Fashion and desire: A Kantian critique

Jörg Noller opines that ‘Kant’s attempt to locate autonomy and Willkür (arbitrariness) together in the realm of the intelligible is limited to the extent that the realm of the intelligible is exclusively restricted to the realm of pure practical reason’ (Noller 2021: 260). ¹ Following this reflection, it can be said that if we amplify the relationship further to that between personal autonomy and Willkür, we can have a clearer understanding of personal freedom. By looking into the way in which desire is involved in fashion phenomena, which are induced not just from external sources but also from human intellectuality, this article aims to shed light on Willkür in conjunction with desire, thereby galvanizing the theoretical discussion of personal autonomy. While dictated by Wille (the will), Willkür, which is an executive faculty of volition, represents a rational agency’s arbitrary free choice within the bounds of what Wille prescribes. ² In this sense, Willkür is an important topic of personal autonomy, which is grounded on the rational agency’s self-activity or spontaneity. Henry E. Allison notes that although the freedom of Willkür is concerned more with spontaneity than with autonomy, it is through the spontaneity of Willkür that Wille as the faculty of volition as a whole is autonomous (Allison 2020: 455). ³ Therefore, it can be said that Willkür is what makes human volition autonomous indirectly; that is, not as a legislative faculty but as an executive faculty. The concept of Willkür used in this article is one that is advanced by recent scholarship in Kant’s empirical psychology and pragmatic anthropology, and not limited to his moral philosophy, in which transcendental idealism is indispensable to appreciating the kind of freedom that morality entails. ⁴ The main topic of fashion this article is chiefly concerned with is not just the vernacular sense of fashion (i.e. clothing, grooming or different forms of body adornment), but fashion as a form of social interaction, upon which Georg Simmel – the only philosopher among the founders of sociology – expounded more than a century earlier. ⁵ This article argues that desire manifested by means of fashion as a form of social relations is not heteronomous to the self, and that the rational agency’s mundane choices involved in the genesis of fashion phenomena are facilitative to personal autonomy.

It is crucial to have a solid understanding of the mechanism of fashion – no single individual can claim one particular item or phenomenon to be a fashion without securing the participation by or consent from the collective. ⁶ Fashion phenomena are, by their very concept, viable only through the collective approval as well as through individuals’ opting for them. Fashion not only unpacks how the individual exercises the ‘general will’ ⁷ of the collective, to borrow Rousseau’s words, as their own Willkür, but also how individuals’ autonomous actions are operative in accordance with the collective of a given time in many areas of social life. By adopting a popular fashion, one not only makes a choice for oneself but also gives approval to the choice made by many others, making the selected one even more compelling. Put another way, fashion discloses a rational agency’s capacity for responding to the laws of the collective as well as for self-determination, which is indispensable to obtaining the subjective feelings of personal autonomy, without which, as a point of fact, the objective notion of absolute autonomy is empty. I shall provide conceptual clarifications required to proceed from this statement.

As per Kant, the human mind functions with the combination of three faculties: the faculty of cognition, the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, and the faculty of desire. Although each is irreducibly unique, the sources from and with which each faculty operates are either sensible or intellectual (Kant 1997b: (28:672), 373). ⁸ This means that whereas desires grounded on sensibility originate from the lower faculty of desire, intellectual desires are absolutely independent of objects; accordingly, they are objects of the higher faculty of desire. On the basis of this, we can analyze fashion phenomena at two different levels: one of the higher faculty of desire and the other of the lower faculty of desire. Fashion, often conceived as a synonym of clothing or different forms of adornment, is nothing but a sensible object of representation, desire, and feelings. Thus, it can be said that the modern subject’s desire for fashion goods or items is related to the lower faculty of desire. And yet, the very concept of fashion that distinguishes fashion from other objects like a piece of clothing, requires the higher faculty of desire that has bearing on Willkür in the context of the Kantian system of human faculties. When I argue that fashion in the latter sense has to do with the modern subject’s exercise of Willkür, what I have in mind is the key attribute of fashion, which is spelled out by Simmel. As I understand his explications, fashion in essence pertains to eclectic volition between joining the collective and staying away from it, which can be boiled down to the dualism between polar opposites, such as collectivity and individuality, imitation and distinction, and union and separation. ⁹ I argue that the free choice to arbitrate between these antagonistic pairs is that which can be labeled as Willkür, for it is nothing but a self-conscious deliberation, demonstrating the ‘reflective distance’ from our incentives.

