ich in dieser Zeit eher alles andere als meine Pflichtstudien bearbeitet.' (ibid., p. 32.) In 1786 he started a treatise Über den Pantheismus and shortly thereafter took up 'Kant's eindringliche Bitte' to respond to Meiner's attack on the first Critique (ibid., pp. 15, 18). The same year saw his first work on economics, however - 'Über den Frachthandel' and 'Über den Seesalzmonopol' - which Kühn demonstrates to have Smithian elements (ibid., pp. 46-54).
19. Voigt quotes Kraus's confession that in 1777 he had had very little comprehension of the Political Arithmetic he had translated from English ('Er erzählte selbst einem seiner nachherigen Freunde: der Umstand, daß er von dem aus Youngs Arithmetik wenig recht begriffen', Voigt, Das Leben, p. 306: cf. also the quotation from a 1777 letter by Kraus about the translation: 'Der Himmel gebe nur, daß mir die liebe Schmiererei nicht Schande macht; aber, unter uns gesagt, ich fürchte es sehr, und mache mich auch schon ganz darauf gefaßt', ibid., p. 58.) He adds that precisely for that reason he had made efforts to study other economic works while working on the translation, and that he regarded that time period as the begining of his interest in the field. Furthermore, says Voigt, he acquired from Schlözer, one of his teachers at Göttingen, 'Eine Vorliebe für Statistik und Staatswirthschaft mit auf den academischen Lehrstuhl; die erstere hatte mit zu seinen ersten Vorlesungen gehört', ibid., p. 306. But it is only 'Die erstere' that he actually taught at first, and Kühn records a 'Vorliebe' only for 'Geschichte und antike Litteratur' as Kraus's legacy from Schlözer (Kühn, Der Staatswirtschaftslehrer Christian Jacob Kraus, p. 11). Reflections on history and the progress of culture, on the ground of duty and virtue, and on pantheism, seem to occupy the foreground of Kraus's concerns from 1781 to 1791 (ibid., pp. 13-16). 'seit 10 Jahren,' he wrote in 1791, 'Bin ich nun schon Professor der Moral und des Naturrechtes, und gleichwohl habe ich in dieser Zeit eher alles andere als meine Pflichtstudien bearbeitet.' (ibid., p. 32.) In 1786 he started a treatise Über den Pantheismus and shortly thereafter took up 'Kant's eindringliche Bitte' to respond to Meiner's attack on the first Critique (ibid., pp. 15, 18). The same year saw his first work on economics, however - 'Über den Frachthandel' and 'Über den Seesalzmonopol' - which Kühn demonstrates to have Smithian elements (ibid., pp. 46-54).
20. Voigt quotes Kraus's confession that in 1777 he had had very little comprehension of the Political Arithmetic he had translated from English ('Er erzählte selbst einem seiner nachherigen Freunde: der Umstand, daß er von dem aus Youngs Arithmetik wenig recht begriffen', Voigt, Das Leben, p. 306: cf. also the quotation from a 1777 letter by Kraus about the translation: 'Der Himmel gebe nur, daß mir die liebe Schmiererei nicht Schande macht; aber, unter uns gesagt, ich fürchte es sehr, und mache mich auch schon ganz darauf gefaßt', ibid., p. 58.) He adds that precisely for that reason he had made efforts to study other economic works while working on the translation, and that he regarded that time period as the begining of his interest in the field. Furthermore, says Voigt, he acquired from Schlözer, one of his teachers at Göttingen, 'Eine Vorliebe für Statistik und Staatswirthschaft mit auf den academischen Lehrstuhl; die erstere hatte mit zu seinen ersten Vorlesungen gehört', ibid., p. 306. But it is only 'Die erstere' that he actually taught at first, and Kühn records a 'Vorliebe' only for 'Geschichte und antike Litteratur' as Kraus's legacy from Schlözer (Kühn, Der Staatswirtschaftslehrer Christian Jacob Kraus, p. 11). Reflections on history and the progress of culture, on the ground of duty and virtue, and on pantheism, seem to occupy the foreground of Kraus's concerns from 1781 to 1791 (ibid., pp. 13-16). 'seit 10 Jahren,' he wrote in 1791, 'Bin ich nun schon Professor der Moral und des Naturrechtes, und gleichwohl habe ich in dieser Zeit eher alles andere als meine Pflichtstudien bearbeitet.' (ibid., p. 32.) In 1786 he started a treatise Über den Pantheismus and shortly thereafter took up 'Kant's eindringliche Bitte' to respond to Meiner's attack on the first Critique (ibid., pp. 15, 18). The same year saw his first work on economics, however - 'Über den Frachthandel' and 'Über den Seesalzmonopol' - which Kühn demonstrates to have Smithian elements (ibid., pp. 46-54).
