Kant’s Mature Cosmopolitanism in the Anthropocene

Lisa Ellis (University of Otago)

I would like to draw your attention to the following online philosophy seminar series, hosting by the Center for International Philosophy at Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai this semester.

On April 14th, 8am China Standard Time, Lisa Ellis (Otago) will be presenting a talk titled "Kant’s Mature Cosmopolitanism in the Anthropocene."   The respondent is YIN Shoufu (University of British Columbia).

Attendance is free. 

Please register for the event by sending an email to:

[email protected]

for the Zoom link and password. 

Abstract: Among political philosophers, Kant is known for a social contract theory that features the imperative to submit to the rule of law, administered by a state. The pure statist reading of Kant’s political philosophy emerges naturally from the following two ideas: first, for Kant the only innate right is to freedom from determination by another’s will; and, second, as dwellers on the surface of a watery globe, we cannot avoid affecting one another (for example, when we claim some property as our own, we are expecting everyone else to respect that). From these two ideas it follows that the only way to avoid wronging each other all the time--by imposing unilateral determinations on them--would be for everyone to submit to what Kant calls omnilateral determination in the civil condition, that is, to the rule of law. However, despite its clear attractions, the exclusively statist reading encounters difficulties both within Kant’s corpus and outside it. As early as 1784, Kant worried about the injustice of efforts to constrain the choices of future people; by 1797, his worries have multiplied, including problems of colonial injustice, the shortcomings of global concentration of power, and relations among pastoralists and more settled peoples. Following recent promising trends in the interpretation of the Metaphysics of Morals, I read Kant’s mature cosmopolitanism as demanding accountability among people whose actions affect each other, even when they cannot share a civil condition (and, especially, across generations). Humanity under Anthropocene conditions constrains the freedom of future generations in much the same way that the would-be intergenerationally tyrannical church synod criticised by Kant in 1784 sought to constrain the freedom of future generations to inquire into the truth of their religious commitments. Early social contract theory aimed to resolve problems of coordination and legitimacy for humans whose decisions were much less broadly consequential than our decisions today. I argue that Kant’s mature cosmopolitan social contract theory suits our Anthropocene circumstances, clarifying our obligations to one another while offering orientation for individuals and groups seeking principled courses of action as members of a species which has (among other things) already permanently altered the geological record.

Bio: Lisa Ellis is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Otago. Her current project, “the politics of planetary boundaries,” investigates how we can make environmental policy decisions that serve our interests in flourishing now and in the future. She has also written about the political philosophy of Immanuel Kant, social contract theory, Thomas Hobbes’s political theory, just transitions, climate adaptation, biodiversity management, the collective ethics of flying, and many other topics.

The meeting time is the 14th of April, 8am China Standard Time [12am GMT, April 14th]

Meeting time in other timezones:

- 10am Australian Eastern Standard Time

- 12pm New Zealand Standard Time

- 1am, British Standard Time - 5pm the previous day, Pacific Daylight Time