Abstract

Immanuel Kant develops a philosophy that values human freedom and provides an account of citizenship that remains relevant today. In this essay, Lily Elston-Leadbetter argues that the edifice of citizenship is fundamentally based on structural violence which excludes women and propertyless workers by delegitimising their labour. The limitations of Kant’s account of citizenship will be examined with specific emphasis on domestic labour, refuting his claim that birth is not a limiting factor to citizenship and revealing how the implicit structural violence of his theory has continued into the present.