21. Voigt quotes Kraus's confession that in 1777 he had had very little comprehension of the Political Arithmetic he had translated from English ('Er erzählte selbst einem seiner nachherigen Freunde: der Umstand, daß er von dem aus Youngs Arithmetik wenig recht begriffen', Voigt, Das Leben, p. 306: cf. also the quotation from a 1777 letter by Kraus about the translation: 'Der Himmel gebe nur, daß mir die liebe Schmiererei nicht Schande macht; aber, unter uns gesagt, ich fürchte es sehr, und mache mich auch schon ganz darauf gefaßt', ibid., p. 58.) He adds that precisely for that reason he had made efforts to study other economic works while working on the translation, and that he regarded that time period as the begining of his interest in the field. Furthermore, says Voigt, he acquired from Schlözer, one of his teachers at Göttingen, 'Eine Vorliebe für Statistik und Staatswirthschaft mit auf den academischen Lehrstuhl; die erstere hatte mit zu seinen ersten Vorlesungen gehört', ibid., p. 306. But it is only 'Die erstere' that he actually taught at first, and Kühn records a 'Vorliebe' only for 'Geschichte und antike Litteratur' as Kraus's legacy from Schlözer (Kühn, Der Staatswirtschaftslehrer Christian Jacob Kraus, p. 11). Reflections on history and the progress of culture, on the ground of duty and virtue, and on pantheism, seem to occupy the foreground of Kraus's concerns from 1781 to 1791 (ibid., pp. 13-16). 'seit 10 Jahren,' he wrote in 1791, 'Bin ich nun schon Professor der Moral und des Naturrechtes, und gleichwohl habe ich in dieser Zeit eher alles andere als meine Pflichtstudien bearbeitet.' (ibid., p. 32.) In 1786 he started a treatise Über den Pantheismus and shortly thereafter took up 'Kant's eindringliche Bitte' to respond to Meiner's attack on the first Critique (ibid., pp. 15, 18). The same year saw his first work on economics, however - 'Über den Frachthandel' and 'Über den Seesalzmonopol' - which Kühn demonstrates to have Smithian elements (ibid., pp. 46-54).
22. 'Ob er [the Wealth of Nations] genauer kannte [in 1788], erscheint uns sehr fraglich . . . Man gewinnt hier noch den Eindruck, als ob Kraus sich weder sehr eingehend noch mit großem Interesse in die Materie vertieft habe.' (Kühn, Jacob Kraus, p. 80.) On Kraus's possibly weak understanding of Smith, even quite late in his career, see also Tribe, Governing Economy, p. 147.
23. 'Ob er [the Wealth of Nations] genauer kannte [in 1788], erscheint uns sehr fraglich . . . Man gewinnt hier noch den Eindruck, als ob Kraus sich weder sehr eingehend noch mit großem Interesse in die Materie vertieft habe.' (Kühn, Jacob Kraus, p. 80.) On Kraus's possibly weak understanding of Smith, even quite late in his career, see also Tribe, Governing Economy, p. 147.
24. After all, as I say below, Kant was already interested in Smith by the time the Wealth of Nations came out, while there is no particular reason to think Kraus was acquainted with his work before 1786. On the other hand, Kraus's publications of 1786 may of course reflect a rather earlier acquaintance with the Wealth of Nations. Suppose he began to read Smith in, say, 1784 - a time when his friendship with Kant was probably still very close. Then he may have been the original inspiration for Kant to do so as well, and that would explain why references to the Wealth of Nations do not show up in Kant's writings any earlier than the mid-1780s.
25. The de Gruyter Personenindex to Kant's works contains no references to Ferguson, Turgot, Cantillon or Quesnay. Kant mentions Mandeville three times, but each time so glancingly that there is no reason to suppose he knew anything more about Mandeville than his reputation (see, for example Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, Ak V.40).
26. He was said to have considered Smith his 'Liebling' among British moral philosophers and makes several references to the book in his Reflexionen. With this evidence in hand, fairly clear indirect references to the Theory of Moral Sentiments can be found in both the Critique of Judgment and, prominently, the Groundwork. See S. Fleischacker, 'Philosophy in Moral Practice', Kant-Studien, 82/3 (1991).
27. 'Alle Gewerbe, Handwerke und Künste haben durch die Vertheilung der Arbeiten gewonnen, da nämlich nicht einer alles macht, sondern jeder sich auf gewisse Arbeit, die sich ihrer Behandlungsweise nach von andern merklich unterscheidet, einschränkt, um sie in der größten Vollkommenheit und mit mehrerer Leichtigkeit leisten zu können. Wo die Arbeiten so nicht unterscheiden und vertheilt werden, wo jeder ein Tausendkünstler ist, da liegen die Gewerbe noch in der größten Barbarei.' (Ak IV.388). Translation from Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis, 1959), but somewhat revised.
