SIMILARITIES AND DISTINCTIONS AMONG KANT AND HABERMAS BASED ON COSMOPOLITAN THOUGHT
Cosmopolitan; citizenship; multicultural.
This thesis aims to contribute with the research about Kant and Habermas, involving their distinctions and similarities in the field of political philosophy, especially regarding cosmopolitan thought. In the discussion of this issue, it is required an analysis on Habermas’ critique about the deficit and update of philosopher Kant’s cosmopolitan theory. That is, the study focuses on questioning whether Habermas responds or not to the critique of cosmopolitan thought concerning the Kantian proposal. From this perspective, it has been important to highlight arguments that claim not to achieve such lucubrations, only through classical-liberal and republican perspective of Kant’s political thought. Thus, the study presents Habermas’ efforts in the direction of rescuing Kantian cosmopolitan thought from a historical premise. Therefore, this author’s position is emphasized in the face of historical framework and real data of the Modern Worlds, such as in the two following questions: Does the United Nations’ format surpass Kant’s cosmopolitan conjectures about the league of nations, or was there an error in Kant’s theoretical formulation? Habermas also starts from the issue which tries to explain if the philosopher Kant had a very strong conception of nation-state sovereignty. Is it possible that, because of this conception of a strong nation-State, there is no permission for an intervention on behalf of Human Rights to occur? In order to try to answer these and other questions, this thesis also has the scope to find the assumption of political concepts’ primacy of a cosmopolitan and plural society. Based on this, the historical premise of Habermas (2018) suffers from depth, due to the fact that the Cosmopolitan Project has a serious difficulty to be implemented for the reason that, once again, it arises from the imposition of a civilizing process that goes against the historical, social, and cultural reality outside the Western world. Having this issue as an additional, in an attempt to achieve the hypotheses, the argument about the minimalist position by the historical premise in Habermas stands out, being possible to see it in the existing idea of a forum to discuss conflicts among nations, as it happens to the United Nations. Although the philosopher also evidenced efforts for a maximalist position, arising from the construct of reason, which idealizes the possibility of a World State. Bearing in mind that the right also implies coercion in relation to the global contract carried out among nations, and its supranationals and transnational aspects. The thesis concludes by demonstrating that Habermas tries to correct the democratic deficit of popular sovereignty, in the light of the historical premise in his discursive and political theory, mainly with regard to Kant’s liberal and republican theory. Therefore, indicating a Constitutional Democracy that opens doors to a multicultural citizenship, by having the reach of the Cosmopolitan Project as a scope.