Kant on Perpetual Peace and Globalization
By Barbara Baudot
If Emmanuel Kant were with us to commemorate this 200th anniversary of his death, would he be impressed by our current world’s material and technological achievements? Would he look kindly at the post-modern age—called variously, the global consumer society, the media society, the information society, the electronic society? Would he regard as positive, the development of a world economy and its increasing globalization, including growing irrelevance of territorial borders, and the breaking down of the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs? More to the point, would he see international organizations, notably the United Nations, as useful steps toward his vision for Perpetual Peace?
Surely, being a non-complacent observer of human affairs, he would deplore evidence of the rapidly deteriorating global environment, the vast areas of endemic poverty and breakdowns in the social fabric—, the persistence of intolerance, racism and prejudices of all kinds, and inequalities that mar most societies. He would be troubled by the spread of acquisitiveness, materialism, privilege, and license. He would observe with consternation, a dominant culture giving primacy to competitive individualism, to the neglect, even derision, of the public and common good. And, he would certainly be appalled by the violence, conflicts, and wars that plague the world scene. But all of this would not surprise him.
While a great idealist, Kant was at the same time extraordinarily lucid on the nature of the creature revealed by the dark sides of human behavior, which he attributes variously, for example, to laziness and lack of courage, on the one hand, and aggressive, power driven instincts, on the other. Of this creature, Kant wrote, “Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be built.”[1] However, Kant perceived essential humankind, as rational beings endowed with a priori reason. Goaded by the harsh lessons of nature, forced to look upward and beyond the constraints of their instincts, humanity would ultimately progress toward building a society of world citizens governed by moral law. The cause of Kant’s optimism was his conviction that reason could find no real and lasting satisfaction and completion in the visible world, and that idea gave plausibility to the existence of a transcendent omnipotent intelligence, as “the thing in itself.” or the Good Will where in humanity’s real freedom lay.
Experiencing, as we do in dawn of the 21st century, revolutionary, violent, and extremely turbulent times, Kant offers his plan for perpetual peace as a philosopher’s prescription for human progress. He would surely offer it again today, and with renewed vigor and urgency. His plan addresses the timeless problems encountered by humanity, still resident in the darkness of its own anarchical, self-interested existence. Kant’s vision perceives human kind rising out of their miserable existence to form republics of individuals, equal before the law and respectful of each other as an “end,” or the highest purpose of nature [as opposed to “means” towards another’s goals]. In turn, these independent republics, to escape annihilation in an anarchical world system, would merge into a world federation of independent republics. Kant has prefixed his plan with six preliminary considerations, each of which focuses on an area of international relations that tends toward war.
This paper examines Kant’s plan in some detail considering the relevance of its principal articles to conditions today, in light of the actualization of republican forms of government by principal world powers as well as the creation of universal international organizations by these governments. Despite these advances in the direction of Kant’s design, the same threats, even greater ones threaten human survival. The explanation is found, not in the architecture of government, but in the will of the leaders, the tragedies of misunderstanding, and uncontrolled ambition—in short, the failure to observe the moral law. This evolution would not surprise Kant. Peace and perfection are always before humankind as a real possibility.
Before analyzing Kant’s plan and its present significance, it is necessary to take two short detours: the first, to evoke historical antecedents to this plan for perpetual peace, and the second, to outline aspects of Kant’s philosophy that underlie his proposal.
Copyright © Barbara Baudot 2004.
Historical antecedents
Kant’s proposal for perpetual peace was one in an impressive line of utopian designs, offerings beginning as early as the 14th century. Manfred Lachs summarized these various schemes. [2] It is useful to identify some of these projects to distinguish Kant’s plan. All of these plans in one way or another seek to ensure peace through the cooperation of the political leaders of the time.
The first in this line of schemes for peace came in a pamphlet entitled On the Recovery of the Holy Land written in 1306 by Pierre Dubois. It implores church officials, and secular Christian rulers to outlaw war, perpetuate peace, and insure the settlement of disputes by arbitration. Another very early contribution was made by Dante (1311). His was the earthly objective of generis humani totaliter accepti. In 1324, Marsilius de Padua wrote Defender of the Peace (Pacis Defensor). More than a century later, in 1464, Georg Podebrand, proposed a more elaborated “general league” of Christian Princes— concordia universalis— to preserve peace and security in Europe.[3] Emeric Cruce presented his “liberal” proposal for general peace to “men of good will” in 1623. In The New Cyneas, Cruce bases peace on freedom of commerce to be facilitated by unification of currencies, weights, and measures; and by an international assembly to resolve disputes between states that embraced countries from Europe, the Middle East, China and Japan. The perceived necessity for cooperation among rulers in their trade with the Indies apparently motivated the Grand Design (1658) of Henry the IVth, (rather that of his minister, Sully), modeled on the Amphictyonic League of Ancient Greece.