28. The account Smith gives of why the division of labour is so important depends clearly on Mandeville (Fable of the Bees, ed. F.B. Kaye (Oxford, 1924), dialogue 6, Vol. ii, p. 284), but Mandeville's brief discussion does not use the substantive - the division of labour - only the verb ('To divide and sub-divide labour'). This alone is a reason to trace the Kant passage to Smith rather than Mandeville, since a substantive makes the process look more like a formal principle or significant historical stage than a mere human tendency, but there are two better reasons to ignore Mandeville's role for our purposes: (1) the details of how the division of labour leads to 'Improvement' are Smith's own and, as we shall see, they appear at least in abbreviated form in Kant; and (2) Kant does not seem to have read Mandeville carefully, if indeed he read him at all - there are but three, very fleeting, references to Mandeville in all of his writings (see, for instance, Ak V.40), and many more, much richer ones, to Smith.
29. And then he would be read in a translation - Garve's - that used 'Theilung der Arbeit' for most, including the principal, occurrences of 'Division of labour'. Kant, both here and in the Contest of the Faculties, uses 'Vertheilung der Arbeiten', which is close to Schiller's 'Vertheilung der Arbeit'.
30. Smith, the Wealth of Nations, I.i.5; also I.i.6-8.
31. This claim is strengthened by the fact that J.H. Feder, in the very first German review of the Wealth of Nations, summed up the first chapter by saying that the division of labour was a major cause of 'Der Vervollkommnung und Vermehrung des Productes derselben' (Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, 10.März.1777, p. 235, my emphasis). On the other hand, Kant's otherwise rather odd choice of 'Vollkommenheit' to designate 'Improvement' (or even, in the context in which Kant uses it, 'Dexterity') suggests that his acquaintance with the Wealth of Nations was at least in part due to Feder's review itself. There are enough details that are not in Feder's review, both in this passage and in the other probable references to the Wealth of Nations, to warrant the conclusion that Kant read (some of) the book as well as this review, but it could well be that he first came across the book through the review and that it influenced how he later understood Smith's doctrines.
32. Smith, the Wealth of Nations, I.i.9.
33. Kant's Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss, trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge, 2nd edn., 1991), p. 50 (I am indebted to my research assistant, Nicholas Kolodny, for this reference). All English quotations from the Idea for a Universal History, What is Enlightenment?, Theory and Practice and Perpetual Peace come out of the Reiss/Nisbet collection.
34. Indeed the Cameralists supported a wide range of controls on the economy, especially as regarding the supply and quality of foodstuffs: see Tribe, Governing Economy, pp. 86-7.
35. Kant's Political Writings, ed. Reiss, p. 41 (Ak VIII.17).
36. Ibid., pp. 44-5 (Ak 20-1).
37. There are several other places in which Kant appears to use an 'Invisible hand' mode of explanation for social phenomena: Idea, p. 49 (Ak 25-6), Perpetual Peace, p. 108 (Ak 360-1), and Critique of Judgment (Ak 432-3 (§ 83)), for instance. I am not sure how reliable any of these are as indications of his reading the Wealth of Nations, in part because the teleology that runs all the way from the Appendix to the Dialectic in the first Critique to the end of the Critique of Judgment allows for such an approach to all of nature - and probably owes much more to Leibniz than to Smith - in part because Kant rarely uses language that sounds much like Smith and could have taken the idea for such a mode of explanation from a number of other sources, and in part because even if Smith is a source for these passages, Kant could be relying on the 'Invisible hand' language of Theory of Moral Sentiments and not on the Wealth of Nations. I should add that I also have a suspicion, for reasons I cannot entirely defend, that Kant did not read enough of the Wealth of Nations to come across either the famous 'Invisible hand' passage in Book IV, chapter ii (famous by the nineteenth century, remember, not in 1785 or even 1795) or the extensive use of that mode of explanation in Books III and IV.
38. There are several other places in which Kant appears to use an 'Invisible hand' mode of explanation for social phenomena: Idea, p. 49 (Ak 25-6), Perpetual Peace, p. 108 (Ak 360-1), and Critique of Judgment (Ak 432-3 (§ 83)), for instance. I am not sure how reliable any of these are as indications of his reading the Wealth of Nations, in part because the teleology that runs all the way from the Appendix to the Dialectic in the first Critique to the end of the Critique of Judgment allows for such an approach to all of nature - and probably owes much more to Leibniz than to Smith - in part because Kant rarely uses language that sounds much like Smith and could have taken the idea for such a mode of explanation from a number of other sources, and in part because even if Smith is a source for these passages, Kant could be relying on the 'Invisible hand' language of Theory of Moral Sentiments and not on the Wealth of Nations. I should add that I also have a suspicion, for reasons I cannot entirely defend, that Kant did not read enough of the Wealth of Nations to come across either the famous 'Invisible hand' passage in Book IV, chapter ii (famous by the nineteenth century, remember, not in 1785 or even 1795) or the extensive use of that mode of explanation in Books III and IV.