Referred to as ‘reflective distance’ by Christine M. Korsgaard (2009: 116), ¹⁰ the exclusive characteristic of the human mind distinct from that of the animal mind showcases the mental state in which the thinking subject and the sensing subject play a different role. According to her, it is in the reflective distance from incentives that reason is incorporated, acting as the arbiter of the next course of action by endorsing or rejecting the ‘proposal’ of the incentives. What is noteworthy of this rational procedure is that the reflective distance in which reason mediates is generated by self-consciousness. As she puts it, ‘[I]t is in the space of reflective distance, in the internal world created by self-consciousness, that reason is born’ (Korsgaard 2009: 116). This provides the underpinning of the thesis of this article – the arbitrary choice between the antagonistic forces such as collectivity and individuality that is manifested in and through fashion is nothing other than Willkür, which fosters personal autonomy.

Prior to diving into the main discussion as to how fashion, Willkür, and personal autonomy are related, I shall address one area of concern that needs clarification. One might object to the main thrust of my argument by pointing out the first Theorem that appears in ‘Chapter I. On the Principles of Pure Practical Reason’ in Critique of Practical Reason. Kant postulates the first Theorem as follows: ‘All practical principles that presuppose an object (matter) of the power of desire as determining basis of the will are, one and all, empirical and cannot provide any practical laws’ (2002: (21), 32). Concerning this theorem, Lewis White Beck opines that ‘All maxims have material; but only the latter is blind impulse; form without object of desire is practically ineffective—this is as true of Kant’s ethics as the corresponding sentence in the first Critique is of his theory of knowledge’ (1960: 96). Hence, it can be said that the free choice grounded in the desire to be part of the collective or to stay individuated by means of fashion is Willkür, even though participating in fashion phenomena entails objects of desire from alien sources. To put it differently, although fashion involves sensible incentives and is associated with objects of desire, it is essentially about a self-conscious choice between such polarities as collectivity and individuality, union and separation, and imitation and distinction. This validates my argument that fashion as a form of social relation exists in cooperation with the higher faculty of desire, which has a close connection with Willkür. Due to the fact that fashion is a domain where different levels of desire are mixed together, it is of significance to have a more concrete understanding of the complex nature of action, whose determining grounds are integrally related to different motive forces of desire. What follows is not a comprehensive account of the nature of action, but a brief investigation into some key issues regarding the unity of the soul, since it is the bedrock of action, the appreciation of which requires an inclusive approach to different levels of desire. To this end, I shall discuss the fundamental problems of Korsgaard’s reading of Kant in the area of theory of action by focusing on her notion of Self-constitution and her Constitution Model, which she claims to explain the unifying process of the soul as well as the nature of action.

Korsgaard’s widely known theory of the self tells us that what constitutes your identity is your choices and actions made in accordance with the guidance of your reason (Korsgaard 2009: 19). ¹¹ She writes, ‘Inclination presents the proposal; reason decides whether to act on it or not, and the decision takes the form of a legislative act. This is clearly the [Kantian] Constitutional Model [for the soul]’ (Korsgaard 2009: 154). ¹² This means that reason is not what governs you directly. Rather, your choice, made according to some universal law that reason prescribes, is what constitutes your identity. Under Korsgaard’s interpretation, therefore, Kant appears to hold the view that ‘the person identifies, not directly with his reason, but with his constitution’ (Korsgaard 2009: 154). However, her formal view on the constitution of the self completely disregards the fact that we are not only rational beings, but also living beings that have a free-flowing desire to act on our own terms, and that self-activity, or spontaneity enacted by the faculty of desire, is also a necessary part of our feeling of being autonomous, despite the fact that Kant repudiates the (transcendental) validity of freedom of this kind. Reified by some constructivist Kantians, reason governs the practical agency to the extent that she is viewed not as her voluntary self but as an unaffected choosing self that mechanically makes a choice in accordance with the laws of the legislative will, bound to the universal and necessary conditions of the Categorical Imperative. ¹³ Under the Kantian constructivist perspective, mostly notably Korsgaard’s, human beings are inherently constrained by reason, not because we are impelled to follow the dictates of the laws of reason, but because the actions we take and choices we make are nothing but the results of practical reason. This is why some Kant scholars indicate that immoral choices are made unknowingly in the Korsgaardian reading of Kant. ¹⁴

