The Muslim ban began almost two years ago, on January 28, 2017. When a friend texted me about the executive order, I jumped in the car and drove to Dulles Airport, about fifteen minutes from home. I was surprised at the sense of local responsibility that had overcome me. The strangers I met that night at the international arrivals gate exhibited the same sense of responsibility.
Immanuel Kant distinguishes between the aesthetic judgment of the spectator and the moral-practical reason of the actor. The spectator in him admires the soldier and finds that war “has something sublime in it.” Further, “a long peace generally brings about a predominant commercial spirit . . . and debases the disposition of the people.” However, the “moral-practical reason within us pronounces the following irresistible veto: There shall be no war . . .”1
A lot has happened since that night at Dulles. Like Kant, whose aesthetic judgment causes him to scan the paper every day for news of the French Revolution2, I read the political news daily. Most of us do. Some of the current news is comforting, and a lot of it is discouraging. Both comfort and discouragement, of course, can be enervating. But I can indulge my complacency so long as I don’t confuse, in Kant’s terms, my judgment as a spectator and my moral-practical reason:
Even though Kant would always have acted for peace, he knew and kept in mind his judgment. Had he acted on the knowledge gained as a spectator, he would in his own mind have been a criminal. Had he forgotten because of this “moral duty” his insights as a spectator, he would have become what so many good men, involved and engaged in public affairs, tend to be — an idealistic fool.3
This coming year, I imagine, distinctions like this will become as difficult as they will be necessary. Still, if a draw occurs in a given case between (using Kant’s terms again) the judgment of the spectator and the moral-practical reason of the actor, I know how Hannah Arendt would resolve it. Better a fool than a criminal.