39. There are several other places in which Kant appears to use an 'Invisible hand' mode of explanation for social phenomena: Idea, p. 49 (Ak 25-6), Perpetual Peace, p. 108 (Ak 360-1), and Critique of Judgment (Ak 432-3 (§ 83)), for instance. I am not sure how reliable any of these are as indications of his reading the Wealth of Nations, in part because the teleology that runs all the way from the Appendix to the Dialectic in the first Critique to the end of the Critique of Judgment allows for such an approach to all of nature - and probably owes much more to Leibniz than to Smith - in part because Kant rarely uses language that sounds much like Smith and could have taken the idea for such a mode of explanation from a number of other sources, and in part because even if Smith is a source for these passages, Kant could be relying on the 'Invisible hand' language of Theory of Moral Sentiments and not on the Wealth of Nations. I should add that I also have a suspicion, for reasons I cannot entirely defend, that Kant did not read enough of the Wealth of Nations to come across either the famous 'Invisible hand' passage in Book IV, chapter ii (famous by the nineteenth century, remember, not in 1785 or even 1795) or the extensive use of that mode of explanation in Books III and IV.
40. Kant's Political Writings, ed. Reiss, p. 46.
41. 'Wenn der Regent die Unterthanen unmündig macht; so sind sie unwillig. Dänemark hat daher nicht gut gethan, daß es die Kleiderordnung eingeführt hat. Smith im Buch vom Nationalcharakter sagt eben das' (Ak xv, p. 822).
42. He now, however, agrees with my attribution, although rightly adds that the concern, specifically, with Danish sumptuary ordinances must come from another source.
43. 'staatsoberhäupter nennen sich Landesväter, weil sie es besser als ihre Unterthanen verstehen, wie diese glücklich zu machen sind; das Volk aber ist seines eigenen Besten wegen zu einer beständigen Unmündigkeit verurtheilt, und wenn Adam Smith von jenen ungebührlicherweise sagt: sie wären selbst ohne Ausnahme unter allen die größten Verschwender, so wird er doch durch die in manchen Ländern ergangenen (weisen!) Aufwandgesetze kräftig widerlegt.' (VII.209) Translation by Mary Gregor, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (The Hague, 1974), p. 80. For more straightforward condemnations of political paternalism in Kant, see text to notes 65 and 67, below.
44. 'Der Bürger kann sich nicht weigern, die ihm auferlegten Abgaben zu leisten; sogar kann ein vorwitziger Tadel solcher Auflagen, wenn sie von ihm geleistet werden sollen, als ein Skandal (das allgemeine Widersetzlichkeiten veranlassen könnte) bestraft werden. Eben derselbe handelt demungeachtet der Pflicht eines Bürgers nicht entgegen, wenn er als Gelehrter wider der Unschicklichkeit oder auch Ungerechtigkeit solcher Ausschreibungen öffentlich seine Gedanken äusert.' (Ak VIII.38; translated in Kant's Political Writings, ed. Reiss, p. 56.)
45. The de Gruyter Sachenindex to Kant's work lists one previous mention of taxation: a fleeting reference to the fact that some African tribes support their beggars by public taxation. A passage from What is Enlightenment? just above the one previously quoted contains the only occurrence of the word 'Finanzrath'. Of the forty-eight appearances of the word 'Preis' in Kant's published writings - surely an index of economic discussions if anything is - 41 occur in works of 1784 or later.
46. Kant's Political Writings, ed. Reiss, pp. 229-31 (Ak VIII.118-20).
47. See note 27, above.
48. 'Es war kein übeler Einfall desjenigen, der zuerst den Gedanken faste un ihn zur öffentlichen Ausführung vorschug, den ganzen Inbegriff der Gelehrsamkeit . . . gleichsam fabrikenmässig, durch Vertheilung der Arbeiten, zu behandeln, wo, so sich es Fächer der Wissenschaften giebt, so viel öffentliche Lehrer, Professoren, als Depositeure derselben angestellt würden . . .' (Ak VII.2). Translation by Mary Gregor, The Conflict of the Faculties (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1979), p. 23.
49. He even cites, in a footnote to this passage, the anecdote from which the tag 'Laissez-faire' is said to have come - but this may be a misleading detail since Smith himself never uses that phrase.
50. Gregor, The Conflict of the Faculties, translator's introduction, p. xvi.
51. Ak VI.289.
52. Translation from The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge, 1991). (I include the original German in the main text of the main paper in this section for philological reasons that will become obvious in a moment.) That 'Industry' [Fleiß] is no casual interloper in this purported quotation comes out clearly if one compares Kant's own, similar definition of money, two pages earlier: 'The universal means by which men exchange their Fleiß with one another'.
53. '[As] Adam Smith says . . .: "they are themselves, without exception, the greatest spendthrifts of all"".' See above, note 25 and text.
