In a series of essays that appeared throughout his career, Kant set out his proposals for a liberal state. John Gray has summed up the four main philosophical tenets underlying liberalism in his book with that title:
- It is individualistic, in that it asserts the moral primacy of the person against the claims of any social collectivity.
- It is egalitarian, inasmuch as it confers on all . . . the same moral status.
- It is universalist, affirming the moral unity of the human species and according [only] a secondary importance to specific historic associations and cultural forms.
- It is meliorist in its affirmation of the corrigibility and improvability of all social institutions and political arrangements.
These four characteristics give us an admirable way in which to organize Kant's political theory.
(Roger J. Sullivan, An Introduction to Kant's Ethics [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994], 9 [endnote omitted; italics, ellipsis, and brackets in original])