Although it is indisputable that Kant’s main concern is practical reason and its relation to freedom, especially the transcendental freedom of Wille in his moral philosophy, Kant explains that it is not through practical reason, whose supreme principle is the Categorical Imperative, but through the rational agency’s actions taken and choices made on her own subjective grounds that she finds her free. Kant enunciates:

Laws proceed from the will, maxims from choice. In man the latter is a free choice; the will, which is directed to nothing beyond the law itself, cannot be called either free or unfree, since it is not directed to actions but immediately to giving laws for the maxims of actions (and is, therefore, practical reason itself). Hence the will directs with absolute necessity and is itself subject to no necessitation. Only choice can therefore be called free. (Kant 1996 [1797]: (6:226), 380).

Kant’s oft-cited account of Willkür, which works by setting up maxims by virtue of the rational agency’s subjective willing, reveals that Korsgaard’s interpretation of Kant’s choosing self is amiss because Wille, which is a legislative will, is itself ‘absolute necessity’, whereas choices and actions selected by Willkür, which is an executive will, can be called free. In Kant on Mind, Action, and Ethics (2014) Julian Wuerth maintains that Korsgaard regards the choosing agent as nothing other than pure practical reason on two grounds. First, she does not take into account Kant’s distinctions between Wille and Willkür (Wuerth 2014: 255). ¹⁵ Second, she ‘shift [s] the whole burden of supplying positive grounds for all choices—even choices on “sensible desires”, or “inclinations”—to pure practical reason’ (Wuerth 2014: 263). According to Wuerth, the elimination of any determining grounds of action other than those arrived at through rational deliberation by pure practical reason, and the equation of the choosing agent with pure practical reason, bring about the wrong interpretation of Kant’s moral philosophy, such that we commit immoral choices unknowingly and without confusion, and therefore we are not to blame for immoral choices. ¹⁶ Heidi Chamberlin Giannini, criticizing the same fallacy made in Korsgaard’s interpretation, also avers that ‘Without appealing to something like the Wille/Willkür distinction, failing to act autonomously (which results in immoral behavior) seems to involve allowing oneself to be determined instead by inclinations and other external forces’ (Giannini 2013: 86).

In Kant’s critical philosophy, no perception is pure, or a priori, insofar as experience is involved. This understanding is immensely significant in penetrating the real issue behind the serious blunder in the Korsgaardian development of Kant’s practical philosophy, in particular as regards the nature of action. As discussed earlier, Korsgaard argues that we are autonomous, therefore free, only when we are the reason-grounded choosing self that is resting on the Categorical Imperative. However, as long as we feel that we are dictated by practical reason, the suprahuman entity in us, we as a unified self are not free at all. Then a question arises: what is the motive force of human actions that is in line with the unity of agents? Korsgaard asserts that the nature of action can be explained with the Constitutional Model, according to which constitution gives the psychic unity of agents through deliberation, and that the Categorical Imperative is the supreme constitutive principle of action, which brings the ‘constitutional unity that makes action possible to the soul’ (Korsgaard 2009: 58). ¹⁷ She explains that the function of a reflective rational deliberation, which takes place when we are self-conscious of being un-unified, is ‘not merely to determine how you will act, but also to unify you’ (Korsgaard 2009: 125). Against her position, I argue that this deliberation procedure is too mechanic in the sense that all the traces of the living being are percolated; therefore, what is left is a mere form of empty rationality. As a point of fact, in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant illuminates that both the rational being and the living being as part of nature ‘not only can very well coexist but also must be thought as necessarily united in the same subject’ (Kant 1997a: (4:456), 60). According to him, both consciousness of oneself as an object affected by the sensible world and consciousness of oneself as an intelligence, that is – the I as ‘a thing in appearance’ and the I as ‘a thing or a being in itself’ – occur at the same time, and that they both are necessary for the human being to claim that she is incited but not determined by desires, impulses, or inclinations (Kant 1997a: (4:456–62), 59–99, esp. 60–61).