54. Wealth of Nations, I.v.4-9.
55. Ibid., II.iii.36.
56. Ak 299. Translation in Kant 's Political Philosophy, ed. Reiss, p. 80n.
57. Ibid., pp. 75-6, 78, 79.
58. Ak 292, 293, 296. The last occurrence substitutes 'Vermögen' for 'Talent'.
59. The Conflict of the Faculties (1794) takes up the subject of 'Unmündigkeit' in educational policy, as we have seen, by means of an economic analogy; Perpetual Peace (1795) was to include Montesquievian hints of the importance of commerce to peace; the Rechtslehre (1797) contains extended discussions of property, contract, money and taxation.
60. The Conflict of the Faculties (1794) takes up the subject of 'Unmündigkeit' in educational policy, as we have seen, by means of an economic analogy; Perpetual Peace (1795) was to include Montesquievian hints of the importance of commerce to peace; the Rechtslehre (1797) contains extended discussions of property, contract, money and taxation.
61. The Conflict of the Faculties (1794) takes up the subject of 'Unmündigkeit' in educational policy, as we have seen, by means of an economic analogy; Perpetual Peace (1795) was to include Montesquievian hints of the importance of commerce to peace; the Rechtslehre (1797) contains extended discussions of property, contract, money and taxation.
62. Kant's Political Philosophy, ed. Reiss, p. 95.
63. Ibid., p. 151.
64. Wealth of Nations, V.iii.28.
65. Ibid., V.i.g.19. See also the whole of the chapter up to this point, on the 'Dangerous and troublesome' character that religious zeal can have.
66. 'Reason relates every maxim of the will . . . to every other will . . . from the idea of a dignity of a rational being who obeys no law except that which he also gives.'
67. 'The three aforementioned ways of presenting the principle of morality are fundamentally only so many formulas of the very same law . . .'.
68. Emphasis added. Consider also the earlier passage whose argument and language foreshadows much of this one (Ak 428). An objective or absolute end, he says there, is 'One for which no other end can be substituted'; by implication, an end of conditional or relative worth is precisely one for which something else could be substituted. Further on in the passage we have been examining, Kant says that 'Nature and art contain nothing which could replace' an object of intrinsic worth, again implying that relative worth belongs together with substitutability.
69. Compare Hayek, on what was new about marginalism: 'Ever since the medieval scholastic philosophers . . . it had been pointed out again and again that to possess value an object must be useful and scarce. But this idea was . . . never [followed through] to the point of realizing that what was relevant was not merely man's relation to a particular thing or a class of things but the position of the thing in the whole means-end structure - the whole scheme by which men decide how to allocate the resources at their disposal among their different endeavors. . . . What made [Menger's work] so effective was that the explanation of value it offered arose from an analysis of the conditions determining the distribution of scarce goods . . . [in] the "means-ends" structure.' Friedrich Hayek, 'The Austrian School', in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. David Sills (New York, 1968), article on 'Economic Thought', pp. 458-9. Kant, of course, says nothing about opportunity cost or even scarcity.
70. Samuel Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, ed. James Tully, trans. Michael Silverthorne (Cambridge, 1991), p. 93. The parallel to Kant's 'Affective price' is to be found in Pufendorf's 'sentimental value': 'Finally, a particular object, though not generally valuable, is sometimes of great value to an individual, because of a special sentiment about it. It may be, for example, that it comes to us from a person who means much to us and was given to express his feelings or that we have grown used to it; . . . or perhaps we made it ourselves. This is called sentimental value.' (pp. 94-5.) Pufendorf also says that price is normally set by the market, whose determination by supply and demand he analyses very well (p. 95). But for Pufendorf, unlike for Kant as well as Smith, the market comes as something of an afterthought, as only one means of estimating the value of material things, not as normally or even essentially constitutive of that value.
71. One might map these onto the 'Use value/exchange value' distinction, but the fact that Kant thinks he is dealing with one notion of 'Relative worth' suggest that he either intended to identify the two or was unaware that he should have distinguished them. I should also note that although Kant's analysis here has something in common with aspects of the natural law tradition, there are reasons to doubt his actual familiarity with the writings of earlier thinkers on economics. From 1767 to 1788, Kant repeatedly gave a course on natural law using Gottfried Achenwall's lus Naturae as a textbook, but he always began the course with Achenwall's Book II, skipping the opening section on Privatrecht entirely. He thus has barely any reflections on the nature of property, let alone value theory, price or money, in his comments on Achenwall (the word 'Price', as noted above, appears almost nowhere in his writings before the Groundwork). Indeed, not until sometime between 1776(!) and 1778 does he comment at all, in his course notes, on the short section of Achenwall's Book II concerning the sovereign's financial responsibilities towards the populace, and he offers his only extended comments on the section in his last version of the course, given sometime after 1784 (about the need to support the poor, anticipating, but with greater passion and humanity, section C of the General Comment on the sovereign's duties in the Rechtslehre). This suggests that his reading of Smith helped him attend to economics in his natural law lectures, more than that he acquired an independent interest in the subject from his natural law readings alone. The suggestion is borne out by the fact that Kant does not so much as mention the crucial problem, in natural law economics, of reconciling property rights with the poor's 'Right of subsistence'. Kant treats the subsistence of the poor, 'As a political right', solely vis-à-vis the state as a whole (morally, of course, individuals have obligations to help the poor, but Kant insists this may not be coerced), not as something that could even theoretically conflict with individuals' rights to property. In the light of Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff's stress on this issue in Grotius, Pufendorf, Locke and Smith (see the introductory essay to their collection Wealth and Virtue (Cambridge, 1983)), Kant's taking such a position without even bothering to refute the alternatives suggests complete ignorance of what those alternatives might be.