The plan that had particular influence on Kant, as well as Jean Jacques Rousseau, a great influence himself on Kant, was elaborated in 1713, by Charles-Francois Castel de Saint Pierre (L’Abbé de Saint Pierre), secretary to the French plenipotentiary at the Peace of Utrecht. “Il y aura une paix permente et perpetuelle entre les souverains soussignés,” he pronounced with his Project “pour rendre la paix perpetuelle en Europe,” embodying a denunciation of war and compulsory arbitration. A similar plan for a federation of states, he also foresaw for Asia. As in some earlier plans, the potential for peace was rooted in commerce. Rousseau remarked that such a federation could only be formed by war and revolution. Nevertheless he offered his own version of a federation for Europe.[4]
Referring to these two plans, Kant wrote:
“However fanciful this idea may seem, and such may have been ridiculed when
held by Abbé St. Pierre and Rousseau (…), it is nevertheless the inevitable
escape from the destitution into which human beings plunge each other. It is this
which must compel states to the resolution to seek quiet and security through
a lawful constitution (…) and to do that which the wild man is so very reluctantly
forced to do—to give up his brutal freedom.”[5]
And, just as nature has used incompatibility among humankind to goad them into civil societies, so wars bring about new relationships between states that ultimate in a civil commonwealth or federations of states.[6]
In 1795, following the French revolution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the establishment of the short-lived, first French republic, Kant offers his own plan for perpetual peace, unique in many respects from earlier proposals yet also benefiting from those of his more immediate predecessors. In summary, Kant stipulates the establishment of representative republican institutions in every country as a condition for peace. He advocates a law of nations emerging from a federation of free states and world citizenship for their peoples. Economic reasoning and natural law would ultimately guarantee the peace and eliminate war.
Underlying assumptions
Understanding Kant’s plan requires appreciation of its basic assumptions including his vision of human nature and his orientation towards the realities of life, knowledge, and law. These assumptions underlie the preliminary as well as the definitive articles of peace. To go into these assumptions and reveal how they play in this project would be a much more ambitious undertaking than this brief paper allows. Suffice to state that what Kant produces in the few pages that constitute his plan is a summary of the implications for the human polity of his basic philosophy. It is written at the end of his career and seems to imply the sum of his understandings concerning human nature, its capacity for reason, its innate sense of a priori morality, its place in the whole scheme of life, as well as his philosophy of law and governance.
Kant foresaw both the destructive tendencies in human instincts as well as great potential for human advancement through application of humankind’s innate capacity for pure reason. But cultural advancement is the work of eternity for the human species—the pace up to humanity itself.[7] External nature, states Kant, never intended material circumstances to be easy. “For we see that in its destructive operations—plagues, famine, floods, cold, (…), and all such things—it has little spared human beings as any other animal.” Besides all this, the discord of their inner tendencies leads human beings into further misfortunes of their own invention to the detriment of their fellow members, “through the oppression of lordly power, the barbarism of wars, and the like.” Even, if nature, itself, was of good will and worked for human happiness, it would never be attained in a terrestrial system, because humankind’s instinctive nature is not capable of it.[8] Happiness in sensible life is short-lived because there is no abiding satisfaction or completion in it.
Yet, human beings were not intended to be the hapless victims of nature and their instincts. Being the only rational creatures on earth, endowed with intellect and free will, they possess the capacity to set higher goals of their choosing. Reason gives them the capacity to enlarge the rules and purposes of the unconstrained use of their resources in the choice of projects, far beyond their natural instincts.[9] Because nature endowed the human species with reason and the freedom to use it, reason is employed not by instinct, but through trials, experience, and information. Thus progress in understanding results from the human being’s own efforts. Seemingly, Nature does not intend, that humans live well, but that they gain self-esteem in overcoming hardship and proving themselves worthy of life and well-being.[10] The happiness and perfection of humankind is to be secured through reason free of instinct. Natural antagonism and difficulties become the cause of lawful order in society, in the way of Rousseau’s social contract theory.
Plan for Perpetual Peace
Kant’s plan comes in two sections: the first contains six preliminary articles on an eternal peace between states; the second three definitive articles for eternal peace among states. These are followed by an addendum on nature, as the guarantor of eternal peace, and two appendices on morals and laws in respect to perpetual peace. This paper focuses on the two main sections of the plan and presents a modest perusal of the preliminary and definitive articles and of their relevance in today’s world.
Six Preliminary Articles of an Eternal Peace
The first article provides that “no conclusion of peace shall be considered valid as such if it was made with a secret reservation of the material for a future war.” Always a realist on the fragility of human nature, Kant was fully aware of this type of deceptiveness. He lived in predominantly mercantilist times, when the accumulation of wealth and power was the policy of “wise” governments. Losing power and wealth meant losing security to one’s potential enemies. Although today’s world economy is globalized and dominated by a neo-liberal ideology, the same strong veins of realism shape the foreign policies of states as they have since the Treaty of Westphalia. There have, however, been sporadic attempts to denounce war as an instrument of foreign policy, but these have been short-lived.
When the League of Nations was established after World War I, some states were seeking peace, while others were seeking revenge, or as they saw it, correctives to an unjust settlement. During the 1930’s, Britain and France disarmed in pursuit of an ideal—the Kellogg Briand Pact had been signed in 1928, denouncing war as illegal. As events unfolded, they did so at their peril and paid dearly in World War II. This memory was still vivid in 1945, when the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco, to save humankind from the “scourge of war.” But, at this time the world was quite far from the notion of a pacific federation of independent republics, as Kant imagined. And, the belief in peace was not equally shared among the founding members. Almost immediately, the Cold War gave great weight to military alliances as the best defense against the still perceived inevitability of war. Today, conflicts are widespread. While the Charter remains widely recognized as prescribing the legitimate way to achieve world peace, the excuse of self-defense has even become a legitimate cause of preemptive wars against states that may not even appear to most as immanent threats to security. Thus even the most powerful states are seemingly unwilling, perhaps even less so, than a few decades ago to accept this preliminary article for perpetual peace. This being the case, the definitive article establishing Kant’s “federation of free states” is also presently moribund.
