Autonomy, dignity and history in Caranti’s Kant’s political legacy

Abstract

In this paper I discuss some relevant theses of Caranti’s Kant’s Political Legacy, whose aim is to provide a consistent account of how we could develop Kant’s political thought and see to what extent Kant’s insights can help us to critically understand the 21st century’s political world. First, I will focus on autonomy as the ground of dignity and discuss Caranti’s arguments against the exclusiveness of the Categorical Imperative as the sole principle of true moral agency. Second, I will take into account Caranti’s views on history and consider whether human rational nature can be regarded as containing teleological - though non-biological - elements, thereby questioning Caranti’s Separability Thesis.

Keywords

• Autonomy
• dignity
• moral agency
• teleology
• history
• human nature