Kant, Objectification and Feminism

In a further response to the piece mentioned a couple of postings ago that denigrated Kant on the basis of some "bad arguments" he makes in a few places, not least with regard to matters sexual, it is worth pointing out how widespread the references to Kantian analysis are in feminist writing. See, for example, the article in the Stanford Encyclopedia on Feminist Perspectives on Objectification, a piece that makes clear how often views drawn from Kant's accounts of sex are implicitly and explicitly made use of in contemporary feminist philosophy. The fact that such use can be made of Kant's analysis of sex suggests that this analysis is less subject to being only seen as a cause of contemporary condemnation than might have been thought by anyone who only focused on Kant's views on masturbation and homosexuality.


In fact, the situation is even more complicated than this since it is partly elements of what might be problematic in some of Kant's points that also show how valuable his analysis is. So, the author of the Stanford article doesn't make explicit that the "Kantian" analysis in much contemporary feminist philosophy is itself partially traceable to the same line of thought as underlies Kant's negative view of masturbation. Take the following passage from the Doctrine of Virtue for example: "Lust is called unnatural if one is aroused to it not by a real object but by his imagining it, so that he himself creates one, contrapurposively" (Ak. 6: 424-5). This argument finds the problem with unnatural lust to reside in preferring an imaginary object to a real one. Compare the analyses of pornography by such writers as Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnon and one will find the allure of Kant's analysis resides precisely in a point of this kind. So, whilst this point may well not persuade many now to adopt the attitude towards masturbation in particular that Kant argues for, the manner of his argument might nonetheless be part of a motivation for a case that indicates the contemporary relevance of the form of the argument. And, after all, it is the form of the argument (in relation to the comprehension of ultimate Kantian principles) that is most of interest.


Again, Kant's general problems with sexuality itself reside in areas that have clear parallels with contemporary feminist analysis of much that is taken to be problematic about heterosexual conduct. In Kant's suggestion that sexuality involves a kind of "objectification" for example, something that he views as grounded in treating the other only as a thing so that moral relations between persons cease and the other is, effectively, no longer seen as a person at all. The motivation of his argument in favour of marriage is to ensure that a protection is given by it to each person through a mutual adoption of a position: "while one person is acquired by another as if it were a thing, the one who is acquired acquires the other in turn; for in this way each reclaims itself and restores its personality" (Ak. 6: 278). Mutual relation of possessive acquisition enables reclamation of personality by nullifying the one-sided and obsessive claim on the other's body. By means of the rules that are at work in the contract that is marriage there is a means to escape the condition of objectification, a means that requires, however, a mutual recognition in the contract itself. In some respects the idea of this undercuts other elements of Kant's account since, on the basis of the mutual recognition alone, there is no serious ground for treating women in the marriage relation differentially to men.


The suggestion that marriage as it exists embodies in an obvious sense Kant's notion as expressed in the above citation would be as foolhardy as viewing existent states as expressive in a comprehensive way of the notion of Kant's state of right. However, just as the imperfection of these states does not prevent it from being possible to see the existence of them as part of the move towards the state of right so the existence of marriages whilst not a sufficient guarantee of mutual recognition may well be a necessary ground for its emergence. And that claim, after all, might well be thought not to be one of Kant's "bad" arguments.