Reason is not the only factor with which we make choices and take actions within the bounds of which freedom is secured. Some desires that are linked with nature, which is the defining condition of the living being in us, also trigger us to choose and act, while exercising freedom. Kant elucidates the decisive difference between these two different kinds of freedom in the following passage of Metaphysics of Morals, rendering two disparate concepts of freedom:

Insofar as reason can determine the faculty of desire as such, not only choice but also mere wish can be included under the will. That choice which can be determined by pure reason is called free choice. That which can be determined only by inclination (sensible impulse, stimulus) would be animal choice (arbitrium brutum). Human choice, however, is a choice that can indeed be affected but not determined by impulses, and is therefore of itself (apart from an acquired proficiency of reason) not pure but can still be determined to actions by pure will. Freedom of choice is this independence from being determined by sensible impulses; this is the negative concept of freedom. The positive concept of freedom is that of the ability of pure reason to be of itself practical. But this is not possible except by the subjection of the maxim of every action to the condition of its qualifying as universal law (Kant 1996 [1797]: (6:214), 375).

Fashion allows us to comprehend theoretically and empirically not only how the power of choice, independent from necessitation by sensible impulses, exercises its freedom, but also how personal autonomy is related to the negative concept of freedom. As I have discussed earlier, a genuine fashion choice is not a choice made based on sensible stimuli but on the self-conscious desire to express one’s position in society. Fashion that is associated with the higher faculty of desire demonstrates that the deliberating self and the choosing self are not always the same, though. Even with all the same factors presented in different deliberations, the choosing self in the world of fashion can opt for a different choice, acting on her own will, exposing the inner workings of personal autonomy. I believe this is the cardinal and most peculiar aspect of personal freedom in relation to Willkür that is evinced through fashion. On the other hand, by means of fashion – that is, fashion with the lower faculty of desire being activated – we can grasp that the choosing self is not the rationally deliberating self, for the choosing self here is affected wholly or predominately by inclinations or external sources. Even so, we can still discern how personal freedom is operative by way of fashion of this kind. To illustrate, in the Western world a female adult can choose to wear a short mini dress, or a long dress covering her legs, or any fashion item available to her in public on a given day according to her own will (desire in this case). This sounds so trivial that it may mean nothing to many people. However, in some parts of the Islamic world, this seemingly mundane wardrobe choice is impossible, or never easy to make. It would not be difficult for any Westerner to have sympathy with the women who are crying out for more liberty to choose whatever they want according to their fashion maxims, uncensored by Sharia (Islamic law). This mere kind of autonomy – the ability to choose one’s own law, or maxim in the domain where we are personal, is by no means personal insofar as we are dictated to follow a certain rule. The example adduced here shows that the proper ambit of the freedom of Willkür is regulated by the legislative power of a certain society/community/state. Willkür is an important human volition that is inherently related not only to how we feel autonomous in the sensible world but also to how we are actually autonomous in the intelligible world. This is why Kant considers Willkür free while Wille, which is the legislative faculty of volition, is neither free nor unfree. It has to be pointed out that issues surrounding Islamic female wardrobe choices in our time also reveal tensions between right and morality. The contemporary debate on women’s veiling in public spaces throughout the Islamic world, for example, helps us descry the problem that right is incongruous to morality, drawing our attention to the necessity to change positive laws. ¹⁸ Some positive laws, as shown in the case of Sharia, keep some people, if not all, from making autonomous choices. The dispute over Islamic women’s freedom of choice concerning whether to veil or not to veil is not so much about a wardrobe choice as about the friction between right and morality, in that veiling is deeply connected with a patriarchal Islamic view of morality.

