Sex, Love, and Gender: A Kantian Theory

Sex, Love, and Gender is the first volume to present a comprehensive philosophical theory that brings together all of Kant's practical philosophy -- found across his works on ethics, justice, anthropology, history, and religion -- and provide a critique of emotionally healthy and morally permissible sexual, loving, gendered being. By rethinking Kant's work on human nature and making space for sex, love, and gender within his moral accounts of freedom, the book shows how, despite his austere and even anti-sex, cisist, sexist, and heterosexist reputation, Kant's writings on happiness and virtue (Part I) and right (Part II) in fact yield fertile philosophical ground on which we can explore specific contemporary issues such as abortion, sexual orientation, sexual or gendered identity, marriage, trade in sexual services, and sex- or gender-based oppression. Indeed, Kant's philosophy provides us with resources to appreciate and value the diversity of human ways of loving and the existential importance of our embodied, social selves. Structured on a thematic basis, with introductions to assist those new to Kant's philosophy, this book will be a valuable resource for anyone who cares about these issues and wants to make sense of them.



About the Author
Helga Varden, Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois

Helga Varden is an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has published on a range of classical philosophical issues-- including Kant's answer to the murderer at the door, private property, political obligations, and political legitimacy-as well as on applied issues such as terrorism, poverty, and non-human animals. With a particular interest in Kant's contributions both to the philosophical canon and to contemporary issues, Varden is one of the few Kant scholars to have brought Kant's ideas to bear also on core issues in feminist philosophy as well as in the philosophy of sex and love, including abortion and same-sex marriage.