The second article supports the principle of sovereign independence. It provides: “No independently existing state whether it be large or small, may be acquired by another state, by inheritance, exchange, purchase, or gift.” This language reflects the conditions of Kant’s time, when monarchs felt free to trade off their territories or arrange marriages to merge their property—their subjects and resources— without regard for the individuals that constituted the state. Such practices are seemingly out of date, but respect for the principle of sovereign independence obviously remains a significant problem in the contemporary world.
For Kant, a state is a society of citizens, not a mere piece of property to be bartered away. A legitimate state has its roots in the freedom, autonomy, and dignity of each of its citizens and is the sum of these attributes. This precondition found expression in international law as the principle of self-determination of peoples. In Kant’s time this principle may have been first applied. In 1791, after the cessation of Papal rule in the enclave of Avignon, the annexation of the territory by the French Assemblée Nationale was made contingent on the will of the people living there. And, the Treaty of Paris (1856), which ended the Crimean War, was probably the first to embody self-determination as a principle of international law.[11]
In the 19th century, self-determination was de facto disregarded in the wholesale colonization of Africa, the Middle East, and vast regions of Asia. For the colonizers, these territories were “non existent states” and their people could be dominated and “acquired.” With the advent of the League of Nations, self-determination regained some authoritative respect. In addressing the US Senate in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson, inspired by Kant’s ideas, stated the following:
No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle
that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and
that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty
as if they were property.[12]
It was only after the tragedy of World War II, that world leaders agreed to embody this principle in the Charter of the United Nations and put it into practice on a universal scale. Article 1, Para 2. of the Charter states that one of the purposes of the organization is “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples,(…).” Decolonization followed on a grand scale. The membership of the UN shot up from fifty countries to over 125 countries by the middle of the 1970’s. In 2004, there are over 190 nations, members of this organization.
In the post-modern world, Kant would see this principle again undermined, this time by globalization. There is an insidious takeover—under the banner of free trade, free circulation of capital, and free investment— of large tracts of the world’s economic resources by the global corporations and other bodies of this ilk. These institutions operate like feudal lords, virtually unconstrained, particularly in weaker states. Their operations, deals, mergers, and acquisitions bring under their control vast reaches of natural resources and markets without opposition and irrespective of territorial boundaries. This is reminiscent of the mergers through marriage of the estates of the feudal lords in the medieval period. There are no plebiscites in these countries whose people, like property, slip surreptitiously under the economic, social, cultural and ultimately political control of the corporate managers that roam the planet, virtually unimpeded. In the words of Former Under Secretary General of the United Nations, Nitin Desai, “the system of nation states, organized as market based democracies is being undermined by globalization and fragmentation, the debasement of democracy, the inequities of the market, the erosion of solidarity, and the decay of local institutions.”[13]
Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist at the World Bank, a Nobel Prize winner, observes that:
We have a system that might be called global governance without global government, one in which a few institutions—the World Bank, the WTO, and the IMF—and a few players—the finance, commerce, and trade ministries, closely linked to certain financial and commercial interests—dominate the scene, but, in which many of those affected by their decisions are left almost voiceless.[14]
To reestablish this precondition for a just and perpetual peace, globalization must be reshaped. Certainly the territorial independence of states must be reaffirmed and governments must play the role of defending the public good. Globalization does not mean that states should become the property of private interests whose only interest is the expansion of personal wealth.
The third article provides for the gradual elimination of standing armies because, says Kant, “they constantly threaten other states with war by the very fact that they are prepared for it.” Since the Napoleonic wars that Kant saw unfolding before his death in 1804, the idea of disarmament has been given a great deal of attention. Article 8 of the League of Nations was devoted to the project of disarmament including the control of the manufacture of armaments. In the Charter of the United Nations, it is given a smaller but nevertheless important place in Article 11. The shared view, during the 1960’s and 1970’s, when statesmen like Olaf Palme actively promoted disarmament, was expressed in the words of Inis Claude: “In its more sophisticated versions, (disarmament) rests upon the assumption that national military resources do not merely make war physically possible, but that they figure significantly among the factors that make war a political probability.”[15]
But the argument of the realists never lost its appeal and from the end of the 1970’s, the very idea that disarmament was a legitimate objective started to lose ground. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was attributed to the aggressive armament policies of the US administration. Then there was the refutation of treaties, violations of other treaties, and arrogant protection of one’s own weapons while demanding that the “other” disarm, implying some countries have a legitimate right to arm while others do not. At the beginning of the 1990’s, the Secretary General of the UN, Boutros Boutros Ghali, proposed in his Agenda for Peace, that the organization be permitted to have a permanent force, a “standing army” to undertake the peace keeping and peace making operation decided by the Security Council. This proposal was rejected, of course, not because such a permanent force would add to insecurity in the world, but because it would have somehow threatened the monopoly of the use of force in world affairs enjoyed by the main powers. It is arguable whether Kant would have favored a standing army for the purpose of preventing war between any of the members of the federation. He does not appear to oppose the right of citizens to undertake voluntary military training to secure themselves and their country from attack from outsiders.
