Left-Kantian Perfectionism

ABSTRACT The historical context of early post-Kantian debates on politics reveals the emergence of a new type of perfectionist ethics no longer based on the state-sponsored promotion of happiness, as the dominant German tendency in the eighteenth century had been, but on individual freedom. Post-Kantian perfectionism focused on maintaining and enhancing the conditions for rightful interaction among self-defining individuals. Rather than isolating and alienating, Kantian negative freedom enabled a new conception of social interaction based on the idea of right and the progressive extension of rightful relations. Humboldt, Schiller, Fichte, and Marx exemplified this new approach, despite their differences.