Some of the worst things Kant says about women are found in the
_Anthropology_ and in the _Observations on the Feeling of the
Beautiful and Sublime_:
"Nature was concerned about the preservation of the embryo and
implanted fear into the woman's character, a fear of physical injury
and a timidity towards similar dangers. On the basis of this
weakness, the woman legitimately asks for masculine protection"
(Anthropology from a Practical Point of View, trans. Victor Lyle
Dowell (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), 219).
"[Scholarly women] use their books somewhat like a watch, that is,
they wear the watch so it can be noticed that they have one, although
it is usually broken or does not show the correct time" (A 221).
(I've been considering making a tshirt with this one on it!)
"[A] woman makes no secret in wishing that she might rather be a man,
so that she could give larger and freer latitude to her inclinations;
no man, however, would want to be a woman" (A 222).
"A woman who has a head full of Greek, like Mme. Dacier, or carries on
fundamental controversies about mechanics, like the Marquise du
Châtelet, might as well even have a beard, for perhaps that would
express more obviously the mien of profundity for which she strives"
(Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, trans John
T. Goldwait (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1960), sect. 3, p. 78).
"[Women's philosophy is] not to reason, but to sense. … I hardly
believe that the fairer sex is capable of principles" (O 132-33).
(Tempering this somewhat, Marcia Baron points out that Kant adds to
this claim that "these are also extremely rare in the male" (O 231).)
The only place that I'm aware of where explicit misogyny creeps into
the central works of Kant's practical philosophy is in a passage from
the _Doctrine of Right_, where he claims that women (along with anyone
who is "an apprentice in the service of a merchant or artisan; a
domestic servant (as distinguished from a civil servant); [or] a
minor" (DR 6:314-315)) "lack civil personality"—they lack both the
ability and the right to participate in civil society, and are thus
"passive citizens" who are "mere underlings of the commonwealth
because they have to be under the direction or protection of other
individuals, and so do not possess civil independence" (DR 6:314). (I
think it's worth noting that Kant goes on to insist, in this same
passage, that laws must never be passed that are "contrary to the
natural laws of freedom and of the equality of everyone in the people
corresponding to this freedom, namely that anyone can work his way up
from this passive condition to an active one" (DR 6:315). Even while
he (inexcusably) endorsed some of the most despicable social norms and
institutions of his time, Kant recognized that the tenets of his
theory committed him to the view that people are fundamentally equal
and deserve to be treated as such.)
Some great feminist defenses of Kant include:
Marcia Baron, "Kantian Ethics and Claims of Detachment," Feminist
Interpretations of Kant, Feminist Interpretations of Kant, ed. Robin
May Schott (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1997); Lara Denis, "Kant's Ethical Duties and their Feminist
Implications," Feminist Moral Philosophy: Canadian Journal of
Philosophy Supplementary 28 (2002): 157-187; Jean Hampton,
"Selflessness and the Loss of Self," Social Philosophy and Policy 10
(1993): 135-65, and "Feminist Contractarianism" in A Mind of One's
Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity, eds. Louise M. Antony
and Charlotte Witt (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993); Barbara Herman,
"Could it be Worth Thinking about Kant on Sex and Marriage?" in a Mind
of One's Own, cited above; and Herta Nagl-Docekal, "Feminist Ethics:
How It Could Benefit from Kant's Moral Philosophy," trans. Stephanie
Morgenstern, in Feminist Interpretations of Kant, ed. Robin May Schott
(University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).
Carol.
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Carol Hay
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