The work on disarmament continues “sotto-voce” in the UN through weakened efforts to pursue nuclear free zones, nuclear test bans, as well as non-proliferation treaties. Today, facts and figures show that realism, if not cynicism prevails.
The international transfer of arms involves 10’s of billions of dollars annually and, in one way or another, aids and abets causes of war. Three quarters of this trade is directed to third world countries of which Asia absorbed 42% in 2002, and the Middle East accounted for 27%. This trade is multi-purposed. It serves to support dissidents against their governments, governments against their dissidents, or wars between neighboring nations or countries. Motives for these sales include strengthening allies, intervening on a side in times of conflict, striving for diplomatic influence, and securing economic benefits. A great deal of trade in conventional weapons is carried on by private manufacturers, with limited government efforts to regulate this lucrative business. The sum total of domestic arms expenditures amounted to almost $800 billion in 2002, 2.5% of the world’s gross domestic product, or 128$ per head for each of the world’s 6 billion people.[16] Estimated stockpiles of fissile materials exceeded 3,000 tons, of which two thirds were produced in the United States and Russia. In addition there are estimates of thousands of tons of chemicals stockpiled for use in weapons.
It would seem today that Kant’s third proposal is fundamentally ignored in a world dominated again by an ethos of violence and war. But this is no reflection of its merit.
The fourth article provides “no debts shall be contracted in connection with the external affairs of the state.” Kant distinguishes debt incurred for the purposes of internal development, which is legitimate, from debt that is an instrument of the struggle between the powers, which is illegitimate because it constitutes dangerous money power in facilitating, says Kant, the “war-like inclinations of those in power.” Thereby states are beholden to other states in their choice of foreign policy.
This danger, evident in the mercantilist period in which Kant lived, is even more pronounced today, in the neo-liberal world where the interconnectedness of economies is far more extensive. Debt underlies the growing trade in drugs, speculation and financial bubbles that end in contagious crisis, and further impoverishment of weak countries. Today, even the legitimate debt incurred for purposes of internal development leads to dependence and loss of sovereign control over a country’s natural resources. Debtor countries are obliged to export great amounts of goods and services just to pay interest to creditor nations. Increasing exports often means devaluating the debtor countries’ currencies. The results are higher costs of imports and often, ultimately, lower wages and reduced domestic purchasing power. Many countries of the South have unsustainable debt burdens. In 2002, the external debt of the developing countries amounted to $2.3 billion. Forty-seven low and middle-income countries concentrated in Latin America and sub Saharan Africa had debt burden to export ratios of greater than 220% and debt to Gross National Income ratios of greater than 80% in 2002.[17]
The debt burden of developing countries is one of the most serious issues facing the world today. Particularly dramatic is the political instability that can be fostered by the policies that indebted governments are obliged to impose on their already deprived populations, to restrain spending and to increase revenue for debt repayment— not to mention development. And, the various forms of conditionality imposed by bilateral donors and multilateral financial institutions often aggravate the problems of debtor countries. The debt burden and the associated tutelage imposed on countries with little power are seen to violate their rights of self-determination and development. Moreover, these same countries are often caught in a globalized economy where many monetary and economic factors exacerbating their debt are beyond their control. These factors include unstable exchange rates vis a vis the concerned countries’ currency, foreign speculation on their currencies, high interest rates in the major developed countries, tariffs and other import restrictions on their competitive products, and high rates of inflation in the global economy.
This fourth article of Kant is wise, much discussed, but far from being implemented in today’s neo-liberal world economy.
The fifth article reads: “No state shall forcibly interfere in the constitution and government of another state.” Here Kant is aiming not only at foreign aggression for conquest or gain of strategic or economic advantage, but also at interference with the manner by which a state is organizing itself and treating its citizens.
On the aspect of blatant aggression, this proscription has become legally somewhat sacrosanct. This maxim of international law was featured in the Covenant of the League of Nations (Article 10) which provided that in the case of such aggression the Council would advice on measures to be taken. Following the experience of the League, it was much more forcefully enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. Article 2, Para. 4. states: “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” Such interference is subject to Article VII of the Charter, whereby the Security Council, by the vote of 2/3rds majority of its members, including that of the five permanent members can take the action necessary to stop this aggression. The effectiveness of the Security Council to prevent such aggression has been very limited. The success of this project is subject to the will and interests of the dominant power or powers.
This principle, as Kant develops it, is also reflected in general, contemporary international law. It is wrapped up in prescriptions concerning the recognition of states and the behavior of states in cases of civil war. There are no treaties or written conventions condemning civil war. As Kant generally set out in this preliminary article, traditional international law distinguishes three levels of crisis according to the degree of their challenge to the incumbent government— rebellion, insurgency, and belligerency. In the case of rebellion, international interference, save at the request of the incumbent government, is illegal. It offers no protection to the rebels. An insurgency is a more intense state of rebellion and third states may determine their own relations with the insurgents, short of waging war on their behalf. It gives rights to protect the economic and private rights of citizens. The condition of belligerency is treated essentially as a war between two sovereign states, giving rise to rights and obligations under international law. The choice is up to third parties to decide to favor one or the other parties or to remain neutral under the conditions set out in international law.[18]
Regarding the second aspect, non-interference in the domestic affairs of member states is a fundamental principle of the United Nations and is inscribed in Article 2, Para. 7 of the Charter. Indeed, until recently, the UN tried, not always successfully, to prevent its members from meddling too forcibly into the internal affairs of other states. It intervenes itself through cooperation in the social and economic domains and through advice and injunctions, notably in the Human Rights domain, but these interventions were within its mandate.
