In this impressive monograph, Helga Varden collects and builds on years of work to generate a systematic, feminist and inclusive theory of sex, love and gender grounded in Kant’s philosophy. While Kant did not produce such a theory himself, Varden’s wager is that his philosophy provides us with ample and rich resources to do so. The book thus aims at making a contribution both to Kant scholarship and to the philosophy of love and sex more generally. It also takes up a considerable challenge, as Kant’s philosophy has often been criticized for its sexism, homophobia, heterosexism, etc. One can think here of his multiple remarks on gender ideals that seem to limit what women should or can strive for (notably in the Observations, 2: 229ff., and in the Anthropology, 7: 303ff.); of his very heteronormative account of sexuality and marriage (Doctrine of Right, 6: 276–80); and of his condemnation of so-called unnatural sexuality (Doctrine of Right, 6: 277).
Unlike Kant’s works, Varden’s theory is intended to be inclusive and, in particular, to make sense of the experience of people of various gender identities, sexual orientations and sexual identities. While acknowledging the problematic nature of Kant’s remarks, Varden argues that the complexity of Kant’s philosophy beyond his best-known ethical and metaethical writings allows us to move beyond the problematic remarks themselves. For Varden, Kant’s rich conception of human nature, combined with a better understanding of the role and place of our embodied human nature in the moral and non-moral aspects of our lives, makes Kantian philosophy not only useful, but also essential to a compelling theory of gender, love and sex. She warns us against a Kantian analysis of these topics that would be based solely on Kant’s conception of freedom and developed only insofar as it is relevant to our moral ends. Instead, her perspective explores ‘the phenomenological structure of Kant’s account of human nature along with a particular emphasis on the importance of letting Kant’s ideas of animality and humanity do their own, distinctive philosophical work in an overall account of our human nature’ (p. 3). This comprehensive account of human nature thus includes features that are not or not directly relevant to our moral ends – it focuses on how we can flourish as embodied, loving, sexual beings.
Turning to an overview of Varden’s book itself, it is divided into two main parts, corresponding to two different dimensions of Varden’s investigation (and reminiscent of the twofold division of Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals). The first part inquires into how sex, love and gender interact with happiness and virtue. The second part focuses on the implications of Varden’s Kantian account of sex, love and gender for right, justice and politics. The opening chapters of each part (chapter 1 and chapter 5) are perhaps the most useful in laying out the grounds of the overall project.
Chapter 1 introduces and discusses the main features of Kant’s conception of human nature taken up in Varden’s project and their relation to virtue and happiness. These features include: a commitment to truthfulness (to others and to oneself) as the highest duty of virtue; the three headings of the predisposition to good (animality, humanity, personality) and how they contribute to our self-development; the faculty of desire; the three grades of the propensity to evil (frailty, impurity, depravity) and how they compromise our self-development; how to understand the relation between perfect/imperfect duties and our self-development; the vital and moral vital forces characterizing human beings; how to understand the relation between the highest good and our human nature, the sensible and moral character; and how to understand friendship in human life.
Chapters 2–4 then further explore these features and how they can shed light on gender-, sex- and love-related issues. Chapter 2 focuses on Kant’s account of women and of gender ideals. The developments of the Anthropology on the character of the sexes in particular is connected to the features of human nature explored in the previous chapter. Here Varden’s main argument is that Kant’s claims about gender ideals should be understood as normative and as embedded in his teleological conception of human nature, but not as moral per se in that they do not generate moral obligations. Chapter 3 then turns to Varden’s reconstructed Kantian account of sexual love, gender identity and sexual orientation. While this account draws on Kant’s conception of love and sexuality and explores its reflective and unreflective features, Varden also addresses some of Kant’s binary and heterosexist assumptions, arguing that they are better understood as mistakes on his part. Finally, chapter 4 provides a critical analysis of sexual violence using Kant’s account of affects and passions. The first part ends with some concluding remarks situating Varden’s account of gender, sex and love against the backdrop of the formalism of Kant’s practical philosophy, as well as that of his conception of transcendental freedom and of free will. To this end, Varden draws on the works of three other Kant scholars, presented as complementary to her own project: Cohen, Deligiorgi and Allais.
Chapter 5 opens part II with an investigation of the implications of the innate right to freedom for laws regulating abortion, non-procreative sexual activities and erotica understood through the lens of free speech. Despite Kant’s own conservative views, Varden argues that his philosophy provides plenty of resources to argue for the legal permissibility of the above, regardless of what (he thinks) is right or wrong, ethically speaking. Chapter 6 then moves to Kant’s account of private right and its implications for marriage. The important role of marriage in protecting the rights of individuals is emphasized and used in Varden’s defence of a conception of marriage that is recognizably Kantian but more inclusive than that put forward by Kant himself, that is, accessible to non-straight couples and polyamorous people. The chapter also explores the implications of Kant’s account of private right for sex work. Finally, chapter 7 investigates Kant’s conception of public right and its implications for systemic justice, thereby emphasizing the responsibility of the state in protecting the rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups.
