The Misrepresentation of Immanuel Kant Regarding the Use of Drugs

Introduction

Many of the U.S. government policies are based upon the writings of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, and almost all of the drug policies instituted by the first Drug Czar, William Bennett—who himself holds a Ph.D. in philosophy—are based on Kant's writings: making him one of the fathers of U.S. anti-drug policies. However, I would emphatically disagree that Bennett’s work is an interpretation of Kant’s. The more apt description is that it is a misrepresentation of his work.

Despite Bennett's claims, Kant never reasons that drug use would degrade the personhood of the user. It is the misuse of drugs that Kant derides. Some of Kant's detractors will say his writings are filled with contradictions, but in this instance, they are wrong. Kant presents a very clear-cut view of his reasoning on drug use. To see Kant as an originator of anti-drug rhetoric, one must read his writings in one of two ways: either from a biased point of view, looking for anti-drug statements—as one can always find something in a thing if they look for it hard and long enough, regardless of whether it truly is there or not—or with a sloppy reading, not paying enough attention to the entire context of his words. Looking at Kant’s work with an objective eye, it is obvious that Kant would condone the use of drugs as long as they were used in moderation and the individual user exercises the wisdom not to use them to the point of addiction.

Analysis

Kant relies upon a simple formula for the actions of humans in general: he submits that we all have a reason, which separates us from animals and that we have a will to exercise that reason, as well as the freedom with which to determine the choices of will, based on said reason. Further, Kant expands on freedom, thusly:

I can conceive freedom as the complete absence of orderliness, if it is not subject to an objective determination. The grounds of this objective determination must lie in the understanding, and constitute the restrictions to freedom. Therefore the proper use of freedom is the supreme rule.

What Kant is saying, is that the groundwork for the basis of freedom is using it properly. Therefore, this would also be the basis for the foundation of his policies towards drugs; that is, proper use is the supreme rule.

Kant said that "to depart in either respect from the path of moderation is a breach of our duty to ourselves . . . the vices of . . . over-drinking are bestial and degrade man." Bennett, and those like him, take these kinds of statements out of context and propose them as one of the most brilliant men of the modern era lambasting drugs. These people forget to read further down in the same paragraph were Kant goes on further to say:

Drink promotes sociability and conversation, and inspires man, and in so far as it does so there is an excuse for it; but once it goes beyond this stage it becomes a vice, that of drunkenness. In so far, therefore, as it serves sociability, immoderate drinking, although a bestial vice, is not as contemptible as gluttony.

Based on the final line from the above quote, one could argue that Kant was against drugs. Yet one needs to break down Kant's words more accurately than to just clip out soundbites. In the first sentence of the above quote, Kant allows for the use of drugs, as long as it serves a purpose. Then he says, "once it goes beyond this stage it becomes a vice, that of drunkenness." The first key word is "stage." Kant is not talking about that one time a person had too much to drink, he is referring to a particular frame of time in one’s life when a person has transgressed the modes of social drinking and/or drug use and have become a drunkard or addict. When one speaks of the vice of drunkenness, one does not refer to a state of drunkenness. The former is a habitual state, while the latter is a single instance. Kant is not swearing off drug use by any means; rather, he is demanding moderation in use, so that one does not degrade his or her self-worth over time. The last line, while attacking certain drunkenness as contemptible, is even still condoning such extreme drug use, as long as it serves a purpose. So yes, drug use can be degrading, but not if the freedom to use drugs is exercised properly.

Kant also reasons that:

In all nature there is nothing to injure man in the satisfaction of his desires; all injurious things are his own invention, the outcome of his freedom. We need only instance strong drink and the many dishes concocted to tickle his palate. In the unregulated pursuit of an inclination of his own devising, man becomes an object of utter contempt because his freedom makes it possible for him to turn nature inside out in order to satisfy himself. Let him devise what he pleases for satisfying his desires, so long as he regulates the use of his devices.

