Гостинність у філософії І. Канта: антропопологічний вимір
Hospitality in philosophy of Immanuel Kant: an anthropological dimension

Summary/Abstract: Due to the increased global attention to the human problems the philosophical anthropology, one of the founders of which is Kant, becomes the leading area of the hospitality theoretical understanding covering a wide variety of issues of the guest treatment on the personal level, as well as relations between states and state associations. The armed confrontations, «hybrid» wars, terrorism threats, the spread in the world of radical ideas, fundamentalism and xenophobia have resulted in large humanitarian crisis and caused the rise in number of refugees and displaced persons. All these processes fundamentally alter the nature of the modern world’s sociocultural reality and lead to "the sociality’s degradation". The article attempts to clarify the concepts of Kantian approach to understanding the essence of hospitality. The emphasis is placed on the anthropological dimension of the issue. Kant considers the issues related to hospitality in such works as «Metaphysics of Morals» treatise «Perpetual Peace», «Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View» and some others. Immanuel Kant’s theoretical reflection on the hospitality phenomenon went beyond the force field of educational ideas and stories, attitudes and public sentiment and resulted in the awareness of this phenomenon as of the cultural universal and essential principle of human existence. This principle is directly associated with moral requirements and behavioral standards, with human feelings of honor and dignity. Kant begins his analysis from the hospitality’s deep origins and its role in the preservation of human life. He considers the times when a stable "no hostility" (or even a «perpetual peace») state depends on the human's ability to implement the idea of "universal hospitality" which along with human rights provide the fundamental principles for human and societal life. Kant considers the main humans’ problem to be the «malevolent sociability» which sets between people during their interaction. This feature, according to the philosopher, is based on such natural human characteristics as arrogance, selfishness, greed and haughtiness. According to the nature's plan all of them lead to unfriendly atmosphere of unfulfilled rivalry between human beings, since they need one another, because one cannot hug himself – for this he needs another human. This rivalry creates problems, causes fights and makes people, according to Kant, not only angry, but also unhappy. However, paradoxically, this natural antagonism brings to life and enhances the development of humans’ abilities and drives a social development. Kant draws attention also to the existence of more hospitable and less hospitable nations – the fact unambiguously associated with feelings and emotions specifics, national features and the ability of judgment. Nevertheless, under any circumstances, a human, as a free and self-sufficient person, adheres in his dealings with other people to the principles of rationality which embodies "the culture of reason". The duty of hospitality amounts in the ideas of dignity and human freedom which form a framework for legal order. Kant’s hospitality is conditional and limited with the visiting time and the guest's behavior. Regulations according to which «[master] may refuse to receive him [foreigner] when this can be done without causing his destruction; but, so long as he peacefully occupies his place, one may not treat him with hostility» provide the evidence that Kant’s hospitality comes in force as a legal abstraction of law, within which regulation and standardization takes place. At the same time Kant understands the difference between the concept of hospitality and the stated minimum no hostility towards the stranger: «It is not the right to be a permanent visitor that one may demand. A special beneficent agreement would be needed in order to give an outsider a right to become a fellow inhabitant for a certain length of time. It is only a right of temporary sojourn, a right to associate, which all men have. They have it by virtue of their common possession of the surface of the earth, where, as a globe, they cannot infinitely disperse and hence must finally tolerate the presence of each other. Originally, no one had more right than another to a particular part of the earth». From a legal perspective the Kant’s judgment of hospitality is swinging between the right to be a permanent visitor and a right of temporary sojourn, adhering to the latter. Hospitality is conditional on the stranger’s «good behavior». Whether he can expect to get the right for temporary sojourn depends on his promise to obey the rules of «good tone» and on how he is committed to confirm this promise. In Kant’s philosophy the universalization of hospitality, its direct relationship and interdependence with the law and ethical principles are determined by understanding of the "moral propensity to evil" inherent to every human being, even the best. Kant writes: «The difference, whether the human is good or evil, must not lie in the difference between the incentives that he incorporates into his maxim (not in the material of the maxim) but in their subordination (in the form of the maxim)». There is therefore a need for clear construction of the moral law, i.e. categorical imperative, to guide the person in his life and work, acknowledging that there is nothing higher than «the starry sky above me and the moral law within me». The Kantian philosophical concept of hospitality takes different dimensions: anthropological, ethical, legal and cultural. Kant envisaged a world in which all members of the human race would become participants in a civil order and enter into a condition of "lawful association" with one another. For Kant, the ideal citizen is the one who understands the essence of universal hospitality and adheres to its principles. Such a citizen is not only a keystone of the tolerant attitude to others but also a clear indicator of civilization development.

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