"Commerce and colonialism in Kant's philosophy of history" in Kant and Colonialism: Historical and Critical Perspectives, ed. K. Flikschuh and L. Ypi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) (original) (raw)

This chapter examines the relation between colonialism and commerce in Kant’s philosophy, linking his thought on these issues to the teleology that developed from his 1784 essay on universal history to the Critique of Judgment and later political writings. Starting by discussing the place of race and commerce in Kant’s earlier political writings, and linking it to the account of germs and dispositions in his philosophy of biology, the chapter illustrates how Kant’s thought moves from a positive evaluation of the contribution of the commercial spirit to the development of moral dispositions to one of increasing scepticism towards the unregulated expansion of trade and subsequent colonialism. It is argued that this development coincides with Kant’s increased emphasis on the conscious role played by human agents in historical transformation and a more nuanced, reflective account of the relation between natural teleology and the process of moral development of human beings.