Kant on race

This chapter examines the evolution of Kant’s thoughts on race in connection to his analysis of teleology. It explains how Kant’s analysis of the differences between human races is rooted in eighteenth-century biological debates on the unity and diversity of the species. Focusing on Kant’s analysis of the concept of ‘germs’ and ‘predispositions’ to account for human development, the chapter illustrates how the place of these ideas in Kant’s system changes with Kant’s analysis of reflective judgment, and the modified account of natural teleology proposed in the third Critique. This shift has important implications for Kant’s analysis of human races, and helps respond to some of the charges of ‘structural’ racism that his theories have recently received.