Notes to Chapter 1 { 28 3ideal no longer apply. A radically different moral universe becomes possible, one that can
nonetheless be held to be compatible with the first, since in each case its members as well
as its principles have changed” (ibid., 182 – 83 ; see also 187 ). My claim that Bendavid’s and
Fichte’s metaphors of Jewish decapitation are symptomatic of the violence—the effacement
of alterity—inherent in Kant’s equation of morality with the formal principle of universaliza-
tion is more limited than Lang’s argument for an “affiliation” (ibid., chapter 7 )— something
weaker than causal connection, but stronger than mere structural analogy—between Kant’s
conception of the subject and humanity, and the logic of the perpetrators of the Nazi geno-
cide. For an interpretation of Jewish morality in terms of a triadic relation between the human
being, God, and other human beings that cannot be contained within Kant’s autonomous-
heteronymous dichotomy, see Emil Fackenheim, Encounters Between Judaism and Modern
Philosophy, chapter 2. Emanuel Levinas’s oeuvre elaborates a sustained, emphatically post-
Kantian ethics that takes radical obligation rather than autonomous reason as its starting
point.
51. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 93.
52. “Infinite” in the sense that it sustains faith in the Kantian postulates of God, provi-
dence, and the immortality of the soul. The subjective infinity of the “moral law within” in-
deed provides the counterpart to the “starry heavens above,” in Kant’s famous phrase (IKW,
7 : 300 ).
53. In certain formulations Kant rather confusingly uses Wille to designate both practical
reason and its perversion by external forces (gewisse Triebfeder), which requires the correc-
tion of Nötigung. See, for example, Kant, IKW, 7 : 41.
54. Ibid., 7 : 143. See also Kant, Practical Philosophy, 165 – 66.
55. In his 1793 Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Kant opines that “strictly
speaking, Judaism is not a religion at all but simply the union of a number of individuals who,
since they belonged to a particular stock, established themselves into a community under
purely political laws.” In the ancient Jewish theocracy, “God’s name was... honored...
only as a secular regent with absolutely no rights over, or claims upon, conscience” (RRT,
154 – 55 ). Yirmiyahu Yovel notes Kant’s refusal to acknowledge any moral (that is, any truly
religious) content in Judaism (Dark Riddle, 7 ). See also Ascher’s incisive critique of Kant’s
remarks on Judaism (Eisenmenger der Zweite, 55 – 79 ).
56. Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse; Zur Genealogie der Moral, 300. Jonathan
Strauss presents an elegant critique of “the full negative force of sublime freedom” in Kant’s
aesthetic theory (Subjects of Terror, 7 – 12 , especially 9 ). Strauss also refers to Kant’s moral
philosophy (ibid., 300 , note 33 ).
57. Bendavid, ECJ, 41 and 60.
58. Ibid., 66.
59. Ibid., 45. Navon points to this passage as evidence of a new Staatsbewußtsein among
Jews and paraphrases it aptly: “For if the state, Ben David argues, in its goodness tries to
absorb you, how dare you, Jews, stand in the way? If you refuse to take the necessary steps,
you do so at your own peril” (“The Encounter of German Idealists,” 231 ).
60. Bendavid, ECJ, 41.
61. Ibid., 41 – 42. Bendavid makes this point repeatedly. See also ibid., 61 – 63 , and the cau-
tionary tale (or mini–case study) of the tragic Jewish convert in ibid., 63 – 64 , footnote.
62. Ibid., 54 – 55.