Jeffrey Church is Chair and Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston. His research focuses on the history of modern political thought, and he is the author of three books, including Infinite Autonomy: the Divided Individual in the Political Thought of G.W.F. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche; Nietzsche's Culture of Humanity: Beyond Aristocracy and Democracy in the Early Period; and Nietzsche's Unfashionable Observations: A Critical Introduction and Guide.

• Introduction


• Part 1: Kant on the Meaning of Life


• Chapter 1: Kant's Early Defense of the Contemplative Life


• Chapter 2: The Two Vocations of Humanity in Kant's Anthropology


• Chapter 3: The Worthlessness of Human Life


• Chapter 4: Kant's Genealogy of Morality


• Chapter 5: Kant's View of the Meaning of Life


• Part 2: Kant on Right as Realizing Meaning in Life


• Chapter 6: The Purposes of Politics (1): Culture


• Chapter 7: The Purposes of Politics (2): Civilization


• Chapter 8: The Purposes of Politics (3): Right


• Part 3: Applying Kant's Meaningful Liberalism


• Chapter 9: Kant's Perfectionist Liberalism


• Chapter 10: Kant's Political Liberalism


• Chapter 11: The Meaningfulness of the Liberal Project


• Acknowledgements


• Bibliography

In Kant, Liberalism, and the Meaning of Life, Jeffrey Church addresses the "meaning deficit" in contemporary liberal societies. Even though Western countries are wealthier now than ever, liberal governments nevertheless have become increasingly out of touch with the middle class and its moral needs for purpose and belonging. Instead, liberalism finds itself besieged by illiberal forms of populism, which supply sources of meaning contemporary individuals yearn for. In this book, Church argues that Kant's early work on anthropology can serve as the basis for a more meaningful liberalism, one that conceives of freedom and equality for all as a moral vocation of citizens and institutions to realize.