Lately, however, a rather dramatic change in thinking has occurred. In the last decade, groups of states have actually intervened with military force in the affairs of other states without the consent of legitimate governments. Such is the case of former Yugoslavia with the Kosovo operation and, most recently, with the invasion of Iraq. In the first instance, intervention was done with the approval of the UN, when internal violence amounting to genocide and ethnic cleansing was attributed to government officials and the resultant outflow of refugees was found to be a threat to international security. In the second case, intervention was unprovoked in the view of most UN member states and carried out by a coalition of powers without the formal approval of the UN. Today, the right of interference and even the moral duty of countries to interfere in the internal affairs of other states is openly debated in international circles, especially with regard to, “gross violations of human rights” such as genocide.
The sixth article prescribes that “no state at war with another shall permit such acts of hostility as would make mutual confidence impossible during a future time of peace.”
Kant refers to the employment of assassins, the instigation of treason, the use of spies, and other dishonorable stratagems and diabolical acts that “would not long be confined to war alone if they were brought into use.” It is hardly necessary to point out that the world has not adhered to this proscription, so clearly set by the philosopher of Konigsberg.
Such acts are, however, proscribed in the international law of war and international humanitarian law. Agreements have been ratified by many countries, notably the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners and on the protection of civilians in time of war. Tribunals have been established, most recently the International Criminal Court, but atrocities of all sort appear increasingly frequent, and the distinction between civilians and combatants is too often ignored. While the establishment of international war tribunals indicates the ambition of the international community of states to prevent such acts of hostility. Thus far, only the vanquished have been tried for such illegal acts of war.
Summary: These six preliminary articles, Kant tells us, represent “prohibitive laws,” some of them of the strictest sort [articles 1,5,6], others allowing some “subjective latitude” according to the circumstances in which they are applied [article 2,3,4]. Today, these articles might serve several purposes.
- As the Considerata preceding the operational paragraphs of an amended UN Charter, they would provoke tremendous challenges to the status quo.
- As criteria for measuring the weaknesses and strengths of the world order they would be particularly useful.
- They may figure in guidelines for reforming the United Nations.
In any case they give a picture of what Kant considers important for the attainment of world peace. Evidently, the world has yet to achieve these goals. In some measure, however, they remain objectives of the United Nations. This organization tries to uphold the principle of self determination of peoples and human rights; has an apparatus to discourage threats to the peace and deter aggression; pursues disarmament; offers assistance to reduce the debt burden, at least of weak and dependent countries; and promotes international law in the conduct of war and the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Real success in these endeavors remains a distant star, but these goals remain markers on the path to human progress.
The Definitive Articles of Perpetual Peace.
There are three definitive articles in the Plan for Perpetual Peace.
- The first requires that the civil constitution of each member state be republican.
- The second requires that the law of nations be based on a federation of free states. and,
- The third demands that the Cosmopolitan or World Law be limited to conditions of universal hospitality.
To understand how Kant sees that his plan would bring about perpetual peace it is perhaps useful to take yet a third detour, to consider the notions of law, morality, and duty, because these concepts should shape human behavior in ways conducive to the conduct of affairs of state in accordance with the general will.
From the outset Kant defines the state of nature, in which humankind lives, as one of perpetual war or threat of such hostility. Therefore the state of peace must be founded through deliberate human actions. Because, as he states: “a neighbor may treat his neighbor as an enemy unless he has guaranteed such security to him, which can only happen in a state of law.”[19] Humans can only achieve the development of all their faculties by seeking, as nature inclines them, to achieve a civil society, which administers right or recht. According to Kant: “right” includes all the conditions under which the voluntary actions of any one person can be harmonized with the voluntary actions of every other person, according to the universal law of freedom.[20] This moral concept, like others of Kant, has its origin a priori in reason. For any action to be morally good it must conform to the moral law and be done for the sake of the law.[21] Reason recognizes the establishment of “good will” as its highest practical destination.[22] In developing this notion of pure good in itself, Kant develops the notion of duty. Beneficence from duty, as opposed to obligation, has moral worth, as does love for the other from a sense of duty. Duty is its own pure motivation and is performed from the sense of necessity to act accordingly, out of respect for the law.[23]
From this reasoning, Kant develops his concept of the Categorical Imperative, a command conceived as good in itself and consequently the principle of a will, which of itself conforms to reason. It is morality and expresses generally what constitutes obligation or duty according to reason. The Categorical Imperative contains, besides the law, only the necessity that the maxims or subjective principles of human actions conform to this law. Kant concludes that there is but one Categorical Imperative, “Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Otherwise stated it is: “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a Universal Law of Nature.”[24]
In this same context of thinking, Kant develops the concept of human beings as rational beings, whose existence has in itself an absolute worth. Thus rational beings are ends in themselves, the highest conceptions of nature. It follows then that in their relations: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person, or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.”[25] These ideas underpin and govern human kind in civil society, the development of which follows.
