Our social environments shape our social interactions. It stands to reason that if we want morally
better interactions, we need social environments that support those interactions. I construct a
Kantian case that we are morally obligated to build certain kinds of social spaces, ones that
instantiate what Kant calls the ethical commonwealth. The ethical commonwealth is a community of
rational agents committed to their individual and collective moral improvement. I argue that the
social environments conducive to the ethical commonwealth must discourage vices like contempt,
arrogance, and cynicism. For Kant, these vices threaten the prospects for the ethical commonwealth
by undermining moral equality and damaging our capacity for hope in ourselves and in each other.
Instead, we should strive to create social spaces that foster the attitudes characteristic of the
relationships that Kant calls moral friendships. Friendships, for Kant, involve a finely tuned balance
between love and respect, between intimacy and the maintenance of appropriate boundaries. I show
how the social space of moral friendship can serve as a useful model for constructing the social
space of the broader moral community.