Karoline Reinhardt: Migration und Weltbürgerrecht. Zur Aktualität der politischen Philosophie Kants

Karoline Reinhardt has dedicated a well-documented and well-argued mono- graph to what we can learn from Kant on migration. It has now been published as a revised version of the dissertation she defended at Tübingen in 2018, under the direction of Otfried Höffe. The dissertation was awarded the Kant-Stiftung’s Kant- Förderpreis in 2018 and the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften’s Walter- Weitzmann-Preis in 2019. Migration has become a highly controversial issue in politics in recent years, both in the media and within the public discourse, but it has also emerged as an important theme in philosophy. For this reason, Reinhardt’s book is a very welcome contribution. It provides a systematic presentation of Kant’s positions on migration while also discussing the relevance of Kantian approaches to twenty- first century issues, which it does, most importantly, without assuming that Kant can ultimately clarify all aspects of the current problems. Reinhardt’s dissertation is an excellent example of the fact that systematic questions and problems can be fruitfully dealt with by means of the history of philosophy. It provides a significant case study of the interweaving of historical- philosophical analyses with systematic questions. As regards Kant on migration, much precision is needed, which is exactly what Reinhardt is aiming at. Her main argument revolves around the assumption that Kant’s views on cosmopolitanism lie in productive disharmony with the philosophical and political camps currently represented in the migration debate.