In His Essay 'on Perpetual Peace' Kant Makes An Interesting... part 2 Essay - 4,217 words

... with man's natural need for a society, that is with man as an essentially social being. From a social point of view this sensus communis is the beginning of civilization. For in society man does not want to be just man, but a fine man in his way. Becoming a fine man means that someone has to give himself a good shape. By style man is presenting himself, he presents his particularity, he says 'this is me' and at the same time he transcends this particularity by making himself communicable to others.


Here the fact that the judgment of taste immediately combines the general and the particular reveals its social relevance. This social relevance is not merely superficial. Kant's idea of the 'fine man' has its origin in 18th century Rococo civilization. But like Mozart he gives this civilization a dimension of depth. Giving himself a style man transcends his given biological nature. By making himself communicable, that is by becoming social, man transcends himself. Sensus communis is therefore a theory that states that man's transcendence over his biological nature and his sociability coincide. In one and the same act man transcends his biological nature and socializes. That is the meaning of the statement that in society man does not want to be just a man, but a fine man! He becomes a 'fine' man by taking into account the general communication with everybody.


By cultivating the particularity of his feelings, by styling himself, by making himself communicable, he realizes human universality in himself. The universality of humanity happens in communicability! Therefore it seems, according to Kant, that this communication is dictated by humanity itself as an 'original contract'. We will come back to this very important expression. The coincidence of transcendence and sociability in communication, this contract manifests itself on a very basic level as the origin of civilization as such and Kant turns out to be a very interesting cultural anthropologist. Basic culture starts with using stimuli for communication like the colours with which one can paint one's body as, in primitive cultures, the Iroquois or the Carib do. One can use flowers, shells and feathers too.


Then higher forms emerge that transcend the level of stimuli: dresses that are important in society and which are valued very much. Perhaps Kant is thinking of ceremonial dresses. With these the basic forms of nonverbal, nonconceptual communication culture develop itself. Progress in culture is progress in communication. This is the sensus communis as the basis of society. Kant once described man's nature as unsocial sociality.


Man wants to be a social being, he looks for togetherness, but this togetherness is always crossed by his unsocial inclinations, his need for competition, in short his antagonistic side through society becomes a fully developed society. By this antagonism man is driven out of his laziness, so forces him to develop his talents, civilization, art and taste and hence he will use his moral capacity to establish practical?moral principles: 'and thus a pathological enforced social union is transformed into a moral whole' . This moral whole is a society based on a social contract, by which man's tendency to realize his freedom at the cost of others is transformed into the will of everybody to make the realization of everybody's freedom possible by giving up a part of it. Now we can understand why Kant spoke of the sensus communis as a kind of original contract. The sensus communis represents the social side of man's unsocial sociability. The idea of society as a social contract suggests that this moral whole has to be dictated him by force.


His nature says 'no' to what his morality prescribes him. Sensus communis says that his nature itself is characerized by communicability as a kind of social contract, so that a morally organized society is based on a deeper tendency towards togetherness. So society is based not only on man's egoism, but also on man's social nature. There is a kind of original peaceful togetherness, an original 'yes' to each other that is the basis of all civilization. We can say that the sensus communis is a principle of culture or civilization as such, wherever and whenever. It does not give a clue for understanding differences in culture. Kant speaks of a feeling of humanity as such before all differences and unmediated by specificity. That is typical for sensus communis as an aesthetic feeling.


Before we can evaluate the intercultural value of this concept, we have to tackle one more problem. Specific cultures in the contemporary sense of the word are considered to be determined by a specific ethos. Kant's theory of sensus communis as a kind of definition of culture is not complete without a reflection on the relation to morality. What is this relation? In the context of taste, being social is being civilized, but both are not the same as being moral. Civilization is only a preparation for morality, certainly not identical with it. Therefore Kant distinguishes between an empirical, social interest in taste and a moral interest in his Critique of Judgment. The moral interest seems to advocate the cultivation of Rousseau's feeling of loneliness and Aristotle's idea of autarchy. But the connection between taste and morality is laid in his Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view.


There we find sociability ('gesittet sein') and morality ( 'das sittlich Gute', or 'das Moralische') related to each other in an new way. There we find also interesting remarks about differences between the nations. 3.Sensus communis and culture In his Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view Kant discusses the cultivation of taste, communicability, as a moral duty. In taste man has a receptivity ('Empfanglichkeit' for other people) to enjoy things together. In trying to please and in being receptive for the praise of other people man enjoys togetherness. Because this experience is something universally human, based on taste as his reasonable inner voice, the cultivation of taste is a moral duty. Man is obliged to cultivate his receptivity for other people.


Cultivation of taste makes man civilized and therefore apt for his position in society. Cultivation of taste first means the promotion of moral ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: kant, morality, civilization, social contract, taste

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