WEEK 7 READING: KANT

Kant’s preliminary articles of a perpetual peace between states

1. No secret plans of future war

2. No state can be acquired by another through purchase or gift

3. Standing armies or hiring of mercenaries (voluntary is fine though)

4. no national debt for external war waging

5. no forcible interference with other states

6. No assassins, poisoners, breach of agreements or dihonorable actions

The definitive articles fo a perpetual peace between states

• state of nature is a state of war

• even if there is no active hostitily, there is alays a trheat of a hostitliy breaking out

• so state of peace must be formally instituded, becasue the stop of conflict does not mean peace

• without a guarantee, the other might treat him as an enemy

1st definitive article of a perpetual peace

• The Civil Constitution of Every State shall be Republican

• Republican constitution is founded on three principles: (1) freedom for all members of a society - as men, (2) the dependence of everyone upon a single common legislation - as subjects, (3) legal equality for everyone - as citizens

• can lead to perpetual pease because under this constitution, consent of the citizens is necessary to decide whether to wage war, and it is normal that they might hesitate to accept all the dangers of war

Classification of the republican constitution

• Republican constitution is not the democratic constitution; forms of the state might be classified according to different persons who have authority, or in accordance ot the way the nation is governed

  • first classification has three types: power in the hands of the individual (autocracy), several persons (aristocracy), or all (democracy)

  • second classification: depends ont eh form of government; a government is either republican or despotic

Republicanism

“is that political principle whereby the executive power (the government) is separated from the legislative power”

Despotism

→ is when the laws are made and arbitrarily executed by one and the same power

Kant suggests that democracy is necessarily a despotism, as it establishes executive power through which all citizens may make decisions about the single individual without his consent... Any form of government which is not representative is an anomaly, because one and the same person cannot at the same time be both the legislator and executor of his own will

Second definitive article of a perpetual peace

The Right of Nations shall be based on a Federation of Free States

• federation of peoples is nto that same thign as an international state but peace cannot ocur without a general agreement between neations os a fomr of leauge - a pcific federation - is required

• federations aims to end all wars for good and to preserve and secure the freedom of each state in itself, along with that of other confederated states

• only one way for states to co-exist without warfare, they ahve to give up freedom and adapt to coercive laws and form an international state

  • but nations don’t want this so, an enduring and expanding federation is the best we can do to liekly prevent war

Third definitive article of a perpetual peace

Cosmopolitan right shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality

• we are concerned with right → here hospitality means the right of a stranger not to be treated with hostilitty when he arrives in another territory. He can be turned away, but not with hostility if he behaves peacefully

• Humans have to tolerate each other

• we have entered into degrees of a universal community; the idea of a cosmopolitan right is not overstrained it is necessary to the unwritten code of political and international right, making it a universal right of humanity

3 types of right

• But any legal constitution, as far as the persons who live under it are concerned, will conform to one of the three following types:

1. a constitution based on the civil right of individuals within a nation (ius civitatis).

2. a constitution based on the international right of states in their relationships with one another (ius gentium).

3. a constitution based on cosmopolitan right, in so far as individuals and states, coexisting in an external relationship of mutual influences, may be regarded as citizens of a universal state of mankind (ius cosmopoliticum). This classification, with respect to the idea of a perpetual peace, is not arbitrary, but necessary.” 98-99 in footnote