Reading note on Kant's perpetual peace

Résumé du document

Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg, Prussia in 1724. He studied philosophy, mathematics and physics at the University of Königsberg, and became a renowned teacher and scholar thanks to his works on reason, knowledge and judgment. Indeed, he intended to explain rationalism, and therefore explored the mechanisms of thought. He founded the criticism with works such as the Critique of the pure reason (1781), the Critique of the practical reason (1787), and the Critique of the faculty of judgment (1790). By “pure reason”, he meant the part of the thought that is independent from experience but he insisted on the necessity to link rationalism and empirism. In that regard, we can say that Kant was not committed in the debates of his time. Still, in What is Enlightenment? (1784), he took part in the contemporary reflection through his work on universal history from a cosmopolitan viewpoint.

Extraits

[...] Indeed, theses are the compulsory conditions to put an end to perpetual war and constitute an international federation. These articles aim at ensuring the security of individual states and remove conflict thanks to a project of perpetual peace rather than to set principles for the arbitration of conflicts with a temporary treaty. Kant highlights several causes of conflict, such as the right of interference in domestic affairs, which undermines the very notion of domestic sovereignty, but also the maintenance of permanent armies by the states, and the absence of enforcement as regards to mutual respect. [...]

[...] Indeed, according to him, the of nations” aims at making war legally impossible. It is therefore opposed to the tradition which considers relations between nations as independent from the right and regulates wars without condemning them. According to Kant, reason condemns wars and imposes the necessity to have an institution that will guarantee a lasting peace: only in this way will they be able to get out of the state of nature and its violence. Kant indeed considers the nations as moral people who have the obligation to maintain juridical and pacified relations. [...]

[...] In Perpetual peace, Kant highlights the contradiction that remains between the different statuses of individuals: as national citizens, they respect the right, but, as they live in the world, they depend of the arbitrary of the states. That is why Kant aims at having all human relations in the framed by right and he identifies the imperative of right to the exigency of peace. To him, right is synonym of peace, and, as such, peace doesn't need moral or theological guaranties. War is therefore illegal, and marks a return to the state of nature. [...]

[...] Indeed, in Perpetual peace, Kant shows the necessity to establish peace through right, which is the only legitimate way to peace. Still, if the institutionalisation of right is always feasible, the institutionalisation of peace is an infinite process, an inconclusive task. As such, if Kant tried to show the compatibility between the theory and the practice of peace, he recognizes that perpetual peace shall remain an ideal, as it is the ultimate but inaccessible goal of all human relations, or the “highest political good”. [...]

[...] A utopian project? In Kant's definition of peace as an ideal of pure reason, based upon universal and intangible principles, peace cannot be but perpetual. This is the great difference his work makes with peace treaties, which leave the issue of peace to human will and are therefore similar to armistices. However, as such, peace is an idea in contradiction with the reality. But, according to Kant, even though this idea proves unrealisable in the experience, it has to be established, as it is a regulator idea that orients men's behaviours and inspires all political projects. [...]