Van Linden’s Kantian Ethics And Socialism

Beginning of Harry Van Der Linden’s Kantian Ethics And Socialism, Hackett, 1988

Around the turn of the century the neo-Kantian socialist Hermann Cohen wrote in his Introduction and Critical Epilogue to Friedrich Albert Lange’s History of Materialism that Kant “is the true and real originator of German socialism.’” His claim, of course, is not to be taken too literally. After all, Kant to a large extent defended the minimal state and accepted the emerging capitalist market econ­omy, whereas socialists have typically rejected both. Rather, the point of Cohen’s challenging statement is that Kant’s practical phi­losophy contains moral and philosophical-historical insights cru­cial to socialist thought and that his notion of the highest good, or moral society of colegislators who seek to enhance one another’s ends, can be extrapolated to set forth the demand for the socialist ideal. Thus the statement suggests a conception of socialism that is ethical in nature and involves not a mere denial of liberal thought but rather its critical extension in the form of economic democracy. A final aspect of Cohen’s claim which needs to be stressed is its implicit criticism of Marx on the grounds that a morally defensible socialism is an ethical socialism and that the philosophical founda­tions of a tenable socialism are to be sought in Kant, not in Hegel.