What is Orientation in Global Thinking?
A Kantian Inquiry

Uses Kant's philosophical method to show how global justice theories depend on acknowledgement of the intelligibility of contextually alien thought.

Katrin Flikschuh (Author)

9781107003811, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 October 2017

262 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.9 cm, 0.5 kg

Starting from Kant's striking question 'What is orientation in thinking?', this book argues that the main challenge facing global normative theorising lies in its failure to acknowledge its conceptual inadequacies. We do not know how to reason globally; instead, we tend to apply our domestic political experiences to the global context. Katrin Flikschuh argues that we must develop a form of global reasoning that is sensitive to the variability of contexts: rather than trying to identify a uniquely shareable set of substantive principles, we need to appreciate and understand local reasons for action. Her original and incisive study shows how such reasoning can benefit from the open-ended nature of Kant's systematic but non-dogmatic philosophical thinking, and from reorientation from a domestic to a non-domestic frame of thought. It will appeal to all those interested in global moral issues, as well as to Kant scholars.

1. Conceptual loss in global political thinking
2. On the moral necessity of states
3. Non-individualist 'innate right'
4. Re-orienting normative global thinking
5. Progress without history
6. Human rights for ancestors?
7. The state as a failed universal
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Social & political philosophy [HPS], Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD], Philosophy [HP]