Philosophy
Immanuel Kant’s enlightenment and Smith’s capitalism
Kant defined enlightenment as man’s “emergence from his self-imposed immaturity; the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from other”. Kant treated guidance as an inherent obstacle which kills man’s courage and limits their freedom to engage in intellectual discourse through reasoning. As a result of having guidance, man replaces his active responsibility with passive obedience to an authority, thus immaturity is self-imposed dependence on others. It is laziness and cowardice which create conditions to surrender one’s freedom and self-responsibility to an authority to escape from the burden of responsibilities. The heart of his argument is freedom and reason, which he believed lead to a civilized society of highest form. Thus he rejected institutional norms and standards as form of guidance such as priest and ruler which he argued keep humanity in a state akin to permanent childhood. In his writing, Kant portrayed the fundamental and enduring conflict between authority and reason in politics. He acknowledged reason as fundamental to enhance political life and believe that the way to improve political life is through public reason, which comes from freedom. At the same time, Kant’s notion of freedom to use public reason is narrowly defined and limited scope extends only scholars and excludes the participation of general public. As he posited, “Nothing is required for this enlightenment, however, except freedom; and freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matter”. Here he refer harmless to refute authorities’ concern regarding the danger of reason to politics. In this regard, he seems taking the road of Plato’s Philosopher King as the way to achieve a best political life.
Kant argued that morality comes from reasoning and it is how individuals judge their actions in terms of right and wrong. Through reasoning, he argued, the universally accepted morality can be established or will be emerged. The failures of set institutional norms and treaties among nations to prevent wars and conflicts in modern history gives credit to Kant’s claim about the institutional drawbacks and weaknesses. Particularly, the weakness of the U.N and its inability to foster peace and bridge differences. The United States’ rejection of the Security Council opposition to its war against Iraq further call into question the strength of contracts and binding treaties of the U.N.
Smith’s market theory of capitalism shares a great length of similarities with Kant’s theory of enlightenment, both in terms of principles and practices. Given the fundamental nature of human beings as being rational and capable of reason, Smith argued that the market performs its best when free from institutional constraints (mostly political interferences). His famous theory of the “invisible hands” of market is operated under the principles of freedom and reasoning and rejects regulation of any form, which he viewed as unfortunate constraints to the progress and development of civilized society. Smith’s criticism of the socialist central planning system and mercantilist state centric approaches stems from fundamental limitations and constraints impose upon the market and its ability to operate itself freely under the gravity of individual rationality.
Given the ups and downs of capitalism in contemporary modern history, I would argue that Kant’s ideology of freedom and reason is facing a moral and ethical dilemma in contemporary modern society. Capitalism’s has succeeded in breaking the wall of national borders and integrating the market and human society to a degree which humanity has never observed before. Many liberal thinkers argue that capitalism will finally bring peace through social integration and cooperation. However the moral hazards of self-centered human activities pose new dilemmas, such as a rising gap between rich and poor, the exploitation of natural resources and unending human conflicts, which questions the legitimacy of Kant’s belief in man’s ability to reason. The recent economic crisis further overshadows the fate of capitalism with increasing criticism and objections. The obsession toward individuality and self-centered attitudes often injures the common good and leads to tragedy of common. As Heiner Bielefeld argued, “liberalism seems to constitute a bourgeois ideology of ”possessive individualism” rather than the joint project of citizens who share some political convictions as the basis of a strong participatory democracy”.
There is no doubt of man’s courage to exercise his will and purse self-interest in the absence of constraints, but there is looming doubt in man’s ability to reason, particularly the morality of man. For example, the failing agreement on the concept of “universal human rights” is a clear test of Kant’s theory of morality and reason. It is widely recognized that the force of universal human rights has emerged from the expansion of liberalism. If liberalism is operated under invisible hands of individual reasoning, why have so-called ”universal human rights” failed to become a universally accepted moral standard or norm. The rejection of universal human rights on the grounds of Western capitalist imperialism by Asian leaders constitutes a paradox reasoning. This is because of the fact that Kant treats individual uniformly like machines. He ignored and largely disregard the existence of fundamental differences among the people and their different capacities and ways of reasoning.
