Abstract
Immanuel Kant’s essay on Perpetual Peace (1795/96) contains a rejection of the idea of a world government (earlier advocated by Kant himself). In connexion with a substantial argument for cosmopolitan rights based on the human body and its need for a space on the surface of the Earth, Kant presents the most rigorous philosophical formulation ever given of the limitations of the cosmopolitan law. In this contribution, Kant’s essay is analysed and the reasons he gives for these restrictions discussed in relation to his main focus: to project a realistic path to perpetual peace.
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Notes
I. Kant, “Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis”, A 202.
Cf. Immanuel Kant, Der Streit der Fakultäten (1798), A 156 ff.
An interesting recent study is Ossipow (2008). Ossipow argues that Kant has used a lot of silent quotations from a German translation of Emerich de Vattel’s Le droit de gens (1758) in questions concerning international law, and in addition, Kant in his remarks concerning the internal organisation of republics was astonishing close to expressions in David Hume’s Essays and unexpectedly also to phrases in a particular article (no. 51) published in the American Federalist Papers by Publius, i. e. James Madison [or Alexander Hamilton?] (1788). However, the influence of the political writings of Aristotle, Locke and Montesquieu present in the Federalist Papers weakens Ossipow’s observation.
Immanuel Kant, Metaphysik der Sitten, Rechtslehre, A 176 ff. In Toward Perpetual Peace, Kant thinks it just to punish the rebels, but without legitimacy to restore the pre-revolutionary political conditions (372 f., B 77 f.).
“Unter den drei Staatsformen [i. e. Autokratie, Aristokratie & Demokratie] ist die der Demokratie im eigentlichen Verstande des Worts notwendig ein Despotism, weil sie eine exekutive Gewalt gründet, da alle über und allenfalls auch wider Einen (der also nicht miteinstimmt), mithin alle, die doch nicht alle sind, beschließen; welches ein Widerspruch des allgemeinen Willens mit sich selbst und mit der Freiheit ist” (352, B 26).
I. Kant, “Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis”, A 250.
Kant admired the achievements of the revolution because it allowed for a more righteous and fair development than the old regime did. A positive view on the development in France is predominant in Kant, and it distinguishes him from many other voices in Germany at that time. Nevertheless, the idea of the sovereignty of the people made an escalation of war possible. The recruitment of soldiers was facilitated immensely by the invention of ‘conscription’. In Vom Kriege Carl von Clausewitz called that phenomenon “The People in Arms” (Volksbewaffnung): “In the civilized parts of Europe, war by means of popular uprisings [Volkskrieg, war by means of the people] is a phenomenon of the nineteenth century. It has its advocates and its opponents. The latter object to it either on political grounds, considering it as a means of revolution, a state of legalized anarchy that is as much of a threat to the social order at home as it is to the enemy; or else on military grounds, because they feel that the results are not commensurate with the energies that have been expended” … “[A] popular uprising should, in general, be considered as an outgrowth of the way in which the conventional barriers [seine alte künstliche Umwallung] have been swept away in our lifetime by the elemental violence of war [das kriegerische Element]. It is, in fact, a broadening and intensification of the fermentation process known as war.” Carl von Clausewitz, On War. M. Howard & P. Paret trsl. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1976/1984, p. 479 [From the 26th chapter of the sixth book.].
Cf. I. Kant, “Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis”, A 233 ff. & A 267 f.
Matthias Lutz-Bachmann considers this rejection of a world republic as “inconsistent with Kant’s own assumptions”. However, Lutz-Bachmann neglects the difference between the arguments in Zum ewigen Frieden and those in Kant’s earlier works (Lutz-Bachmann1997).
“[die] Vernunftidee einer friedlichen, wenn gleich noch nicht freundschaftlichen, durchgängigen Gemeinschaft aller Völker auf Erden, die untereinander in wirksame Verhältniss kommen können, ist nicht etwa philanthropisch (ethisch), sondern ein rechtliches Prinzip” (Kant 1798, A 229/B 259).
Cf. Kemp (2005).
Brandt (1995). He writes: “wer also gegen seinen eigenen Willen an das Ufer eines Landes getrieben wird, hat das Recht des Besuchs, weil er einen Boden unter seinen Füßen braucht” (144 f.).
Kant writes: “But here the prohibition that is presupposed in the law of permission concerns only the future manner of acquiring a right (e.g. through inheritance [cf. the second preliminary article]), whereas the exemption from this prohibition, i.e., the permission, concerns the current status of possession. In accordance with the law of permissibility of natural right, the current state of possession can, in the transition from the state of nature into the state of civil society, continue to be preserved as an, although not lawful, nonetheless honest possession (possessio putativa). This obtains for such a putative possession as soon as it has been recognized as such in the state of nature, even though a similar manner of acquisition in the subsequent state of civil society (after the transition) is prohibited. This authorization of continued possession would not exist if such a putative acquisition had occurred in the state of civil society. For in the state of civil society such possession would constitute an injury and have to end immediately after the discovery of its unlawfulness.” (Colclasure trsl. p. 72) (347 note, B 15 f.).
Derrida (1997) p. 42. “Hospitality is culture itself and not simply one ethic among others. Insofar as it has to do with the ethos, that is, the residence, one’s home, the familiar place of dwelling, inasmuch as it is a manner of being there, the manner in which we relate to ourselves and to others, to others as our own or as foreigners, ethics is hospitality; ethics is so thoroughly coextensive with the experience of hospitality”, Derrida (2001), p. 16 f. According to Derrida, the focus on the limiting laws of hospitality makes a perversion possible of what he terms as “the law of hospitality”. Kant’s formulation of the law of cosmopolitanism is a problematic instance of that.
That lack of confidence in bottom-up development (or in “the universal republicanism”) was pointed out by Friedrich Schlegel (1796).
Philosophical insight and political prudence do not share the same rationality. According to Volker Gerhardt, this is a very important Modern insight (Gerhardt 1995). However, it might be argued that Plato himself, e.g. in the Politikos, started the discussion of the specific form of political rationality, a discussion that has been continued by Aristotle, and later by Machiavelli and Hobbes.
“Aber auch nur derjenige, der selbst aufgeklärt, sich nicht vor Schatten fürchtet, zugleich aber ein wohldiszipliniertes zahlreiches Heer zum Bürgen der öffentlichen Ruhe zur Hand hat,—kann das sagen, was ein Freistaat nicht wagen darf: räsonnirt, so viel ihr wollt, und worüber ihr wollt; nur gehorcht!” “Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung”, A 493, cf. A 484.
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Huggler, J. Cosmopolitanism and Peace in Kant’s Essay on ‘Perpetual Peace’. Stud Philos Educ 29, 129–140 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-009-9167-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-009-9167-x