Can a Philosophy of Race Afford to Abandon the Kantian ...

30 Arnold Farrstand a text is to read it in context. Hence, if the Grounding is read within thecontext of the critical philosophy, the tools for a deconstruction of the text areprovided by its context and the tensions within the text.Gates is right to suggest that the Grounding must be deconstructed.However, this deconstruction requires much more than reading the Observationson the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime against the Grounding. It requiresa complete engagement with the critical philosophy. Such an engagementdiscloses some of Kant’s very significant claims about humanity and thepractical role of reason. With this disclosure, deconstruction of the Groundingcan begin. What deconstruction will reveal is not necessarily the inconsistencyof Kant’s moral philosophy or the racist or sexist nature of the categoricalimperative, but rather, it will disclose the disunity between Kant’s theoryand his own feelings about blacks and women. Although the theory is consistentand emancipatory and should apply to all persons, Kant the man hashis own personal and moral problems. Although Kant’s attitude towardpeople of African descent was deplorable, it would be equally deplorable toreject the categorical imperative without first exploring its emancipatorypotential.Notes1 I follow Seyla Benhabib (who draws on Marx) in pointing out this distinction between“critique” and “criticism.” She writes: “Critique refuses to stand outside its object andinstead juxtaposes the immanent, normative self-understanding of its object to thematerial actuality of the object. Criticism privileges an Archimedian standpoint, be itfreedom, or reason and proceeds to show the unfreedom or unreasonableness of theworld when measured against this ideal paradigm” (Critique Norm and Utopia: A Studyof the Foundations of Critical Theory, New York: Columbia University Press, 1986, 33). Mypurpose in evoking this distinction here is to show that many critics of Kant rejectKant’s moral theory on the basis of an external critique or criticism. However, such aprocedure fails to do justice to the theory and leads to an unnecessary dismissal of thecategorical imperative. This problematic rejection of Kant’s highest moral principle isexacerbated by the fact that there is textual evidence that Kant was a racist and sexist.However, a critique gives us the grounds for rejecting Kant’s racism and sexism whilepreserving what I take to be Kant’s indispensable contribution to moral theory and anyemancipatory philosophy.2 Victor Anderson, Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay on African American Religious andCultural Criticism (New York: Continuum, 1995), 51.3 Anderson’s use of the term “species logic” is a bit confusing but need not be. The term“species” can be used to distinguish the human species from other species, and it canbe used to distinguish types within a species. Anderson makes use of the latter functionof the term. However, in racist literature there is a blurring of these two functionsof the term. One may argue that it is to this blurring of the functions of the term“species” that the term “species logic” applies. That is, although the human race is aparticular species, in racist literature there is a hiearchy within the species that almostaccounts for a plurality of species types within a species. Hence, there is the morehuman and the less human.4 Ibid., 51–52.5 Ibid., 52.6 See chapter 2 of Tzvetan Todorov’s On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticismin French Thought, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge/London: Harvard UniversityPress, 1994).