Now, let me return to my thesis – the very concept of fashion which distinguishes itself from dress articles is closely related to the higher faculty of desire that affects the power of choice, or Willkür, which works free from all sensible determination, and fashion as a social form furthers personal autonomy, which is different from Kantian autonomy. For most Kant scholars, Willkür refers to the rational agency’s autonomy of choice as to whether or not to abide by moral laws. They also view reason as the sole ground of all choices and actions within the bounds of which Kantian morality is secured. Central to Kantian morality is ‘ought’. However, in the empirical sense ‘ought’ is not compatible with the vernacular expression of personal autonomy. We do not feel autonomous when our desire is constantly checked by ‘ought’, or when ‘ought’, whose guiding principle is the Categorical Imperative, governs all our actions. Personal autonomy, in which our desire plays a vital role, stands in contrast to Kantian moral autonomy. In fact, among the many rigid dogmatic tenets of Kantianism is the contraposition between Kantian autonomy and personal autonomy. Kantian autonomy is considered incompatible to the development of personal autonomy, as the principle of the former is the Categorical Imperative, whereas the development of individuality and selfhood is central to the latter.

However, in his article ‘Kant’s Conception of Personal Autonomy’, Paul Formosa contends that we should not look at personal autonomy and moral autonomy as disagreeing with each other, and maintains that a unified theory of personal and moral autonomy is necessary to have a fair understanding of Kant’s conception of autonomy as a whole (Formosa: 2013, 194). He proposes a unitary conception of autonomous willing, which accounts for ‘both moral and personal autonomy as part of the one general account’ (194). He also links autonomous willing with Willkür and views autonomous willing as ‘an ideal achieved only by those rational beings who actually succeed in governing themselves in accordance with the principle of autonomy’, and autonomy of the will as ‘a property of the will of every reasoning being’ (195). In addition, he argues that personal autonomy is generally deemed as ‘an ideal achieved through making choices in a certain way’ (195). What this means is, succinctly put, only when we make choices and take actions in accord with our own personal maxims and desires and when these choices and actions are morally permissible do we exercise our autonomy. As such, Formosa concludes, ‘Rational agency is therefore understood by Kant to be, not a battle of reasons and passions, or calm passions and violent passions (as it is for Hume), but of two different sorts of reasons or rationales (autonomous and heteronomous ones)’ (198). Thus, as per Formosa, Kant’s conception of autonomous willing need only require that being which wills an end be not determined by any alien factors (199). Grounded on Formosa’s explications about Kant’s conception of personal autonomy, it can be said that my own investigation into fashion as a social form, which exists in tandem with the higher faculty of desire, is to be considered a Kantian project, because fashion as a social form is related to the modern subject’s exercise of Willkür, which is in operation without all sensible determination.

So far, this essay has scrutinized the relationship between desire and Willkür by delving into fashion as a social form. Nonetheless, this essay also argues that fashion phenomena, in particular those that involve dress articles we wear around the body, deserve a privileged standpoint because a careful probe into fashion phenomena of this kind can elicit some of the most important elements of personal autonomy, such as self-expression, individual identity, and personal autonomy, and of the interrelationship between them. In Moral Literacy (2007), Barbara Herman explains that Kant’s moral theory is widely deemed as the model of a theory antagonistic to ‘contingent psychological and social facts’ (Herman 2007: preface vii), and that our rationality has been viewed by readers of Kant as that which brings order to human choice and action. She attributes this rationalist-oriented view on Kant’s moral philosophy to a faulty interpretation and narrow philosophical imagination (Herman 2007: preface viii). In order to correct the problem of current scholarship in Kantianism, she suggests including phenomena in the discussion of moral philosophy, arguing that expunging resistance can lead to enfranchising ‘the untapped theoretical power’ (Herman 2007: preface vii). It is in the similar vein that I contend that discussing fashion phenomena with reference to the relationship between desire and Willkür should help contribute to a fuller understanding of theories related to personal autonomy. Not only is the dialectical relation between individuality and collectivity at work in the sphere of fashion but fashion is also a domain in which the individual subject is able to take the initiative in the journey between individuality and collectivity according to her own maxim. Being an autonomous individual in the arena of fashion is not burdensome, as one can move back and forth between the sphere of her own individual tastes and that of collective ones. Fashion is a very unique realm in which one can exercise her own Willkür by making choices between being part of her community or society and opting to be away from it. Taking a position either to be part of the collective or to stay individuated involves a self-conscious deliberation that creates ‘reflective distance’ from her incentives, as explained earlier with my analysis of Korsgaard’s reading of Kant.