In the first definitive article, Kant removes humankind from the state of nature with the adoption of a republican constitution based on principles of the freedom of each individual, the dependence of all individuals on a single common legislature, and the equality of all as citizens.[26]
Kant finds the republican constitution the best hope for eternal peace because this form of government allows citizens to make the choice of whether to go to war. In other words, those who will suffer the many dire consequences of war have to make the determination of whether or not to go to war, rather than the single ruler who, in his despotic system remains safe above the fray. The former will not pursue this adventure while it is easy for the single ruler to pursue this game as a form of amusement.
It is important, particularly in light of present circumstances, to underscore Kant’s distinctions between forms of rules and forms of government. Kant stresses the republican form of government over democracy as a form of rule, because republicanism means a constitutional principle according to which the executive power is separated from the legislative power. The problem of choosing whom should wield executive power is a very difficult one because society must find that person, who while entrusted with maintaining public justice, would him or herself be just in themselves and still be human.[27] No state today can find such a perfect human being and thus must be content to get the best they can from ordinary humanity. It is in this context that Kant employed the phrase: “Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be built.” Thus there is no perfect solution.
The problem Kant sees with popular democracy is its potential for despotism when the power of the executive allows all to decide against one, hence against the one who does not agree, so that “all” are not necessarily “all”—a situation which is contrary to the general will as defined by Jean Jacques Rousseau and hence to freedom under law. Kant’s system is built on the notion of freedom constrained by reason. For him freedom comes when the human being’s unbridled will is subdued and compelled to obey the general will informed by a higher order of reason under which every one can be free. “The laws of freedom as distinguished from the laws of nature are moral laws.”[28] Thus society should offer individuals the greatest freedom and at the same time the most precise formulation and enforcement of the limits of this freedom. “A society in which freedom under the control of law is found combined in the highest degree with irresistible force, a perfectly just civil constitution, is the supreme task nature has set before humankind.”[29]
True freedom is aligned to doing one’s duty, which nature compels humankind to do. However, there is another form of freedom, that of the absence of constraint which is very much apart of human society and which does nothing to advance Kant’s good republic. Kant uses the analogy of trees in a forest to compare the effects of each of these types of freedom on society:
It is like trees in a forest, which, since each seeks to take air and sun away from the other, compel each other to seek both and thus they achieve a beautiful straight growth. Whereas those that develop their branches as they please, in freedom and apart from each other grow crooked and twisted. All culture and art which adorn mankind, the most beautiful social order, are the fruits of unsociability which is self compelled to discipline itself and thus through a derived art to fulfill completely the germs of its nature.[30]
Kant is searching for ways to achieve true happiness and the fullest realization of the each human being’s innate resources in a civil society. This can only be achieved through constraint of human instincts and their animal inclinations. To this end he is seeking the ideal freedom, while acknowledging the problematic reality of the unconstrained will in temporal society
.
In the present age, Kantian freedom, shaped by reason and duty tends to be forgotten. Its modern or post-modern variety is the wild freedom of license and economic choice prized by the dominant political culture. That form of freedom is to be able to do what one wants to do without restraints, save those actions of criminal nature, which inflict significant harm on another. Truly enough a number of democratic countries have imposed some restraints on unbridled freedom as a price for communal order.
But the notion of democracy becomes problematic when it is transformed into an ideology, stripped of Kantian notions of moral imperatives, responsibility, and duty, and foisted around the world like a commodity. This new democratic ideology wed to laissez-faire capitalism is the driving force of globalization. It favors unrestrained competitive behavior, self-interested individualism, and open borders for commercial interests. It is a democracy of the market society in which interpersonal relations are being reified into commercial-type private contracts. It is a democracy chiefly by virtue of elections and the wording of the constitution. It favors the strong and the rich. Candidates for office are chosen from among the wealthy rather than the wise. As Kant predicted, such a form of rule can easily lead to a mono-institutional despotism of the majority, no matter how large its margin, so long as the majority master minds all the branches of the government.[31] Thus the master of society, the executive power, is likely to be not one of great public experience and good will as Kant prescribes.
The second definitive article bases the law of nations on a federalism of free states. By analogy, Kant treats states as individuals in the state of nature, when they are not subject to law. He states: “each for the sake of security, may demand of the other to enter with him into a constitution similar to the civil one where the right of each may be secured.”[32] This constitution would call for a union of nations as opposed to a state of nations, in recognition of the sovereignty of each nation. Kant’s idealism concerning the possibility for such a union is based on his observation of the practice of international law, which indicates to him, however weakly, that there exists in humankind a greater moral quality to master the evil in the species that Kant sees in the anarchic world system. This moral quality derives from a priori reason innate in humankind. Kant believes that: “(…) reason speaking from the highest legislative power condemns war as a method of finding what is right. Reason makes [the achievement of] the state of peace a direct duty, and such a state of peace cannot be established or maintained without a treaty of nations among themselves.”[33] There must therefore exist a union of a kind to end all wars forever. It serves to secure the freedom of each state by and for itself and other states allied with it. The republican form of state if it could come into existence as the work of a powerful and enlightened people, promoting peace, would serve as the core for the federal union of other states. The peace would be secured by a law of nations. Given the state of the world in Kant’s time, the best that could be attained is a union of nations that maintains itself, prevents wars, and steadily expands.
