Kant's Theory of Labour

This Element examines Kant's innovative account of labour in his political philosophy and develops an intersectional analysis of Kant.

Jordan Pascoe (Author)

9781009165747, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 September 2022

75 pages
22.8 x 15 x 0.5 cm, 0.13 kg

This Element examines Kant's innovative account of labour in his political philosophy and develops an intersectional analysis of Kant. By demonstrating that Kant's analysis of slavery, citizenship, and sex developed in inter-linked ways over several decades, culminating in his development of a 'trichotomy' of Right, the author shows that Kant's normative account of independence is configured through his theory of labour, and is continuous with his anthropological accounts of race and gender, providing a systemic justification for the dependency of women and non-whites embedded in his philosophy of right. By examining Kant's arguments about slavery as intertwined with his account of domestic labour, the author argues that his ultimate rejection of slavery may owe more to his changing conceptualization of labour than to his theory of race, and that his final arguments against slavery rehearse strategies for embedding intersectional patterns of domestic dependence in his account of the rightful state.

1. Could It Be Worth Thinking About Kant on Labour?
2. Kant's Theory of Labour
3. 'A New Star': Kant's 'Trichotomy' Argument
4. Of Sex and Slavery: The Development of Domestic Right
5. Labour, Leisure, and Laziness: A Kantian Taxonomy of Entitlement
6. Kantian Reconstruction: Slavery, Abolition, and Poverty Relief
7. The Problem of Kantian Intersectionality
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Sociology: work & labour [JHBL], Feminism & feminist theory [JFFK], Western philosophy: Enlightenment [HPCD1]