Kant and the obligation to respect oneself under conditions of systemic injustice

What is it about?

I argue that Kant’s ethical framework cannot countenance a certain kind of failure to respect oneself that can occur within oppressive social contexts. Kant’s assumption that any person, qua rational being, has guaranteed epistemic access to the moral law as the standard of good action and the capacity to act upon this standard makes autonomy an achievement within the individual agent’s power, but this is contrary to a feminist understanding of autonomy as a relational achievement that can be thwarted by the systematic attack on autonomy that occurs within oppressive social conditions.

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Why is it important?

This article contribute to the contemporary conversation regarding the difficult of living morally good, virtuous lives within conditions systemic injustice. Further, this article is of interest for Kant scholars thinking about how empirical conditions are relevant for the development of autonomy.