Woodrow Wilson was inspired by Kant’s vision for Perpetual Peace when he was drawing up his ideas for a League of Nation. He was convinced that world peace could only be achieved by agreement between democratically governed states. Wilson wrote:
Only the free peoples of the world can join the League of Nations. No nation is admitted
to the League of Nations that cannot show that it has the institutions we call free.
No autocratic government can come into its membership, no government which is not
controlled by the will and vote of its people.[34]
Wilson believed that common people are reasonable enough to abstain from war, knowing they will bear the burden of the suffering, as opposed to the selfish irresponsibility of autocratic rulers who reap the benefits while they make their enslaved people bear the costs. Therefore, Wilson held that when the people ruled their nations, these nations will live in peace.[35] Wilson does not draw the distinctions Kant does between republican and democratic forms of government. Nor does he deal with human nature. As a mere practitioner, his approach is political, not profoundly philosophical
Although, never stated explicitly in either the Covenant of the League or its successor, the Charter of the United Nations, this line of thinking was certainly shared by the founders of these organizations. The Charter of the UN explicitly extended membership to all peace loving countries, which accept its obligations. These include the affirmation of faith in the democratic values of fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human being, in the equal rights of men and women, and of nations large and small.[36]
The third definitive article of the eternal peace establishes that the Cosmopolitan law or world law be limited to conditions of universal hospitality. This law protects the right of a foreigner not to be treated with hostility when he enters into the territory of another so long as he stays peaceful. The right of visit belongs to all persons by virtue of their common possession of the earth.
Over the years this article has taken on considerable significance. International law has been considerably extended to embrace human beings as subjects as well as states. National treatment which provides that people in the countries of others be accorded the same human rights as their citizens. Refugee law has been developed extensively offering sanctuary to peoples threatened in their own countries in the territory of other countries. The application of these laws, however, remains extremely problematic. Migrant workers and refugees are experiencing difficult working and living conditions in many of their host countries and their rights are de facto limited.
The notion of res communis, which Kant evokes in this article in respect to territories that are claimed by no country and therefore belong to all citizens of the world, remains problematic. This concept still struggles with the concept of res nullius, which holds that a territory that is not inhabited belongs to no one and is therefore open for claim as property by those who make such an effort. Such is the case, for example, of the ocean seabed whose vast resources are seen by many countries as being the common property of all mankind.
Addenda and Annexes
The addenda and annexes that Kant has attached to complete his plan for perpetual peace serve to set out Kant’s underlying assumptions in regard to perpetual peace. These relate to the role of nature in bringing humankind to society to secure their freedom, peace, and security. The others relate to Kant’s philosophy of the roles of the philosopher, and law and morality, which give some direction for interpreting his plan. These are in fact extracts from the essence of Kant’s whole philosophy covering the universe and the harmonious plan of the Great Designer for which humankind is Its “end.” And, as such human beings should be brought to realization that the full use of their innate resources is the real purpose and meaning of their life as citizens of the world. The summum bonum is happiness commensurate with humankind’s full moral development. In this way humankind will attain perpetual peace in life as opposed to the perpetual peace of the grave.
Conclusion
Today, the United Nations, the institution responsible for world peace, is sorely tested. Dominating powers believe they can create a better world, unilaterally by force or persuasion. The cosmopolitan elite shaped by a culture of power, competition, and expansion censor and, by the power of their purse, aspire to control the work of the United Nations, while the masses, even in republics, have little weight in most of the decisions that affect their lives for many reasons. They may be deceived, misled, or inflamed.
Yet, reasonable answers to present world problems have been formulated by the United Nations through a series of World Conferences organized predominantly during the last decade of the 20th century on the environment, habitat, population, poverty, alienation, and unemployment. And, world leaders gathering in 2000, reviewed these initiatives and adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration in which they stated the following: “We recognize that in addition to our separate responsibilities to our individual societies, we have a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level.”[37] Today, there is little evidence of any concrete implementation of such principles.
Thus, Kant’s plan for perpetual peace remains as urgent today as it was when he conceived it. It is consistent with his conceptions of the relations between humankind’s inner instincts, external nature, and resources of a priori reason. A philosophical sketch, it was not an empiricist’s project for implementation. As a philosopher’s vision of what would save humankind from the perpetual peace of the cemetery, it is an offering of hope. As he writes:
The practical politician tends to look down with great complacency upon the political
theorist as a mere academic. The theorist’s abstract ideas, the practitioner believes,
cannot endanger the state, since the state must be founded upon principles of experience;
it thus seems safe to let him fire off his whole broadside, and the worldly wise statesman
need not turn a hair. It thus follows that if the practical politician is to be consistent,
he must not claim, in the event of a dispute with the theorist, to scent any danger to the
state in the opinions, which the theorist has randomly uttered in public. By this saving
clause the author of this essay will consider himself expressly safeguarded, in correct
and proper style against all malicious interpretation.[38]
The statesman’s empiricism is appropriate to such spheres of knowledge and activity as economics, natural sciences and engineering but should never be divorced from considerations of morality. Empiricism is certainly insufficient to address questions of dignity, normative values, and human destiny, which nevertheless cannot be ignored in policy making for sustainable progress, even the survival of humankind. Thus, addressing these questions requires consideration of ideas, qualities, and relationships not necessarily evident to the empiricist but discernable through philosophical inquiry.
