Omnilateral will and indoctrination

    Kant believes, according to Varden, that freedom takes primacy in legal-political philosophy, and is the only original human right “insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law” (7). Thus, the maxim or principle on which an action is based must be one that everyone could act upon without contradiction. As we know, Kantian freedom is defined as independence from being constrained by the arbitrary will of another. This forms the nucleus of Kant’s ideal theory of rightful freedom, which (as Varden displays) transforms and synthesizes Hobbes’s proposed conception of a sovereign, Locke’s laws of nature, and Rousseau’s general will into a Kantian, ideal public authority that “represents the citizens by determining general laws of freedom to regulate and secure our actual interactions” (8). It is only because this authority is driven by an omnilateral will (the idea that legitimate authority must act in accordance with a collective will that could be universally willed by all rational agents) that it can resolve conflicts in interaction while remaining consistent with the Kantian principles stipulated above. Put differently, it is only because we need some kind of arbitrator to secure everyone’s right to Kantian freedom that public authority can legitimately lay claim to a monopoly on coercion; this coercion remains in check because it is founded entirely upon the omnilateral will of the governed. 

    However, when considering the role of prevailing ideologies, social norms, and cultural influences in shaping individual wills, this assumption becomes increasingly complicated. Since we are taking historicity and moral anthropology into account, I wonder to what extent the impressionability of one’s will by prevailing ideologies, social norms, culture, and other such influencing factors should also be examined. Varden makes a compelling case for moral anthropology and historicity as tools to better approximate our society to the ideal, or at least transform them into “better instantiations of themselves” because they allow us to capture the complexities of present society within Kant’s framework (18). Mooring ourselves to his ideal theory in this way allows us to situate where we are with where we should be, a fundamental issue previously faced (according to Varden) by various interpretations of Kant. I am curious whether another consideration, that of will cultivation, would also be necessary.

    One’s will, even in a Kantian sense, is not entirely autonomous or free from external influences, particularly when shaped by deep-rooted cultural, social, and ideological factors. The Kantian notion of the omnilateral will requires that individuals have a capacity for rational autonomy, one that is not entirely beholden to the contingencies of their social environment. A pure objectivist or determinist would likely disagree here, and I'm happy to hash that point out separately, but for argument's sake let's take it to be true that our will and conscience are, to a significant degree, dictated by our upbringing. This implies that, in the future, it is not guaranteed that the omnilateral will shall reflect what we currently hold to be just, true, or right.     I feel as though the majority of, if not all, belief is transient; things we consider unjust today may not have been considered unjust 100 years ago, even by victims of the oppression themselves. Cultural attitudes towards women in a certain region, for example, may appear externally unjust but, to a woman who has been raised in that culture, who actively participates in the practice, who has built up her entire value system to corroborate the justice of that practice, will not perceive the injustice of her own subjugation. I, and I'm sure many others, share the intuition that just because one cannot perceive this injustice they face does not mean we shouldn't at least try to prevent that injustice from occurring through our institutions (I'm appealing to an argument against cultural relativism here).

    The question then becomes about the role of moral education, and its implications for the development of the omnilateral will. If will is to be genuinely autonomous and capable of participating in the establishment of universal laws of freedom, then it must be cultivated in a way that enables individuals to critically assess and challenge the ideologies that may distort their capacity for moral reasoning. In this context, does Kant’s ideal theory necessitate certain ‘guardrails’ around moral education? Just off rip, this is worrying to me because it could very easily legitimize harmful indoctrination. At the same time, is the indoctrination of ‘good’ moral values (which I believe religion currently does for many of us) justifiable if it prevents the eventual ‘corruption’ of omnilateral will? Since we don't know how cultural/social/religious norms will evolve over the next 100 years, is the entrenchment of certain pillars of moral education in our institutions now a reasonable addition for Kant and Varden's non-ideal theories?