Certainly, Kant no more condemns drink (or drugs) in general than he does food. It is abuse of freedom that he condemns. Indeed, Kant lays out with precision what would be his entire drug policy in this passage. Consider the last line: he says that man can do what he wishes, so long as he regulates himself. Kant says forthrightly (as applied to drugs) that one can do them, as long as one regulates his or her self. Notice that Kant puts great importance on the wise use of individual freedom, saying, "We often would like to go on eating or drinking, but refrain, because we see it would be harmful." And thus he reiterates his notion that satisfying one’s self, or taking pleasure in things (which would include drugs) is not a problematic situation, unless one makes it so by abusing the drugs, or becoming a slave to them:

We ought, they said, to deny ourselves everything that tends to promote the pleasure of the senses to suppress the animal nature of our body . . . But there is no virtue in practices of this kind . . they are fanatical and monkish virtues . . . [yet] we must not allow it to become inveterate in any of its pleasures.

Thus, Kant to the contrary of a Bennett reading, condemns total abstinence. Moreover, Kant even addresses those that would speak out against pleasures (i.e. drugs) and says, no—you are wrong—just do not become addicted. Further on the subject of addiction, he adds:

The power of the soul over all our faculties and circumstances to make them submit to its free and undetermined will is autocratic . . . If he surrenders authority over himself, his imagination has free play; he cannot discipline himself . . . he yields willingly to his senses and, unable to curb them, he becomes their toy and they sway his judgment.

Kant reasons clearly that freedom is given to use drugs, to take in pleasures, but that abuse of this freedom violates one’s self-duty, and then one degrades one’s self, but not before then. Nonetheless, these are the same passages that policymakers pull from to attack drugs, using quotes which supposedly come from Kant's point of view. However, it is statements such as these that are taken out of context to change their meaning:

He who transgresses against himself loses his manliness and becomes incapable of doing his duty towards his fellows . . . Let us illustrate our meaning by a few examples of failure in one's duty to oneself. A drunkard does no harm to another, and if he has a strong constitution he does no harm to himself, yet he is an object of contempt."

Bennett and his ilk will take the word "drunkard" as synonymous with the word "drunk." That is why they are misunderstanding Kant. Kant is not saying that one who is drunk degrades his manhood, but one who is a drunkard, or a habitual drunk degrades one's self. Thus, if one is an alcoholic, or a cokehead, or a heroin junkie, such persons do degrade themselves. But if one drinks socially with friends, or does cocaine to celebrate three times a year, or smokes a bowl of marijuana to stimulate thought, one does not degrade one's personhood. This argument should be clear from Kant’s writings, yet nonetheless public policy is writtenwhich clearly resembles his work, but draws the opposite conclusion. In addition, Kant perhaps would even approve of mind expanding drugs, such as marijuana or hallucigenics:

With regard to the senses generally, as they outwit and cheat the understanding, we can do nothing else than outwit them in turn by doing our best to offer to the mind an alternative entertainment to that offered by the senses . . . The relation of wit to morality does not fall within the scope of our self-regarding duty to further our own perfection. The sportiveness of the mind must produce a pleasure which touches ourselves and not the forces of duty.

It is not hard to infer that this reasoning applies to such "mind-altering" drugs. This passage was obviously overlooked by Bennett and his advisors as they wrote National Drug Policies.

Conclusion

Under an objective reading Kant does not ever argue that the use of drugs is immoral; he does not say that drug use is a freedom that is inherently debasing, or is a contradiction to our self-duty. In fact Kant seems to say the opposite—he has no problem with drug use, so long as it is governed by the tenets of moderation and self-regulation. It is drug abuse that Kant believes degrades personhood; he is extremely critical of drunkenness and addiction, things which deny people their autonomy, thus taking their freedom, which is what in turn makes drug use a "bestial vice." For as Kant says, without the freedom to exercise one’s will based on reason, people are no better than animals, indeed worse, because they once had that freedom and chose to give it away. Therefore, William Bennett and all those who choose to see Kant as the father of anti-drug polices, should look again to their textbooks. Moreover, regarding America’s so-called "war on drugs," Kant would most likely scoff. Of addiction, he says thus: "Wherein lies our hope? In education, and in nothing else. Education must be adapted to all the ends of nature, both civil and domestic." Kant would not endorse the labeling of drugs as something that degrade our personhood, as something that should be censored. He called for things to satisfy our pleasures and to expand the "sportiveness of the mind," asking that we form a system of education to teach people how to use drugs wisely, so as to obey their self-duties, and not abuse the freedom that they as humans are given.

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