Between Persons: Kantian reflections on the interpersonal domain

Kant might strike some as the wrong companion for an inquiry into interpersonal relationships. After all, Kant remained unmarried until his death and barely left Königsberg in his lifetime. These biographical notes are popularly used to explain a supposed tendency in his thinking. The little space Kant left for interpersonal relationships in his life is, allegedly, reflected in the meagre treatment that he offers of these relationships in his ethical writings. Yet, there was another Kant, one who hosted lively dinner parties, maintained vigorous epistolary exchanges with fellow thinkers, and who did not hesitate to celebrate friendship as a ‘sweet delight’. I show that there is much we can learn from this Kant by focusing on the understudied Kantian notion of a ‘unity of will’. Kant repeatedly argues that relationships between persons bring about a union of wills, or a shared deliberative standpoint in which the will of one is guided by the will of the other. This view of interpersonal relationships has much to offer to our philosophical understanding of loneliness, the nature of permissible sexual interactions, and the moral value of love and friendship, I suggest in this thesis. It also reveals a communitarian ideal at the heart of Kant’s moral project, one that has been systematically ignored by critics and sympathisers alike. For Kant, autonomy is not a capacity that must be fenced off from others to be preserved, but one we must exercise ‘along with others’ in friendship and love.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Rodriguez, Facundo

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Holton, Richard
• Langton, Rae

• autonomy
• consent
• Kant
• Loneliness
• Love
• objectification
• Respect
• Shared agency

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/2d79044f-6ab8-47bb-8504-90428d02a9f0/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

Author Identifier

0000-0002-0668-543X

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/393212