72. Wealth of Nations, IV.v.b.26.
73. Ibid., I.x.b.35.
74. Ibid., IV.i.1.
75. Ibid., .v.7.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid., I.v.4-5, 9.
78. Ibid., I.vii.20.
79. See, for instance, Joseph Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (New York, 1954), pp. 309-11.
80. Ak 428.
81. 'Fleiß und Geschicklichkeit in Arbeit haben einen Marktpreis' (my translation). Is there perhaps a remnant of a labour theory of value in Kant's claim that only 'Fleiß und Geschicklichkeit in Arbeit', and not 'Arbeit' itself, has a market price? The choice of 'Fleiß' for what we actually buy and sell of human labour is repeated in the Rechtslehre (see above, note 34), which makes it seem more than accidental. Perhaps labour itself is too close to the choosing capacity that for Kant defines humanity to be a valuable object rather than a source of value. Freedom and labour might be essentially linked. If so, Kant would be startlingly proto-Marxist (at least proto-Hegelian): our labour would have to be understood as essentially creative activity, essentially an expression of freedom.
82. As regards 'Natural price', at least, there is even a similarity in language. Smith describes natural price as an in itself indeterminable figure to which market price is 'Continually gravitating' (Wealth of Nations, I.vii.15 and 10). Hume first sets up Newton as his model for the kind of work he hopes to do, and then describes custom as 'An ultimate principle' which cannot be given a further reason but 'Which is well known by its effects' (Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Indianapolis, 1977), sect. I, pp. 8-9; sect. V, p. 28) - exactly how Newton described 'Gravity': '[H]itherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy . . . And to us it is enough that gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea.' (Newton, Principia, Motte's translation revised by Cajori (Berkeley, 1962), pp. 546-7.)
83. As regards 'Natural price', at least, there is even a similarity in language. Smith describes natural price as an in itself indeterminable figure to which market price is 'Continually gravitating' (Wealth of Nations, I.vii.15 and 10). Hume first sets up Newton as his model for the kind of work he hopes to do, and then describes custom as 'An ultimate principle' which cannot be given a further reason but 'Which is well known by its effects' (Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Indianapolis, 1977), sect. I, pp. 8-9; sect. V, p. 28) - exactly how Newton described 'Gravity': '[H]itherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy . . . And to us it is enough that gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea.' (Newton, Principia, Motte's translation revised by Cajori (Berkeley, 1962), pp. 546-7.)
84. As regards 'Natural price', at least, there is even a similarity in language. Smith describes natural price as an in itself indeterminable figure to which market price is 'Continually gravitating' (Wealth of Nations, I.vii.15 and 10). Hume first sets up Newton as his model for the kind of work he hopes to do, and then describes custom as 'An ultimate principle' which cannot be given a further reason but 'Which is well known by its effects' (Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Indianapolis, 1977), sect. I, pp. 8-9; sect. V, p. 28) - exactly how Newton described 'Gravity': '[H]itherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy . . . And to us it is enough that gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea.' (Newton, Principia, Motte's translation revised by Cajori (Berkeley, 1962), pp. 546-7.)
85. Those sympathetic to 'Naturalized epistemology' may well regard my discussion here as improperly using the word 'Ground'. Of course custom cannot justify causation, they may say, but it can explain causation and that is all that is needed (and presumably something similar can then go for labour value). There is no vicious circularity here, except in the minds of those who ask for more than what is possible. Hume showed that causation cannot be justified, but it can be given empirical 'Grounds' in the sense that any empirical fact can be given grounds - that is all we can legitimately ask for. For Kant, this is nonsense. Without grounds that justify there are no grounds at all; 'Ground' is necessarily a normative term. With regard to Hume specifically, what this means is that Chapter V of the Enquiry cannot answer the doubts of Chapter IV, if only because there is no more reason to think that what Hume says in Chapter V about psychological causal chains is true than that any other claim, about any other causal chain, is true. Those who find this unpersuasive are likely to side with Hume against Kant, but I do not think that what divides us, in that case, is a merely terminological dispute. Rather, the debate between naturalized epistemologists and their opponents recapitulates the Hume/Kant division of the eighteenth century - and the proper meaning of 'Ground' is one of the arenas in which that argument gets carried out. I am grateful to my colleague Steve Gerrard for raising this issue with me.
