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... with man's natural need for a society, that is with man as an essentially social being. From a social point of view this sensus communis is the beginning of civilization. For in society man does not want to be just man, but a fine man in his way. Becoming a fine man means that someone has to give himself a good shape.
By style man is presenting himself, he presents his particularity, he says 'this is me' and at the same time he transcends this particularity by making himself communicable to others. Here the fact that the judgment of taste immediately combines the general and the particular reveals its social relevance. This social relevance is not merely superficial. Kant's idea of the 'fine man' has its origin in 18 th century Rococo civilization. But like Mozart he gives this civilization a dimension of depth.
Giving himself a style man transcends his given biological nature. By making himself communicable, that is by becoming social, man transcends himself. Sensus communis is therefore a theory that states that man's transcendence over his biological nature and his sociability coincide. In one and the same act man transcends his biological nature and socializes.
That is the meaning of the statement that in society man does not want to be just a man, but a fine man! He becomes a 'fine' man by taking into account the general communication with everybody. By cultivating the particularity of his feelings, by styling himself, by making himself communicable, he realizes human universality in himself. The universality of humanity happens in communicability!
Therefore it seems, according to Kant, that this communication is dictated by humanity itself as an 'original contract'. We will come back to this very important expression. The coincidence of transcendence and sociability in communication, this contract manifests itself on a very basic level as the origin of civilization as such and Kant turns out to be a very interesting cultural anthropologist. Basic culture starts with using stimuli for communication like the colours with which one can paint one's body as, in primitive cultures, the Iroquois or the Carib do. One can use flowers, shells and feathers too. Then higher forms emerge that transcend the level of stimuli: dresses that are important in society and which are valued very much.
Perhaps Kant is thinking of ceremonial dresses. With these the basic forms of nonverbal, non conceptual communication culture develop itself. Progress in culture is progress in communication. This is the sensus communis as the basis of society. Kant once described man's nature as unsocial sociality.
Man wants to be a social being, he looks for togetherness, but this togetherness is always crossed by his unsocial inclinations, his need for competition, in short his antagonistic side through society becomes a fully developed society. By this antagonism man is driven out of his laziness, so forces him to develop his talents, civilization, art and taste and hence he will use his moral capacity to establish practical? moral principles: 'and thus a pathological enforced social union is transformed into a moral whole'. This moral whole is a society based on a social contract, by which man's tendency to realize his freedom at the cost of others is transformed into the will of everybody to make the realization of everybody's freedom possible by giving up a part of it. Now we can understand why Kant spoke of the sensus communis as a kind of original contract. The sensus communis represents the social side of man's unsocial sociability.
The idea of society as a social contract suggests that this moral whole has to be dictated him by force. His nature says 'no' to what his morality prescribes him. Sensus communis says that his nature itself is characterized by communicability as a kind of social contract, so that a morally organized society is based on a deeper tendency towards togetherness. So society is based not only on man's egoism, but also on man's social nature.
There is a kind of original peaceful togetherness, an original 'yes' to each other that is the basis of all civilization. We can say that the sensus communis is a principle of culture or civilization as such, wherever and whenever. It does not give a clue for understanding differences in culture. Kant speaks of a feeling of humanity as such before all differences and unmediated by specificity. That is typical for sensus communis as an aesthetic feeling. Before we can evaluate the intercultural value of this concept, we have to tackle one more problem.
Specific cultures in the contemporary sense of the word are considered to be determined by a specific ethos. Kant's theory of sensus communis as a kind of definition of culture is not complete without a reflection on the relation to morality. What is this relation? In the context of taste, being social is being civilized, but both are not the same as being moral. Civilization is only a preparation for morality, certainly not identical with it. Therefore Kant distinguishes between an empirical, social interest in taste and a moral interest in his Critique of Judgment.
The moral interest seems to advocate the cultivation of Rousseau's feeling of loneliness and Aristotle's idea of autarchy. But the connection between taste and morality is laid in his Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. There we find sociability ('gesittet sein') and morality ('das sittlichen Gute', or 'das Moralische') related to each other in an new way. There we find also interesting remarks about differences between the nations. 3. Sensus communis and culture In his Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view Kant discusses the cultivation of taste, communicability, as a moral duty. In taste man has a receptivity ('Empfanglichkeit' for other people) to enjoy things together.
In trying to please and in being receptive for the praise of other people man enjoys togetherness. Because this experience is something universally human, based on taste as his reasonable inner voice, the cultivation of taste is a moral duty. Man is obliged to cultivate his receptivity for other people. Cultivation of taste makes man civilized and therefore apt for his position in society. Cultivation of taste first means the promotion of morality in outer appearance: good manners. Then Kant makes a play with words that cannot be repeated in English.
