4 - Good out of evil: Kant and the idea of unsocial sociability

Summary

There is nothing so unsociable and so sociable as man: the one by his vice, the other by his nature.

– Montaigne

In the first three Propositions of his Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim (Idea), Kant tells us that nature intends all natural human capacities to be developed to their fullest in the species, though not in the individual. Moreover humans are meant to provide, by their own efforts, whatever they enjoy of happiness and perfection (8:18–20). In the Fourth Proposition Kant lays out the means nature employs to bring about this result. It is what he calls the “unsocial sociability” (ungesellige Geselligkeit) of men. We have, he says, a “propensity to enter into society.” But we also have a “thoroughgoing resistance” to this tendency so that we are always liable to isolate ourselves and tear society apart (8:20).

This seems an unfortunate combination of basic character traits, but Kant does not find it so. On the contrary, he sees in it the goad needed to make us overcome our natural laziness. We do not want to live solitary lives. But we find in ourselves a strong desire to have everything go as we want it to. We know we would resist this desire coming from others, so we expect the others with whom we want to live to resist our desire. The resistance stirs us to try to overcome it.