86. Groundwork, p. 54; Ak 436. Compare also the conclusion of what I take to be the parallel passage, earlier in the chapter: 'All objects of inclinations have only a conditional worth, for if the inclinations and the needs founded on them did not exist, their object would be without worth . . . For, without [rational beings], nothing of absolute worth could be found, and if all worth is conditional and thus contingent, no supreme practical principle for reason could ever be found.' (Ibid., p. 47; Ak 428.)
87. Groundwork, p. 54; Ak 436. Compare also the conclusion of what I take to be the parallel passage, earlier in the chapter: 'All objects of inclinations have only a conditional worth, for if the inclinations and the needs founded on them did not exist, their object would be without worth . . . For, without [rational beings], nothing of absolute worth could be found, and if all worth is conditional and thus contingent, no supreme practical principle for reason could ever be found.' (Ibid., p. 47; Ak 428.)
88. Reflexion 532 (from the 1780s), my translation. See also Reflexion 528-31, 1508-9.
89. Reflexion 532 (from the 1780s), my translation. See also Reflexion 528-31, 1508-9.
90. Anthropology Ak 209. The next line is the reference to Smith on sumptuary laws, discussed above. See note 25 and text thereto.
91. Theory and Practice, Ak pp. 290-1. Translated in Kant's Political Writings, ed. Reiss, p. 74.
92. Theory and Practice, Ak pp. 290-1. Translated in Kant's Political Writings, ed. Reiss, p. 74.
93. Both Kant's most misogynist and most feminist leanings can be found in this context. In Reflexion 528 and the Anthropology (Ak p. 209), his official doctrine is that women are naturally not mündig. But in both places he seems at the same time quite uncomfortable with this position, and tries to justify it by saying that women do, after all, have more than adequate abilities to make use of their Münder (a backhanded compliment indeed!), and thereby can in fact attain a certain independence in the domestic context. Reflexion 1508 lists the Unmündigkeit of gender in a series along with the Unmündigkeit established by academia and politics, and we know, from other contexts, that he disapproves of the latter two. At the end of Reflexion 528, he suggests that a period of Unmündigkeit, and even slavery, may be good for people in some contexts, 'But all these evils must still have an end sometime, and philosophy, if it is to have a role here, must give the principles'. The overall current of Kant's thought, especially in Reflexion 528 itself, would include gender-based Unmündigkeit among 'All these evils', even if Kant never quite had the courage or foresight to do so himself.
94. Both Kant's most misogynist and most feminist leanings can be found in this context. In Reflexion 528 and the Anthropology (Ak p. 209), his official doctrine is that women are naturally not mündig. But in both places he seems at the same time quite uncomfortable with this position, and tries to justify it by saying that women do, after all, have more than adequate abilities to make use of their Münder (a backhanded compliment indeed!), and thereby can in fact attain a certain independence in the domestic context. Reflexion 1508 lists the Unmündigkeit of gender in a series along with the Unmündigkeit established by academia and politics, and we know, from other contexts, that he disapproves of the latter two. At the end of Reflexion 528, he suggests that a period of Unmündigkeit, and even slavery, may be good for people in some contexts, 'But all these evils must still have an end sometime, and philosophy, if it is to have a role here, must give the principles'. The overall current of Kant's thought, especially in Reflexion 528 itself, would include gender-based Unmündigkeit among 'All these evils', even if Kant never quite had the courage or foresight to do so himself.
95. Both Kant's most misogynist and most feminist leanings can be found in this context. In Reflexion 528 and the Anthropology (Ak p. 209), his official doctrine is that women are naturally not mündig. But in both places he seems at the same time quite uncomfortable with this position, and tries to justify it by saying that women do, after all, have more than adequate abilities to make use of their Münder (a backhanded compliment indeed!), and thereby can in fact attain a certain independence in the domestic context. Reflexion 1508 lists the Unmündigkeit of gender in a series along with the Unmündigkeit established by academia and politics, and we know, from other contexts, that he disapproves of the latter two. At the end of Reflexion 528, he suggests that a period of Unmündigkeit, and even slavery, may be good for people in some contexts, 'But all these evils must still have an end sometime, and philosophy, if it is to have a role here, must give the principles'. The overall current of Kant's thought, especially in Reflexion 528 itself, would include gender-based Unmündigkeit among 'All these evils', even if Kant never quite had the courage or foresight to do so himself.
96. What is Enlightenment?, p. 55 (Ak 37).
97. Perpetual Peace, p. 126 (Ak 381). See also p. 130.
98. 'Thus freedom of the pen is the only safeguard of the rights of the people.' Theory and Practice, in Kant's Political Writings, ed. Reiss, p. 85 (Ak 304). See also pp. 84-6.