Sex, Love, and Gender is, in equal measure, a well-organized and thought-provoking book. Each chapter can in principle be read on its own, although the general introduction and specific introductions to parts I and II are helpful to get a better sense of the overall project. While engaging with some debates in Kant scholarship and feminist readings of Kant, Varden is also eager to address not only Kant scholars or philosophers, but more broadly anyone interested in questions pertaining to sex and love. She therefore makes her arguments relatable through the discussion of contemporary issues and concrete examples. Here, Varden meets her objective: while the book draws on Kantian resources, it will also be of interest to non-philosophers interested in issues of sex, love, gender and more broadly of social justice.
Varden also makes a point of thoroughly addressing Kant’s problematic remarks on sex, gender and love throughout her book. This is an important challenge facing any Kantian account of gender, sex or love, though this is also where I found myself wanting to hear more about some aspects of her theory. It is no doubt a strength of Varden’s account that she manages to distinguish between various types of problematic remarks and adapts her argumentative strategy accordingly. I have in any case noted four main ways in which Varden handles Kant’s problematic claims, along with a few questions:
(i) Varden pleads for a charitable reading of certain passages, in particular when it comes to Kant’s remarks about women. For instance, when discussing Kant’s claim according to which all women are passive citizens (Doctrine of Right, 6: 314–15), Varden points out that Kant also claims that anyone should be able to work their way up to active citizenship (p. 106). Furthermore, for Varden (and contra Kleingeld Reference Kleingeld1993), Kant’s use of gender-neutral language is also meant to gesture towards the inclusion of women in the political realm. This first strategy allows Varden to draw relatively optimistic conclusions regarding Kant’s views on women, namely that ‘Kant made space for and even encouraged women to dare to be free’ (p. 112). This conclusion should perhaps be qualified in light of Kant’s known racism, acknowledged and discussed by Varden in her general introduction: if Kant really meant to encourage women to flourish and be free, chances are that he only had white European women in mind.
(ii) But some of Kant’s remarks are bound to come across as offensive to contemporary readers (as is, for instance, his condemnation of unnatural sex). Varden argues that these are regrettable and harmful mistakes, but that one can still benefit from using Kant’s philosophical resources on human nature in order to better understand both why he made these remarks and why they are flawed. She also claims that his philosophical system includes safeguards preventing such mistaken assumptions from doing too much damage, for example, by generating unjust legal and political institutions (p. 97). I see the two next strategies as building on that point.
(iii) Some concerns have been expressed regarding Kant’s gender ideals and how they might compromise women’s moral agency. For Varden, Kant’s gender ideals are part of his conception of human nature and as such should be understood as normative, but not as moral strictly speaking (pp. 85, 99). In other words, while Kant obviously valued these ideals, he did not hold that not following them should be seen as unethical or illegal. This is the part of Varden’s strategy that I would be most interested to hear more about, as other scholars (for instance Kleingeld Reference Kleingeld1993, and Marwah Reference Marwah2013) have argued that Kant’s account of femininity interferes, at least in part, with what is expected of a moral agent. Perhaps this is just all the more reason to build different gender ideals, as suggested by Varden – but rejecting Kant’s own gender ideals altogether also seems to be an option.
(iv) Finally, Varden argues that what is deemed unethical (for instance, non-marital sex or abortion – of course according to Kant) need not be made illegal (e.g. pp. 227, 257, 269), even by Kant’s philosophical system. Varden justifies this claim by reminding her readers of Kant’s key distinction between internal and external lawgiving and by emphasizing the parameters he sets for the rightful use of coercion (see for instance Doctrine of Right, 6: 231ff.) This strategy is mostly at work in the second part of Varden’s book addressing legal and political issues. This point illustrates well, I think, a question that comes up throughout the book: is Varden’s position one that Kant himself would have endorsed, or is it a critical reappropriation of some of his most interesting ideas? While Varden often gestures towards the former, some of the conclusions drawn here with respect to social justice issues seem to suggest the latter.
Worries have been raised in the secondary literature as to how much influence Kant’s racism and sexism may have on the general principles of his moral and political philosophy in general (as in Allais Reference Allais2016; Huseyinzadegan Reference Huseyinzadegan2018; Kleingeld Reference Kleingeld1993, 2019; Mills Reference Mills and Valls2005). I find myself similarly wondering how easily Kant’s harmful assumptions can be separated from the general principles of a Kantian theory of gender, sex and love. Varden is obviously aware of that worry and handles it with great skill using the above strategies. While her theory of sex, love and gender cannot erase Kant’s sexist or homophobic assumptions, it brilliantly uses some of the finest resources of Kantian philosophy to come to a new understanding of a fundamental aspect of human life.
