Professor Mark White has published the opening essay, “Defending Kant’s Classical Liberalism,” in the Cato Unbound discussion series. Here is the abstract of his essay:
“Mark D. White praises Immanuel Kant’s political philosophy and recommends it to modern classical liberals. Kant’s ethics has often been caricatured as one of rigid, unthinking duty, and also of absolute altruism; White rebuts both of these claims and insists that Kantian ethics gives individuals the space to exercise mature, thoughtful, contextually appropriate judgments. Kant’s politics held that they should have the liberty to act on the products of their deliberation; political liberty, then, is a natural outgrowth of individual autonomy, or the capacity for reasoned self-rule.”
Forthcoming are response essays by Professor Gregory Salmieri (Rutgers), Professor Roderick T. Long (Auburn), and me.