Philosophical idealists, just as realists, are cognizant of the same power and security dilemmas facing humanity, but, in the light thereof, devise human relations on considerations transcending material facts, appearances, and assumptions about basic human qualities. Kant‘s introduction to perpetual peace combines the profound insight’s of the star gazing natural scientist who wrote the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heaven (1755), in the beginning of his career, with insights on the human mind and society gained in later decades of study, reflection, and observation. The micro-cosmos of human societies are like so many worlds and constellations in the macro-cosmos unfolding and balanced by a Supreme Intelligence.
Kant offers that “transcendental ideas serve, if not, to instruct us positively, at least to destroy the impudent and restrictive assertions of materialism, of naturalism, and of fatalism, and thus should afford scope for moral ideas beyond the field of speculation.”[39] He recognized that should the Perpetual Peace, which is the ultimate end of all the Right of Nations, become in fact an impracticable idea, “the political principles, which aim at such an end, and which enjoin the formation of such unions among states as may promote a continuous approximation to a Perpetual Peace are not impracticable.” [40] If introduced into the current political discourse on problems confronting contemporary society, these principles would extend the horizons of thought and open new avenues for creative action. Practically, they would encourage awareness of the consequences of over-reliance on empiricism and draw attention to the moral dimensions of the human spirit that should govern the national and international societies today.
[1] Aus so krummen Holze, “aus woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden.” Quotation from Kant , Idea for a Universal History, “sixth proposition.”1784 This quotation was adopted for a title of book, Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity, (New York: Vintage Books, 1992) xi.
[2] Manfred Lachs, The Teacher in International Law, (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987)_22-25.
[3] The real author was probably Antoine Marin de Grenoble, adviser to Podebrand and of French origin.
[4] Lachs, The Teacher in International Law, 22; and Oscar Svarlien, An Introduction to the Law of Nations, (New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, Inc., 1955) 16.
[5] Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History With Cosmopolitan Intent, in Allen Wood, ed., The Basic Writings of Kant, (New York: The Modern Library, 2001) 8:24, p.126.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, 1793, in Basic Writing of Kant, 5:432 [p.353].
[8]Ibid., 5:431 [p.352].
[9] Ibid.,
[10] Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent, 1784 in Allen Wood, ed., The Basic Writings of Kant, 8:19-8:20 [pp 120-122].
[11] Svarlien, An Introduction to the Law of Nations, 30,33.
[12] US, Congressional Record, Vol. 54, pt. 2: 1742.
[13] Nitin Desai, “Global Ethics in a Plural World,” Candles in the Dark: A New Spirit for a Plural World, B.Baudot ed., (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003) 31.
[14] Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents, (New York: WW Norton Co., 2003) 22.
[15] Inis Claude, Swords into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1984) 287.
[16] James J. Rourke, International Politics on the World Stage, 10th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2004) 302-315. The largest exporter of arms is the US (41%) followed by Russia (22%). Over the period 1998-2002, the US accounted for 43%, the developing countries accounted for 32% of all domestic expenditure, about 4% of their GDP. The source of this data is the Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI).
[17] The World Bank, The World Bank Atlas, (Washington D.C.: The World Bank, 2004.) 50.
[18] Burns H. Weston, Richard A. Falk, Anthony D’Amato, International Law and World Order, (St.Paul, Minn: West Publishing Co. 1990) 858.
[19] Kant, To Eternal Peace, in Basic Writings of Kant, 8:329, p. 440.
[20] Kant, Philosophy of Law: An Exposition of the Fundamental Principles of Jurisprudence as the Science of Right, excerpts presented in The Great Legal Philosophers, ed. Clarence Morris, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971) 242.
[21] Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, The Basic Writings of Kant 4:390, [148].
[22] Ibid., 4:393, [151]
[23] Ibid., 4: 397, [155-156].
[24] Ibid., 4:421, [178-179] Maxims are the principles which make a certain action a duty. They are practical law.
[25] Ibid., 4:429,[186].
[26] Kant, To Eternal Peace, Basic Writings of Kant, 8:350 p. 441.
[27] Kant, Ideal for a Universal History, Basic Writings of Kant 8:23, [p. 125]
[28] Kant, Philosophy of Law in The Great Legal Philosophers, 240.
[29] Kant, Ideal for a Universal History, Basic Writings of Kant, 8:22 [123]
[30] Ibid., 8:22 [p.124]
[31] Drawn from Kant’s comparison of republican and democratic forms of government in Perpetual Peace definitive Article one..
[32] Kant, To Eternal Peace, Basic Writings of Kant, 8: 354 [p. 445].
[33] Ibid., 8:356 [446].
[34] Hamilton Foley, Woodrow Wilson’s Case for the League of Nations (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1923) p. 64 as cited in Inis Claude, Swords in Plowshares, 51.
[35] Claude, Swords into Plowshares, 52.
[36] The Charter of the United Nations Article 4, para 1, and Preamble.
[37] U.N. General Assembly Resolution, A/Res/55/2, 18 September 2000.
[38] Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, in Kant Political Writings, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970) p. 93.
[39] Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, P. Carus, trans., (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1977) 364, p. 103.
[40] Kant, Philosophy of Law, The Great Legal Philosophers, 260.