To make someone civilized (gesittet) - to give him good manners - is not the same as to make him good in the ethical sense (sittlichen gut, moralische), but prepares for it. That is implicated in the endeavour of pleasing other people. But then he deepens the connection between morality and taste. Civilization does not just prepare for the good, it is a part of it.
To be good mannered has the appearance of being good and therefore it has a 'grade of the ethical good'. Wanting to appear as a good person implicates the positive evaluation of moral goodness. Kant likes it to show that people who do not believe in morality, but only in the appearance of it, in the end are involved in what they want to avoid: morality. One has to value morality positively, if one wants to play with the appearance of it.
It is interesting what Kant does with something apparently superficial as good manners, civilized behaviour. At first sight it is superficial and one can cheat people with it. Kant was not naive about the value of courteous manners of the Rococo culture of his time. But if morality is based on good will and respect, then politeness, civilized behaviour as cultivation of receptivity is nothing else but showing respect and good will. And one cannot renounce this value, on the contrary, one has to affirm it when cheating with it.
This being the case Kant wonders about his own expression of 'taste' as morality in outer appearance. For this appearance is no longer external to morality. It is not only a preparation for morality, but a part of it. This is the only time that Kant identifies civilization (Sitte) with moral goodness (Sittlichkeit).
And he does correctly so. For he says that there is no way to morality but morality itself. Respect begins with respect. Showing good will, cultivating the appearance of it, so that good will may shine through, is a part of good will itself.
Therefore Kant uses the expression that cultivation of taste as communicability, that is civilization, is a grade of morality itself. This is the only time too that Kant speaks about a 'grade' of morality. For morality, conceived as good will, has no 'grade'! In his way Kant makes a neat unity between good behaviour, manners, civilization on the one side and morality on the other side. Ethos and ethics come together on the basis of the duty to cultivate one's receptivity to each other. Here taste or the sensus communis bridges the gulf between moral goodness and culture as a system of manners.
But again this theory gives no clue to culturally different systems of manners. Kant's theory is a theory of civilized behaviour as such. Kant cannot have an eye for specific differences. By morality man transcends his natural condition, and this is a universal truth, for which civilization prepares or in which civilization participates.
Kant looks from the particular to the general, but not from the general to the particular. Civilization is a form of styling particularity. By this one transcends one's particularity at the same time and therefore a general perspective realizes itself. This general perspective of every civilization al activity is a property typical of man. Therefore, civilization can prepare for the really universal human destiny, morality. The spirit of Schiller, of the last part of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the love for humanity as a whole manifests itself in Kant's sensus communis.
Kant does not deny differences between peoples and civilizations! He speaks of the different characters of nations in his Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. He even frowns upon the intermingling of nations. The differences should be preserved in spite of philanthropical feelings! But this is all a matter of nature and hence morally irrelevant.
Just as morality, civilization is immediately universally human. This becomes clear when we look at his definition of 'people'. A people (populus) is a quantity of human beings living in the same region that form a whole together. But there is another kind of people, that is called by Kant a 'Nation' (gens).
A 'Nation' consists of a people, united by common descent, that recognizes itself as a civil whole. This 'civil whole', that means a state, a civil society based on a social contract, is the only thing that matters to Kant because this is according to him a moral unity. The unity of humanity and the differences between the peoples are relevant only on this level. Kant considers what we would call a specific culture a kind of system that consists of ethical maxims that express the mentality of a people and have become a second nature! But it is still nature and not reason!
They cannot be classified according to reasonable principles. From Kant's point of view this is perfectly understandable. Maxims handed down are traditional ethical rules. In their traditional self evidence they have no moral value to Kant. Only by being tested, passing the test of the categorical imperative, by proving themselves to be universally applicable, do they get a moral value. These acts are morally good in the strict sense of the word, only when good will and respect are the cause of acting according to the maxims of a traditional culture.
But at the same time this goodness transcends all cultural differences. The 'Sinnesart', the 'mentality' or culture of a people plays a role on the natural level, but not on the level of moral reason. Reason is one. The principle of the sensus communis puts forward the unity of mankind as the principle of culture in a very beautiful way.
But here, as in the case of morality, there is a difficulty with differences. Kant transcends immediately cultural differences towards the categorical imperative, but does not reflect positively on the ethical relevance of different traditions of ethical maxims as the concretization of this imperative. However, this is the aim of the Anthropology to a certain extent! Therefore he cannot deal with differences between concrete ethical traditions. Hence, paradoxically, Kant has no feeling for the historicity, the concrete cultural setting of his own ideas of universality. This specific setting is modern civil society as a society of individuals.
I do not want to get rid of Kant's universal moral perspective. Certainly not of his moral universalism. Everybody ex
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