99. Even Onora O'Neill's excellent 'The Public Use of Freedom' (Political Theory, Vol. 14 (1986)), seems insufficiently impressed by the tension between Kant's account of transcendental freedom and the empirical processes by which he claims we actually achieve freedom. There are not many other scholarly studies of 'What is Enlightenment?', and those I have found focus only on the political role and structure of Kant's call for free expression, not its philosophical basis or implications: see, for instance, Dick Howard, The Politics of Critique (Minneapolis, 1988), pp. 11-12; and Allen Rosen, Kant's Theory of Justice (Ithaca, 1993), pp. 18-19, 137-8.
100. Even Onora O'Neill's excellent 'The Public Use of Freedom' (Political Theory, Vol. 14 (1986)), seems insufficiently impressed by the tension between Kant's account of transcendental freedom and the empirical processes by which he claims we actually achieve freedom. There are not many other scholarly studies of 'What is Enlightenment?', and those I have found focus only on the political role and structure of Kant's call for free expression, not its philosophical basis or implications: see, for instance, Dick Howard, The Politics of Critique (Minneapolis, 1988), pp. 11-12; and Allen Rosen, Kant's Theory of Justice (Ithaca, 1993), pp. 18-19, 137-8.
101. Even Onora O'Neill's excellent 'The Public Use of Freedom' (Political Theory, Vol. 14 (1986)), seems insufficiently impressed by the tension between Kant's account of transcendental freedom and the empirical processes by which he claims we actually achieve freedom. There are not many other scholarly studies of 'What is Enlightenment?', and those I have found focus only on the political role and structure of Kant's call for free expression, not its philosophical basis or implications: see, for instance, Dick Howard, The Politics of Critique (Minneapolis, 1988), pp. 11-12; and Allen Rosen, Kant's Theory of Justice (Ithaca, 1993), pp. 18-19, 137-8.
102. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York, 1993), p. 222n.
103. In the Third Antinomy of the Critique of Pure Reason, and throughout the Analytic of the Critique of Practical Reason, especially in the Typic, where we see ourselves as if we were to create an entire natural order by our wills, and when he suggests that our personality 'Has under it the entire world of sense,
104. Critique of Practical Reason, Ak 94-9.
105. Metaphysics of Morals, p. 56 (Ak 231).
106. Kant's Political Writings, ed. Reiss, pp. 44-5.
107. Hayek's name is a red rag for a wide range of people on the centre-left of the contemporary political spectrum. As my discussion in the ensuing paragraphs will indicate, I certainly do not mean to endorse the unconcern for the poor associated with many of the political figures who have admired Hayek in recent years. But it is a little unfair to attribute such unconcern to Hayek himself, and very unfair to see him simply as a political commentator - or even as just an economist. Hayek was a fine intellectual historian, whose contribution to the understanding of Smith and the other Scots is only beginning to be appreciated. When I invoke him here, I mean to support his recognition that the central point in Smith is both a descriptive and a normative one, his understanding of what that point is - that markets and other 'spontaneous orders' evolve naturally in human societies, and that it is a set of cognitive, rather than motivational, limitations on human beings that make reliance on such orders preferable to central planning - along with his acknowledgment that very general principles, such as Kant's moral rules or Rawls' political ones, can cohere with this conception of free institutions very nicely. See Hayek, Constitution of Liberty (Chicago, 1960), pp. 30-70, and Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. I: Rules and Order (Chicago, 1973), Chs. 1-3.
108. Hayek's name is a red rag for a wide range of people on the centre-left of the contemporary political spectrum. As my discussion in the ensuing paragraphs will indicate, I certainly do not mean to endorse the unconcern for the poor associated with many of the political figures who have admired Hayek in recent years. But it is a little unfair to attribute such unconcern to Hayek himself, and very unfair to see him simply as a political commentator - or even as just an economist. Hayek was a fine intellectual historian, whose contribution to the understanding of Smith and the other Scots is only beginning to be appreciated. When I invoke him here, I mean to support his recognition that the central point in Smith is both a descriptive and a normative one, his understanding of what that point is - that markets and other 'spontaneous orders' evolve naturally in human societies, and that it is a set of cognitive, rather than motivational, limitations on human beings that make reliance on such orders preferable to central planning - along with his acknowledgment that very general principles, such as Kant's moral rules or Rawls' political ones, can cohere with this conception of free institutions very nicely. See Hayek, Constitution of Liberty (Chicago, 1960), pp. 30-70, and Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. I: Rules and Order (Chicago, 1973), Chs. 1-3.
109. I am indebted to Nicholas Kolodny for research assistance, and to Steve Gerrard, Gary Jacobsohn, Chris Bobonich, A.J.M. Milne, an anonymous reviewer for History of Political Thought, and Jeff Weintraub for useful comments on earlier drafts. Professor Weintraub, especially, read many drafts and provided exhaustive and extremely helpful criticism.