This paper analyzes the ethical-political dilemma in Kant’s work, sometimes expressed through the metaphor of the “crooked wood of humanity.” Kant separates external and internal freedom and the types of legislation each form of freedom requires (coercive and noncoercive). Yet, he also argues that corrupt political institutions adversely affect individual ethical development, and, reciprocally, corrupt inner dispositions of a populace adversely affect the establishment of just political institutions. I argue that a major way in which Kant addresses this vicious circle (...) is through ethical institutions, that is, noncoercive public resources for articulating and disseminating the principles of the moral law. I discuss the idea of an ethico-civil society or ethical community formulated in the Religion as an ideal model for ethical institutions mediating the ethical and the legal-political in a noncoercive, progressive manner. (shrink)

In this Critical Review I mainly discuss two predominant features of Christopher J. Insole’s _Kant and the Divine_. The first concerns his argument that Kant distances himself philosophically from Christianity. Insole argues against the “theologically affirmative” readers of Kant who want the critical philosophy to affirm traditional Christian beliefs. He rightly focusses on autonomy as fundamental to Kant’s approach to both ethics and religion, and contrasts this with the main figures of both Catholic and Protestant forms of Christianity. The second (...) issue concerns the alternate ‘theology’ or philosophical religiosity Insole discerns in Kant’s work, focusing on practical reason. He argues that this approach to religion is as much Platonic as Christian. He claims that dwelling in a type of rational plenitude offered by the will that is good in itself is the aim of Kant’s ethical religiosity. Insole highlights Kant’s brief references to a “proper self” in the _Groundwork_ as expressing this self-contained plenitude. There is a tendency here to disconnect questions of theology from historical and social life. By contrast, I argue that for Kant, knowledge of the moral law and developing a good will are essential steps in rectifying our “life conduct,” and that both Kantian ethics and philosophy of religion are deeply invested in how we conduct our lives in relation to others. (shrink)