It has to be highlighted that in terms of Kant’s formalism, Willkür, the capacity for choice and action, is inclusive of the free choice to arbitrate between such antagonistic tendencies as individuality and collectivity. The human capacity to capriciously shuttle between individuality and collectivity, between union and separation, and between imitation and distinction, which is central to the formation of fashion phenomena, is not easy to define as part of human rationality, just as there is still debate about whether Willkür is irrational. ¹⁹ Notwithstanding, being a ‘supersensible’ human faculty (Kant 1996 [1797]: (6:227), 381), Willkür provides a platform upon which personal autonomy is exercised. So does the rational agency’s autonomous choice made under the name of fashion as a social form, although fashion itself does not make its appearance on the basis of rationality or morality. Indeed, the domain of fashion is far from the pale within which reason or morality is in operation. In the world of fashion, one makes different arbitrary choices even under the same rational or moral conditions. It is almost impossible to trace all the rational grounds by which a given frivolous fashion phenomenon comes into being, diffuses, and disappears at some point of its life cycle. As Simmel puts it,

Fashion is merely a product of social demands, even though the individual object which it creates or recreates may represent a more or less individual need. This is clearly proved by the fact that very frequently not the slightest reason can be found for the creations of fashion from the standpoint of an objective, aesthetic, or other expediency. (Simmel 1957 [1904]: 544)

The peculiar nature of fashion is irrelevant to moral choices or a sense of morality. For example, let’s say this winter you chose to buy an expensive sweatshop-free jacket made with recycled wool over a cheaper jacket that had been extremely in vogue among women your age, and which you had actually been tempted to purchase as well because you are a conscious consumer when it comes to shopping for clothes. Because the environmental impact of your autonomous choice made it impossible for your autonomous choice to count as a universal law, your choice was morally relevant. Precisely on account of this, what you bought is not a fashion item but an ethically produced jacket; you deliberately chose not to participate in popular fashion. Not all dress articles that are conventionally called ‘fashion’ in the vernacular are fashions that entail the dialectical relation between individuality and collectivity and between imitation and distinction. Fashion phenomena can be found in many areas of social life, such as culinary customs, the music industry, and academia, by no means only in that of physical appearance. And yet, the workings of fashion are easy to identify in the vestimentary sphere of fashion, as it is a visually conspicuous and socio-politically powerful area of modern life, so much so that it guides us in telling the difference between the choosing self and the deliberating self, something which has a close relationship with the distinction between Willkür and Wille.

Fashion discloses the complex mental process of the objects of representation, desire, and feelings, in particular in conjunction with Willkür. In terms of the faculty of desire, its mode can be one-dimensional, with either a lower faculty of desire or a higher faculty of desire, or two-dimensional, with both faculties working together. It has to be emphasized that fashion helps us fathom that not only intellectual incentives but also sensible incentives stimulate the human agency to choose with the power of Willkür, not because desires that originate from the latter directly necessitate the human agency to exercise her Willkür, but because more heteronomous incentives from diverse sources can bring more opportunities to make a free choice to decide her position in society. More chances of making a choice by virtue of fashion mean that she can exercise her personal autonomy more often by determining herself while acting on her maxim, which in turn makes her feel that she is free and things go as she wishes in the practical life. Put another way, the rational agency feels that the more she exercises her faculty of choice, the greater the amplitude of her autonomy grows. This is not a difficult metaphysical proposition, but simple math that requires addition and multiplication. Most of us take for granted the freedom we enjoy by way of making a fashion choice in modern society. However, what fashion entails is not just a mere sensible desire, but also an intellectual desire, both of which are an important source of practical autonomy in a different manner, influencing how we feel autonomous and how we are actually autonomous.