Mankind's Master

Mankind's Master; Immanuel Kant's Sixth Cosmopolitan Thesis

By John Taylor; 2007 July 20

Kant begins this thesis by stating right off: "This problem is the most difficult and the last to be solved by mankind." What problem do you think he is talking about? Okay, from a Baha'i point of view, how would you answer this question? What would Baha'u'llah say is the toughest task?

Hint: in my opinion, Kant's answer is identical to what Baha'u'llah says the problem is. So, what could possibly be the final problem ever faced by the human race? Well, keep your own answer to these questions in your head while we go on to see what Kant thought our ultimate quandary is.

"The difficulty which the mere thought of this problem puts before our eyes is this. Man is an animal which, if it lives among others of its kind, requires a master. For he certainly abuses his freedom with respect to other men, and although as a reasonable being he wishes to have a law which limits the freedom of all, his selfish animal impulses tempt him, where possible, to exempt himself from them." (Kant, Cosmopolitan History, p. 254)

Exactly. Mankind requires a master if we are ever to hope for law and justice, because rule by our peers is inherently frail and corruptible. The Master put this same point even more broadly when He explained to Laura Clifford Barney, "When we consider existence, we see that the mineral, the vegetable, the animal and human worlds are all in need of an educator." (SAQ, 7) This universal limitation, this dire need of an educator applies not just to humans but to all of creation.

Therefore, the "master" whom Kant says we are in dire need is clearly the Manifestation of God, the only Being so wholly not of this world that He is not subject to selfish corruption, rather he explodes outward, like an atom split. He transcends, instantiates, radiates. Just as the mineral and other forms of life subsist by submission to the atomic fusion reactor we call the sun, so humans need a supernatural Will, inherently powerful, to educate us. In Kant's terms, only His Will is "universally valid."

"He thus requires a master, who will break his will and force him to obey a will that is universally valid, under which each can be free. But whence does he get this master? Only from the human race. But then the master is himself an animal, and needs a master." (Kant, Cosmopolitan History, p. 254-255)

So, to obey Him, the Holy Delegate of God, is the only kind of slavery that is the same as freedom. Slavery and freedom are antinomies, mirror opposites. Well, at least they are as long as we posit that our master is on the human level. If he is, equality is affronted. Either he is raised too high, or we lower, abase ourselves in relation to him.

"Let him begin it as he will, it is not to be seen how he can procure a magistracy which can maintain public justice and which is itself just, whether it be a single person or a group of several elected persons."

But if our master is a Manifestation of God, it is different. His submission to God is of a different order, since He is God, virtually. When that love is reflected back into Mankind by obedience to His Law, the logic of power changes utterly. Then our slavery has nothing to do with abasing ourselves before another man, or group of men. Submission becomes exaltation, adoration, exultation. We were made for this, and without it our minds cry out for completion from above.

"For each of them will always abuse his freedom if he has none above him to exercise force in accord with the laws. The highest master should be just in himself, and yet a man. This task is therefore the hardest of all; indeed, its complete solution is impossible, for from such crooked wood as man is made of, nothing perfectly straight can be built."

Our mind needs a higher power to supervise our exercise of freedom; as soon as we think we are alone, without a master, we abuse liberty. Kant appends a remarkable footnote here, saying that our role in exercising force is for us artificial, not natural. Maybe someday we will discover other civilizations on other planets. It is conceivable, that for some of these forms of intelligent life it will be natural, they may somehow be immune to our inherent susceptibility to power's corruptive force. Maybe individuals there will be attain their own destiny independently. But for human beings, "only the race can hope to attain it."

To me what Kant has done is like an intellectual explorer climbing a plateau. Fighting the incline, over rocks and through the underbrush of our collective nonage, Kant has broken through, albeit briefly. He is walking on the level, sunlit uplands of our collective maturity. It is a brief glimpse of the final solution to the last problem, that is, the last problem of youth: attaining to adulthood. So it will be, as soon as we all break out into true freedom.

"That it is the last problem to be solved follows also from this: it requires that there be a correct conception of a possible constitution, great experience gained in many paths of life, and far beyond these -- a good will ready to accept such a constitution. Three such things are very hard, and if they are ever to be found together, it will be very late and after many vain attempts." (Cosmopolitan, 255)

To conceive, experience and accept a universal constitution, these three necessary pre-conditions of our maturity, both collective and individual, are united together in the first paragraph of the Kitab-i-Aqdas. And the first challenge to live up to that sublime, final act of childhood's end had been laid down in the first paragraph of the Bab's Qayyumu'l-Asma, written on the first evening of the Baha'i Era, "O concourse of kings and the sons of kings, lay aside your dominion which belongeth unto God." (Selections, 41)